Spooky and seductive Dracula grips Lehman audience

The Royal Winnipeg Ballet’s Dracula did not come to the Lehman Center for the Performing Arts on Halloween, but the timing of its performance was similarly symbolic – Nov. 13. 

Both spooky and seductive, hypnotizing and humorous, the contemporary ballet opens with plumes of smoke billowing at the feet of a motionless dancer – a woman mesmerized by her vampire paramour – and progresses through a sequence of impassioned dances and a brief humorous pantomime to culminate in a scene of Dracula impaled on a stake – an artistic coup that prompted a few gasps from the audience. 

The Lehman Center and its executive director Eva Bornstein bring world-class art to the theater in the northwest Bronx’s backyard. The Royal Winnipeg Ballet is Ms. Bornstein’s favorite among this season’s performances, she told The Press in an interview earlier this fall – her ties with the ballet company go back a few decades to a time she presented its performance early in her career in Canada. But each of this year’s shows at the Lehman Center is a hand-picked gem in the intimate setting of a local theater. 

The Lehman Center has no orchestra pit, but the proximity of audience seats to the stage means the viewers have the rare luxury of watching the dancers up close. And the dancers go beyond movement to express emotion and tell the story – they play their parts with their facial expressions and their eyes. 

Praised by critics as technically exquisite, Dracula also abounds in special effects – from the billows of smoke and the stake seemingly driven through the body of a dancer to raise him up in the air.

It was almost Halloween, Ms. Bornstein said when presenting the performance from the stage. At the end, the audience greeted the dancers with a standing ovation. 

Like Dracula that was performed on the 13th of the month after Halloween, a number of concerts at the Lehman Center around the year seem linked to major holidays or significant dates. The Five Irish Tenors are scheduled to appear with a “Salute to Ireland” at the theater on March 5, shortly before St. Patrick’s Day, and Mariachi Los Camperos are expected to play on May 7, the Sunday after Cinco de Mayo. 

For a full list of this season’s upcoming performances at Lehman Center, go to http://lehmancenter.org/new-season-2016-2017/