“Fancy Free”, Agon”, “Brandenburg”
New York City Ballet
David H. Koch Theater
Lincoln Center
New York, New York
May 10, 2023
by Mary Cargill
copyright © 2023 by Mary Cargill
This program opened with Jerome Robbins’ first work, “Fancy Free” (1944) and closed with his final ballet, “Brandenburg” (1997), with Balanchine’s “Agon” in the middle. When “Fancy Free’s” three sailors first jumped out on the Ballet Theatre (now ABT) stage, the US was fighting World War II, and many in the audience would have recognized those boys whooping it up in New York City and understood the horrors they would soon be shipping off to. By 1980, when they made it to NYCB, the world had changed, but the three sailors and the girls they meet remain firmly and gloriously in 1944. "Brandenburg's" happy generic peasant dancers exist in a timeless Robbins-land, yet for me "Fancy Free" makes a much more vivid impression.
New York City Ballet in Jerome Robbins' "Brandenburg" photo © Erin Baiano