dancers_hartley

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Washington Times - January 24, 2004 - Jean Battey Lewis - Tribute to a Master

"Four Temperaments" began to take flight with Mr. Hartley's impassioned solo in the opening Melancholic Variation. It is always a pleasure to see this fine performer in a role that goes beyond his pyrotechnic dazzle and stretches him as an artist.

Washington Post - January 24, 2004 - Sarah Kaufman - Tiptop Tribute to Balanchine

You have to peer through a thicket of strong-toned sets and costumes to get a read on "A Midsummer Night's Dream," but the dancers come through with spunk. Jimenez's Titania was a fairy queen with the reins well in hand, one who lost not an ounce of majesty even as she was tricked into falling in love with the donkey-faced Bottom (Charles Pregger). Among other standouts were Jason Hartley as a boldly etched, deeply human Puck and Jonathan Jordan as an appropriately princely Oberon.

The company is not new to "The Four Temperaments," and with each performance it gets sharper and sharper. In this spare, tights-and-leotard ballet, though, physical alignment and technique have no cover. Credit the company with bringing the work into focus even though its style is alien to most of the dancers. The corps members, especially, struggled with the fast pace and precision, though across the board the principal roles were more forcefully executed. Hartley gave the Melancholic variation a dangerous edge, while Elizabeth Gaither and Alvaro Palau put a cool, crisp finish on the ballet's first theme.

Washingon Post - October 4, 2003 - Sarah Kaufman - On an 'Elevated' Plane

The vigorous sense of purpose that lifted "In the Middle" was also apparent in Hartley's solo. This work dropped in from some other planet altogether; there is not one ballet step in it. It is simply the gymnastically inclined Hartley -- one of the company's most gifted dancers -- doing what he does best, as we have never before seen him do it.

There is some hint of narrative arc here, a hunted-becomes-the-hunter transformation. Hartley emerges as some kind of creeping, hyper-alert feral creature, and at a later point we see him snap into human form. The movement invention and Hartley's own impossibly seamless execution were most impressive here: At one point he bounded backward on a diagonal like something caught in rough surf, tossed in the air, tumbled under, thrust upward again not by his own exertion but, it seemed, by some great sucking upstage undertow. The music by Medeski Martin & Wood, tribal and otherworldly, was a perfect fit.

Hartley premiered the piece last month as part of the Kennedy Center's Local Dance Commissioning Project. Its addition to this program reflects prodigious support from Webre for the dancer's fledgling choreographic efforts. In a post-performance talk, Webre also referred to the solo's "bravo factor" in explaining his decision to have it follow his own world premiere, "The Poet Acts."

Washington Post - September 13, 2003 - Lisa Traiger - Hartley Isn't All Talk

A REHEARSAL led by Jason Hartley is a nearly wordless affair. When Hartley teaches, there's no talking, no wordy explanations of where head, arms and feet should be placed. He might scat out a tough rhythmic passage, but he's not going to explain it; instead, he'll just do it. Hartley dances, and his dancers learn by following along.

"I definitely don't talk much," says the 26-year-old member of the Washington Ballet. "I find that the dancers can observe a lot more detail if you speak a little less. They'll be more apt to watch you do it, if you're not talking about what it is."

Hartley is one of three local dancemakers awarded a grant by the Kennedy Center's Local Dance Commissioning Project to create a program of new works. Hartley's new work shares a program with previous Kennedy Center commissioned choreographer Ed Tyler; it will be performed Friday at 6 on the center's free Millennium Stage. The other two commissions -- Laurel Gray's "Egypta: Myth, Magic and Mystery," presented by her Silk Road Dance Company, and Boris Willis's "Enter Race," a melding of dance and technology in his exploration of biracial relationships -- will premiere Sunday and Wednesday, also at 6 on the Millennium Stage.

While Hartley has choreographed before -- most notably "Crosswalks and Train Stations" for the Washington Ballet's performances this past year in Colorado and "Kaiwas" for a Michigan-based company -- a Kennedy Center commission is important as much for the opportunity as for the modest funding it provides. For a young dancer still in his prime, it allows him to look toward the future: "I'm looking to take my dancing to the next step. When I dance other people's choreography, I can adapt it to the way I move. But when I do my own choreography, it somehow feels more honest for me. It feels like more of my movement can come through."

Trained at the North Carolina School of the Arts, Hartley says he's still learning about the art and craft of choreography. "My mentors include every choreographer I've ever seen. I watch and I take from them," he says. "I study any choreographer who comes here [to the Washington Ballet] or any choreographer who spends time at the Kennedy Center. I just go and I watch. . . . Predominantly, I'm self-taught."

