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Nutrition – Fall for Dance Program 5

“Pithoprakta,” “Love,” “Lombard Play Piazzolla – The Dance Concert,” “The Light Has Not the Arms to Carry Us,” “From Before”
The Suzanne Farrell Ballet/Talia Paz/The Lombard Twins/
Kate Weare Company/Garth Fagan Dance
City Center
New York, NY
September 25, 2008

by Leigh Witchel
copyright © 2008 by Leigh Witchel

As I’ve said before, Fall for Dance is a buffet, ten straight days of it.  I saw all six programs, not the way the average person would experience the festival.  It’s for the best; going back to the buffet for six trips can give one mild indigestion, sometimes from gluttony, but also paradoxically malnutrition.  As much as the buffet changed, the basic formula stayed the same, and a buffet isn’t a balanced meal.

Program 5 started with The Susan Farrell Ballet in “Pithoprakta,” a work Balanchine made in 1968 with a companion work “Metasteis.” Her company reconstructed only “Pithoprakta” last year.  This is not a revival; all Farrell had to go on was a low quality rehearsal tape with the male lead, Arthur Mitchell, missing.  Neither Farrell nor Mitchell really remembered what he danced; it has been reimagined by her.

Cheap at the Price – Fall for Dance Program 1

“Map,” “Chui Chai,” “Fire,” “Soldiers’ Mass”
Shen Wei Dance Arts/Pinchet Klunchun Dance Company/
Keigwin + Company/National Ballet of Canada
City Center
New York, NY
September 17, 2008

by Leigh Witchel
copyright © 2008 by Leigh Witchel

The fifth season of the Fall for Dance festival at City Center came close to selling out the same day tickets went on sale.  The theater was packed on opening night; there was happy anticipatory chaos out front and the second balcony was in use – a rarity for this house. Management keeps getting better at publicizing the festival and it appears to be reaching a wider audience. Wanting to see all the programs as well as do my part for audience development, I braved the line the day tickets went on sale to buy extra tickets for myself and as many friends who were not “dance people” as I could finagle into coming. Standing in line were not only dancers and ex-dancers, but also college teachers, folks from the neighborhood, dads from Brooklyn taking their daughters out . . . it made the wait far more palatable. 

Re-Visitation

“Impressing the Czar”
Royal Ballet of Flanders
Rose Theater
New York, NY
July 19, 2008

by Leigh Witchel
copyright © 2008 by Leigh Witchel

William Forsythe’s “Impressing the Czar” is really two ballets created like a pearl. The familiar “In the Middle, Somewhat Elevated” is the central core; the lesser-known, theatrical sections of the ballet were deposited around it like nacreous layers.  Nureyev commissioned “In the Middle” for his “children” at the Paris Opera Ballet; it had its premiere in May of 1987 and the original cast included Sylvie Guillem, Isabelle Guérin, Manuel Legris and Laurent Hilaire.  Forsythe added the other sections of “Czar” for his own company; Ballett Frankfurt first performed it at the beginning of the following year.  Paris brought “In the Middle” to New York during their visit to the Met a few months later and gave the first performance at a gala in Nureyev’s honor.  The audience booed. Frankfurt danced the full “Czar” at SUNY Purchase the next summer; it returned this time performed by the Royal Ballet of Flanders.

Don’t cry for me, Pontevedro

“The Merry Widow”
American Ballet Theatre
Metropolitan Opera House
New York, NY
June 30, 2008

by Leigh Witchel
copyright © 2008 by Leigh Witchel

There are worse ways to pass a summer evening than to enjoy American Ballet Theater’s big, opulent and undemanding production of Ronald Hynd’s “The Merry Widow”. Cobbled out of Franz Lehár’s operetta and a cross between “Hello Dolly” and “The Sound of Music,” “The Merry Widow” is ABT’s answer to the summer blockbuster film.  The ballet tells the story of Hanna Glawari and Danilo Danilowitch, two Parisian expatriates of the fictional but nearly bankrupt Balkan state of Pontevedro.  Hanna, recently widowed, is extremely wealthy.  Danilo is an eligible bachelor, albeit one who drinks a bit too much.  Baron Zeta, the Pontevedrian ambassador, attempts to play matchmaker between to keep Hanna’s millions in Pontevedro.  Meanwhile, his own marriage to the young and pretty Frenchwoman Valencienne is in more trouble than he knows, in the person of the French diplomat Camille de Rosillon.  Hanna and Danilo also quickly discover they have a past.  Along the way there are dancing attachés, restaurant patrons and of course dancing Pontevedrians before the obligatory happy ending.

Dancers’ Choice

Dancers’ Choice: A Benefit Performance for the Dancers’ Emergency Fund
New York City Ballet
New York State Theater
New York, NY
June 27, 2008

by Leigh Witchel
copyright © 2008 by Leigh Witchel

New York City Ballet revived its Dancers’ Emergency Fund benefit with a twist; it’s now “Dancers’ Choice,” a night when the dancers get to pick the repertory and casting, showing us what they love to do and what they wish they were doing.  Peter Martins put the project in the hands of principal dancer Jonathan Stafford, who turned to the other dancers for assistance.  Together they handled most aspects of production, including the great idea of popular pricing (top price for a ticket was $45.) It was a long but rewarding evening – marked by numerous debuts, but made longer as Stafford hasn’t made enough curtain speeches yet to know to keep them brief.  At Martins’ suggestion Stafford programmed from NYCB’s repertory rather than outside of it, and included ballets works by Martins and Christopher Wheeldon that haven’t been seen in recent years as well as repertory staples by Balanchine and Robbins.

