The Chicago-based dancer and choreographer Noelle Kayser was part of the inaugural Carmel Dance Festival in 2021, stepping in when another choreographer had to leave unexpectedly.
“Before [Kayser] left, I already knew I wanted her back,” says Lillian Barbeito, founder and artistic director of both the annual festival and Ballare Carmel, a professional dance company that is the engine behind it.
Thus, Kayser became the main choreographer for this year’s festival, which will be held at the Folktale Winery in Carmel Valley from Aug. 5-7.
Her first idea for a theme was Big Sur-loving writer Henry Miller, but then Barbeito suggested stepping off the beaten path to explore Carmel’s history. That meant a focus on the poet Nora May French, Carrie Sterling and Vera Connolly, three pioneering women of early-1900s Carmel whose lives were entangled with George Sterling, a writer the festival calls “the uncrowned king of bohemia.”
“A little oasis with such an obscure history,” Kayser says, of Carmel. She says the women’s lives weren’t easy, but French managed to write poetry, Carrie Sterling “thanklessly” hosted and fed writers at the insistence of her husband, and Connolly succeeded in being a published journalist. Despite darker tones revealed by recent literary studies of the women’s lives, Barbeito and Kayser want to celebrate them for what they achieved.
The title of the main dance is The Outer Gate, named for a poem by French. The lines invoke a child, perhaps a lover asked to:
“Go from me if thou wilt, to come no more; / But all thy pain is mine, thy flesh of me.”
Music by Johann Sebastian Bach, Niccolò Paganini, Caroline Shaw and Caleb Burhans scores the dancing. The costuming and sound design is also by Kayser, but Barbeito oversees the work, sitting at rehearsals and hoping the festival will grow.
Another highlight is a dance accompanying Row! Row! Row! by Ada Jones, a recording from about 1913. To an extent, it describes the George Sterling experience with all three women:
“Young Johnny Jones he had a cute little boat / And all the girlies he would take for a float. / He had girlies on the shore, / Sweet little peaches by the score.”
BALLARE CARMEL’S CARMEL DANCE FESTIVAL is at 6pm Friday, Aug. 5 and Saturday, Aug. 6; 3pm Sunday, Aug. 7. Folktale Winery and Vineyards, 8940 Carmel Valley Road., Carmel. $125. 293-7500, carmeldancefestival.org.