On Friday, Hartley's new work, "Sanctified Shells," will feature seven dancers from the Washington Ballet who sacrificed Saturday afternoons and squeezed in extra rehearsal time during breaks in the ballet's densely packed schedule. Jazz influences abound in the piece, from the riffs and shimmies of trombonist and conch shell musician Steve Turre and his ensemble to the off-kilter balances, hip rolls and unbridled dynamism ensconced in Hartley's signature moves. "When I put on blues or jazz, immediately my blood starts running," he says. "I don't really have a choice when jazz and blues are on, my feet are tapping, my heart is pumping, I just start moving."

Sharing the program with Hartley's work is a premiere by previously commissioned choreographer Tyler. Hartley and Tyler first met when the ballet dancer showed up at Tyler's physical, no-holds-barred modern dance class. The new work for six women, "Cipher," asks what one sees between the eye's blinks. Tyler ponders: "It's very human in its perception. . . . What is it we take from the living world [and] what is it that we assume we see?" The work takes place in a series of whiteouts and features a palette of black and white -- non-colors, Tyler points out -- for black is the absence of all light and white is the presence of all light. Together they can represent a spectrum of natural forces from life to death

Washington Post - September 11, 2003 - Sarah Kaufman - A Dancer Makes His Next Moves

Jason Hartley, a star of the Washington Ballet, was up against a wall.

Not in a dance studio, where he lines up at the barre every morning for his daily ballet class, but in his mind. He felt boxed in.

There were so many moves he wanted to dance that no one would give him to do -- the double back-handsprings, the crouching landings onto his insteps, his feet curved beneath him like rockers on a rocking chair. The diving falls where he ends up skidding along the stage on one hip.

So does he have a diva moment? Throw a spoiled-artist hissy fit? No, this man is on a mission. He gathered up a video of some steps he set to music some time ago, wrote an essay, and lo and behold -- he got his first commission to choreograph an evening of dances at the Kennedy Center.

Tonight and tomorrow at 6 p.m., on the Millennium Stage, Hartley's two works -- a solo for himself and a group piece for seven colleagues from the company -- will be part of the center's third annual Local Dance Commissioning Project. Because Hartley underwent knee surgery this summer and didn't have time to create a third work to fill out the evening, he will share his program with Ed Tyler, another local dancemaker. Two other choreographers from the area, Laurel Gray and Boris Willis, will present programs next week.

"I've done so many solos," Hartley says, reflecting on a career laden with leading roles. "But there's always a step I've wanted [the choreographer] to give me. Instead of waiting around, I'd rather give it to myself."

But this isn't just about a desire for new steps. It's also about a different type of movement. It's about moving on, and up.

"I have a wife whom I'd desperately like to impregnate," he says, with disarming straightforwardness, "but I'm not allowed to do that until the money comes in."

Hartley is one of the few married members of the Washington Ballet, and one of the few homeowners (he and his wife, Carissa, live in Silver Spring). It's because his salary is augmented by his wife's that they own a car and a house -- unheard-of luxuries for most dancers. Though he's at the top of the scale at the Washington Ballet, he makes "a receptionist's salary," he says. Add to that a few choreography commissions a year, he reasons, and his wife could quit her job and bring up the baby.

Dancers -- like most performing artists -- thrill to the spotlight, and for those precious moments they put up with the long hours and the lack of a social life and the low pay and the tiny apartments they call home.

But Hartley wants the American Dream. He wants to settle down with the wife and the kid and the house in the suburbs. Ballet class is no longer enough. He wants middle class.

To see him on a recent morning after a rehearsal -- bearded, rumpled-looking with a hunched stance, wearing cut-off sweatpants and a sweatshirt with the hood pulled low over his brow -- you'd never think, "Now there goes plain folks." He's not even average for a ballet dancer. He's on the small side, and squarely built, and he tears across the stage like a bullet through the wind. He was Max in "Where the Wild Things Are," the ballet that Septime Webre, artistic director of the Washington Ballet, created after Maurice Sendak's book, and in that role Hartley hardly ever left the stage and hardly ever stood still. He writhed and snarled and flipped in the air like a cat in a sack.

He's had starring roles and featured solos in nearly every work the Washington Ballet has performed since Webre took over four years ago, bringing Hartley with him from New Jersey's American Repertory Ballet. But though he is one of the company's most exciting dancers, Hartley is far from an exemplar of pure classical form. He is no prince. He is quite the opposite, a raw, natural performer who can be funny, wild and outrageously, casually athletic.

Dancing pays the bills, but just barely, and though he's only 26 and, he hopes, has years of performing left in him, he won't be able to do it forever. So he is doing what many must do in this economy: positioning himself for a career move.

