Published: April 12, 2005

Seven choreographers got together with dancers from several companies on Saturday night at Gould Hall for "Ballet Builders 2005," the 15th showcase presented by New Choreographers on Point, an organization that seeks to foster emerging ballet choreographic talent. The program featured some romances, some frolics and an expression of grief.
Among the romances, Bonnie Scheibman's idyllically lyrical "Slow Dance" was a steady unfolding of sweet and tender steps to Mendelssohn. In contrast, in "No Defense," Gina Patterson depicted worldly lovers who expressed their constantly changing moods to songs by Tucker Livingston.
Jennifer Hart's "Aria," to Vivaldi, was an ardent and grandly scaled depiction of love and abandonment, marred only by a few bits of choreographic fussiness. Paul Vasterling also made ardent lovers meet and part in his "Efimero," to Bach. But here, too, there were fussy moments.
Alison Seidenstricker's "Whispers," to a score by Keiko Matsui, was a sensuous frolic filled with sinuous curving phrases. Melissa Barak devised sharp staccato movements in her "Romp 'n' Roll," to music by Matthew Pierce. There was an especially effective episode of accelerating steps, but the ballet as a whole tended to unravel rather than develop, and it never built to a strong climax.
Jamey Leverett's elegiac "Pedestal" was crowded with steps, too many perhaps, to harmonize well with Samuel Barber's emotionally direct accompanying music. And a sequence of deliberately loud gasping made this heartfelt outpouring of grief turn unnecessarily melodramatic.
All the ballets were well performed by talented young dancers. And despite its occasional artistic weaknesses, the evening offered no choreographic disasters. But neither were there any real surprises or revelations. It was a pleasant program. Yet you could wish it had been creatively bolder.