Glorya Kaufman Presents Dance at the Music Center unveiled the final gift of the 2023/24 season in Los Angeles. The dynamic and spirited Ballet Hispánico (BH) performed Annabelle Lopez Ochoa’s Doña Perón on July 12-14. Not only was it an inspiring and important choice for the Music Center, but also a proud achievement for the community. Ballet Hispánico (BH), the largest Latine/Latinx/Hispanic Cultural organization in the United States was founded by Tina Ramirez in 1970 and has developed artists from the ground up since that time. Training, mentoring and nurturing future Latin artists has been the mission since the beginning. With selfless dedication to continue this important undertaking, in 2015 Ramirez hand-picked Artistic Director & CEO Eduardo Vilaro to shepherd the company forward. Vilaro continues to do so as BH becomes a world class dance company.
Lopez Ochoa, the choreographer who premiered her artful work “Frida,” (Frida Kahlo) in 2023, is noted for her fearless portrayals of heroic historical females. In Doña Perón, she returns with a stunning exploration of the life of María Eva Duarte, Eva (Evita) Perón, who is both a beloved and controversial figure. Her short life, having died at age 33, has been the subject of books, musicals, and now ballet.
Lopez Ochoa’s masterful dance design with Ballet Hispánico’s strong emotional and technical dancer/actors, unfolds in this 75 minute revelation. It unearths Evita’s struggle and power that demands recognition. Eva Perón, played by the striking Amanda del Valle, (previously done by amazing Dandara Viega in its PBS version) brings her own personal and individual contribution to the interpretation of this tortured and courageous protagonist. Director/choreographer, Lopez Ochoa with Artistic Collaborator, Nancy Meckler contribute a holographic view of a woman who clearly evolves into her own vision of self. She not only wants to be seen but wants power to raise her people up from poverty.
The simple elegance and color of the costume designs, by Mark Eric with stark lighting, sets and video design by Christopher Ash adds and embellishes the homage to the story. Adding to the whole feel is Doña Perón’s melodious, rhythmic and scorching score, by composer Peter Salem. The music helps tell the narrative with passion and clarity. Salem, known for his work for ballet, TV, Film and theatre (Broken Wings, The Crucible, Streetcar Named Desire) manages to evoke a percussive, romantic warmth not unsimilar to Piazzolla’s “Libertango’s” passion and fury in Salem’s wall to wall musical score. It has been written for five-piece orchestra; Bandoneon, piano, percussion, violin, and cello which, in the overture, welcomes the audience with sultry Tango rhythms and melodies that help bring the mood clearly into focus carrying one into another time and place.
Examining Evita’s early life, an illegitimate child, born out of wedlock shows the physical violence in her home with father (Omar Rivéra), mother (Isabel Robles), sister Amanda Ostuni and family. The young Evita (Laura Perich), in an early scene, is thrown repeatedly to the floor from her perch in an embrace with her rejecting father. Without doubt this heartbreaking action signals her search for acceptance, a subtle theme throughout the piece. Her climb up the social ladder, surrounded by waltzing couples, leaves her separate and alone. It intermittently interrupts the dreamlike elegance of the swirling couples with an incessant pas de deux against her childhood self. She violently rejects and covers who she is, with who she wishes to be. Her shard soul is shattered with venom against her young self so as to fit into the next social position.
Exceptional is her eventual encounter with the powerful officers, and attraction to the handsome Juan Perón which changes both of their lives. The passionate officers; Amir J. Baldwin, Leonardo Brito, Paulo Hernandez-Farella, Dylan Dias McIntyre, Adam Dario, Omar Rivéra, and Adam Dario Morales with their dominance and precision show their technical verve and expertise. Strong and fiery, they execute a stylistic Tango Cruzada, Ochos, and Sacada’s combined with the excitement of Flamenco’s Zapateado (foot work) making way for Evita and Juan’s meeting. This group of male dancers in sleek navy sleeveless military tunics, epaulets, festooned with medals, show prideful precision in their commanding movements punctuated with infectious rhythmic heel work which is one of the highlights of the piece. They seemed to attract and echo her passion and need for status, strategy and acceptance of power.
Evita’s loneliness in being rejected and used soon allows her to take refuge in the arms of Juan Perón (Antonio Cangiano), a handsome colonel and a young rising star in Argentinian politics. He, a populist, eventually becomes her lover. Their sensual duet of passion and acceptance grows into a love affair, with mutual interests and respect unfolds into their shocking marriage with its clash of classes. Eventually she shows her street savvy and understanding of her people, passing it on to her positioned husband helping him rise to power as an authoritarian President of Argentina. Followers gather with devotion, waving their white handkerchiefs in adoration and acceptance, swaying and moving to the reason of their beloved leader…Evita. But no matter, nothing precludes her suffering and death. She is eventually plagued with pain from cancer. The piece shows her working against time, she establishes help for her people (hospitals, schools, orphanages, homes for the aged) even supplying boots for the poor to be able to join the Revolution.
One of the many powerful moments in the piece is when the dancers don heavy boots marching with incessant pounding rhythms and bursts of sound while forming military lines, making ready to fight. All also signaling a change for women in the macho Argentine culture. She recognizes women’s suffrage, establishes laws, and forms the Peronista Feminist Party in 1949. She becomes hope of the descamisado, ( “shirtless ones”…the impoverished workers, unions) with her husband being her chief supporter. All of this Lopez Ochoa shows with a defiance in rhythms and movement.
Evita’s actions recognized, her beloved underclass, at her death raise her to Iconic stature. This is beautifully represented after her limp body lying in her husband’s arms, in a moving death scene, rises 10 feet in the air, white silk streaming and billowing from her waist to the floor below, nearly covering the entire stage with a large crescent symbol reaching high above her.
The ballet’s powerful and stunning ending leaves an indelible image that brings silence to the audience which soon turns into a standing ovation. Congratulations are in order for Ballet Hispánico and Annabelle Lopez Ochoa on its unforgettable presentation of dance theatre along with gratitude to Glorya Kaufman, the staff and benefactors for presenting a fantastic 2023/24 season of dance.
To learn more about Ballet Hispánico, please visit their website.
To learn more about Glorya Kaufman Presents Dance at The Music Center, please visit their website.
Written by Joanne DiVito for LA Dance Chronicle.
Featured image: Ballet Hispánico in Annabelle Lopez Ochoa’s Doña Perón – Photo by Paula Lobo.