He's being careful this time, since he fell fairly easily into the world of ballet, and now has some regrets about it.

"If I had it to do all over again, I would not have graduated as a ballet dancer," he says, recalling his training at the North Carolina School of the Arts. "I would have gone back to be a modern dancer." It was the prospect of pounding the sidewalks in New York looking for scarce work that steered him into ballet, with its more stable contracts, higher pay and health insurance.

Hartley grew up in Des Moines, where his parents enrolled him in gymnastics to tame his hyperactivity. (Back flips off the chain-link fences were a specialty.) But the studio burned down, so Hartley started tagging along with his sister to her classes at a storefront jazz-tap-tumbling school. One day the Des Moines Ballet called the school looking for boys to perform in the company's "Nutcracker."

Hartley was picked, and suddenly his future beckoned. "When I saw that the men could make a living and they were having so much fun I realized it was more than just playtime," Hartley says.

Hartley's mom took him around to local fairs, hoping her son's aerial skills might garner some prize money. The fearless Hartley could do a flip anywhere -- grassy patch, flatbed truck -- and the ability to adjust to the circumstances, he says, is still a boon.

"I'm always willing to adapt," he says. "I prefer it when [choreographers] ask me to do something unusual."

Matching Hartley's abilities with his own has been a welcome challenge for Webre. "Jason has been a real muse to me as a choreographer," Webre says. "His natural way of moving has influenced my style." Having been pleased by a previous choreographic effort (Hartley created a work that the company performed at Colorado's Telluride festival last summer), Webre tapped him to create a work for the company's "7x7" program in the spring. With more assignments like that, Hartley hopes to have what few dancers can dream of: the chance to choreograph his own steps, and even his own life.

Washington Post - February 3, 2003 - Sarah Kaufman - The Laughs Fly In - Peter Pan

We've seen wit from Septime Webre before, but the Washington Ballet artistic director outdoes himself in his production of "Peter Pan," which the company revisited over the weekend at the Warner Theatre.

Webre has a grand time with slapstick and farce, causing the pirates to careen into one another like bumper cars and giving the Captain Hook-hating crocodile just the right amount of attitude. The scene in which Peter dons a tulle skirt to seduce Hook away from the maiden he holds captive -- an episode full of perfect send-ups of the love duets from "Giselle" and "Swan Lake" -- is one of the gut-bustingly funniest you'll ever see in a ballet.

"Peter Pan," which premiered here three years ago, is successful not only because it tells the J.M. Barrie story of childhood wish fulfillment clearly and vividly, or because the production moves at such a pleasingly fluid, rhythmic pace. This is the best work we've seen from Webre yet because he indulges his huge talent for comedy.

The jokes would go nowhere, however, without the dancers' expert delivery, particularly John Goding, who doubles as the addle-pated Mr. Darling and the flamboyantly hapless Hook, and the gifted Jason Hartley in the title role. Peter is a natural role for him -- he is boyish and acrobatic, and hysterical as the hirsute sylph who captures Hook's heart.

Hartley is an eerily versatile dancer -- he can do Balanchine, he can do supercaffeinated modern, he would probably leave skid marks on a Broadway stage. Here, he takes to the air (with his harness and wire) impressively easily, and his first swoop high, high above the stage brought at least one child near me to his feet in open-mouthed astonishment. But Hartley hardly needs help to fly. His jump is so pneumatically grand, his positions in the air so sharp and sustained, that there were times when it wasn't clear if he was being machine-assisted or not.

Washington Post - February 23, 2002 - Sarah Kaufman - Washington Ballet's Wordly 'Icons!

Jason Hartley danced his with the explosive intensity he gives athletic works, but here the effect was wrenching, as if he had nothing more to live for.

Washington Post - May 20, 2002 - Sarah Kaufman - Where the Wild Things Aren't

Maurice Sendak's beloved children's classic "Where the Wild Things Are" is a brilliant, energetic and imaginative tale told in a mere 10 sentences. Its brevity is part of its strength -- it unfolds in a straight-on current of pure narrative and emotional power.

The possibilities of punching up this tale with movement of similar force, instead of words, are legion. Septime Webre's version, which the Washington Ballet performed this weekend at the Warner Theatre, is an acrobatic tour de force for Jason Hartley. Hartley dances -- or rather cyclones through -- the central role of Max, the mischievous lad who is sent supperless to his room and, perhaps in a hunger-induced hallucination, dreams of commanding a troupe of huge horned monsters in a wild rumpus. Hartley is phenomenal in the role -- launching into back flips, one-handed back handsprings and all manner of other gymnastic feats that simply burst out of his body with seemingly no preparation. He is onstage nearly all the time and never stops moving.

Copyrights Washington Post and Washington Times implied.

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