The Art of Saying Goodbye

“Fancy Free,” “Rubies,” “Prodigal Son”
New York City Ballet
New York State Theater
New York, NY
June 18, 2008

by Leigh Witchel
copyright © 2008 by Leigh Witchel

Even though they were good, Wednesday night wasn’t about the performances.  The audience at New York City Ballet was packed with fans, partners and other well-wishers who had all come to see Damian Woetzel’s farewell.  The applause started on his first entrance and rarely let up; the excitement in the audience was magical.

Woetzel entered the company in 1985 and rocketed up the ranks, spending less than a year as a soloist and being named principal in 1989.  He was a natural dancer; his technique marked by easy unforced virtuosity.  He had a wide repertory that ranged from pyrotechnical roles to the contemplative parts he created in Robbins’ “Quiet City” and Eliot Feld’s “The Unanswered Question.”  He danced the few princes in the company’s repertory, but his métier was sunny, showy dancing done with an American accent.  He was at his best in outgoing roles such as “Stars and Stripes,” and with his personality could get away with things we might not have forgiven another dancer – improvised endings from jumps, even jumps where one swore that he decided what to do in midair.  With careers of similar duration, he and Peter Boal were doppelgangers – the extrovert and the introvert, perhaps even the Bad Boy and the Good Boy.  Often cast in the same role, a ballet took on completely different shadings depending on which of them danced. 

Sacrilege, Ltd.

“Mmm. . .,” “I do”
Michael Clark Company
Rose Theater, Lincoln Center
New York, NY
June 5, 2008

by Leigh Witchel
copyright © 2008 by Leigh Witchel

It’s not easy getting out of the sacrilege business.  It’s particularly hard if sacrilege is what you do best.  The art of shocking the bourgeoisie ought not to be underestimated, ask Diaghilev. Nijinsky’s original version of “The Rite of Spring” caused riots.  I doubt that “Mmm…,” Clark’s setting of the Stravinsky score originally made in 1992 and “radically” revised in 2006, would cause riots; we’re too jaded. But Clark managed to sustain a level of astonishment through the entire piece, and that was no mean feat. 

Robbins and Chopin

“Dances at a Gathering,” “Other Dances,” “The Concert”
New York City Ballet
New York State Theater
New York, NY
June 4, 2008

by Leigh Witchel
copyright © 2008 by Leigh Witchel

The affection Jerome Robbins had for the music of Chopin was celebrated with its own program in the Robbins Festival at New York City Ballet.  But the most substantial piece on the program, “Dances at a Gathering,” had a low-octane performance.  Robbins famously insisted that “Dances” was not about anything other than the dancers themselves in that time and place.  Fine and dandy, but that won’t work without dancers with vivid stage personalities.  The dancer in brown, originally Edward Villella, is a dancer more equal than others. He holds the center of the ballet together, and Benjamin Millepied didn’t have the force of character in the opening or ending.  He was more at home in his second solo where he seemed to be spotting invisible enemies in the wings and drawing together his forces.  Like most NYCB dancers, Millepied finds tension and drama in choreography through phrasing, not situation.

First Looks, Second Looks

“Rococo Variations,” “Oltremare,” “River of Light,” “Concerto DSCH”
New York City Ballet
New York State Theater
New York, NY
May 29, 2008

by Leigh Witchel
copyright © 2008 by Leigh Witchel

Hindsight is a mixed blessing.  Ballets often acquire their final form over time, but a review of a premiere can’t take that into account.  New York City Ballet’s “Here and Now” program let us take our first look at a new work by Alexei Ratmansky and a second look at three other dances.

I notice the effort of Christopher Wheeldon’s invention at his premieres, but time mellows his work.  “Rococo Variations” isn’t an exception.  A second look from last winter found the ballet looking more integrated and evocative.  I could see the breath in Sara Mearns' contraction that opened the ballet and ran through it as a motif; it seemed less like a modern dance step and more like an expression of yearning.  When the other dancers (Adrian Danchig-Waring, Giovanni Villalobos and Sterling Hyltin) joined her, they looked like sea life moved about by water currents.

Russian Roots and Spanish Dancers

“Andantino,” “Opus 19: The Dreamer,” “Piano Pieces,” “Les Noces”
New York City Ballet
New York State Theater
New York, NY
May 9, 2008

by Leigh Witchel
copyright © 2008 by Leigh Witchel

Jerome Robbins’ version of “Les Noces” reentered the repertory at New York City Ballet after a decade, this time with live music rather than a recording, and as Stravinsky intended, the four pianos, percussion and chorus were all behind the dancers for an imposing spectacle. Painted icons towered over the rough-hewn set with the musicians and chorus lined up in the back all in black as if it were possible for them to be inconspicuous in their mass.

Robbins made the ballet for American Ballet Theatre in 1965 without having seen Nijinska’s production.  His “Les Noces” has the look of someone who studied old photographs and tried to imagine them three-dimensional and moving, but with his imagination helplessly caught in his own era.  Robbins himself said that if he had known that Nijinska’s ballet were able to be revived (The Royal Ballet brought it back one year later through Ashton’s championing) he would never have made his.  He was right; the Nijinska version is close to a perfect match for Stravinsky’s music and sadly for choreographers, there probably won’t be a need for another “Les Noces” for generations to come, if ever.