Andrea Mohin | The New York Times
Spectral Evidence, Angelin Preljocaj’s new dance for the New York City Ballet, is as strange and beautiful as its title. It’s the kind of title Martha Graham often put on her work—a title like a hardwood floor in Emily Dickinson’s house. And it’s the kind of subject Graham was attracted to—a legend or event knotted with violence and desire. Spectral Evidence is about the seventeenth-century Salem witch trials, a shameful yet fascinating piece of America’s past. Preljocaj sees the story through a prism, a Swarovski crystal. Working a refined synthesis of ballet history, modern dance, and postmodern tropes, he slides content into dazzling form. Though the women don’t wear pointe shoes this is a classical dance, mercurial in its articulation, its flicks of eros, its licks of flame. That we know what’s going on without receiving a hint of a program note makes the work all the more thrilling.
The term “spectral evidence” is defined as “a form of evidence based upon dreams and visions.” The concept is dubious to be sure, but the Devil was very much present in Puritan life, and it was believed that his disciples could take animal form, could infiltrate dreams, and could also be in two places at once. This belief rendered the most airtight alibi moot. Religious magistrates—in a perfect storm of hysteria, accusation, and patriarchal power—brought increasing numbers of innocent women to trial and found them
