Forward to Ashton

“After You,” “Monotones I and II,” “The Brahms-Haydn Variations”
American Ballet Theatre
David H. Koch Theater
New York, New York
October 21, 2015

By Michael Popkin
Copyright © 2015 by Michael Popkin

A brand new Mark Morris ballet, plus the company premiere of a Frederick Ashton masterpiece.  Add the revival of an appealing Twyla Tharp work and three ballets dating from 1965 to the present gave deep substance to the opening night of ABT’s brief fall season at Lincoln Center.   Surprisingly, the three ballets felt the exact opposite of their chronological ages. The oldest work – Ashton’s 1965 “Monotones I and II”– felt ravishingly new and powerful. Tharp’s “The Brahms-Haydn Variations” (from 1990), especially as danced by Herman Cornejo and Maria Kochetkova (as one of the three leading couples) also felt like it could have been made today. In this brilliant company, it was Morris’ new work, entitled “After You,” that looked the blandest and most dated, despite being well put together and having clear appeal.   

Photo of Arron Scott, Stella Abrera and Calvin Royall III in “After You” © Rosalie O’Connor.

With a cast of six couples, “After You” sets casual ensembles against a formal Baroque score. The music is a sonorous chamber music piece by Johann Nepomuk Hummel (“Septet in C Major, No. 2, Op. 114, ‘Military’”) – that sounds like low grade Mozart and that has three movements as Morris employs it. (The forth movement of the score is omitted by the ballet).  A brisk allegro opens, followed by an adagio and finally a fast minuet. The trick of Morris’ composition is to conceive of the music, not as a formally patterned dance, but as a relaxed flow of entrances, exits and dance interludes for six men and six women who sometimes pair off into couples. But because that occurs (when it does) only among trios, quartets and entrances for larger groups, and also because of the marked absence of sexual tension even in the duets, the ballet reads strongly as a group of young men and women hanging out together on stage instead of a work with a romantic or psychological action. Apart from the group none of the dancers appear even to have much individual personality.

That impression of group dynamics is reinforced by Isaac Mizrahi’s unisex costumes.   The loose sleeveless overalls that Mizrahi designed in a range of mauve pastels (with a few dancers also dressed in orange) look at once like prison jumpsuits and Greek drapery. Similarly, while Michael Chybowski’s lighting is often dramatic (with the ballet starting and ending in darkness and proceeding in front of a series of back lit drops, and with the middle adagio also dimly lit), the uniform illumination of the first and last sections also makes the group’s identity prevail.   

Within these general parameters, Morris sets the opening allegro as a series of dances for larger ensembles against a glowing blue backdrop. These dances are divided from each other occasionally by having the cast enter or exit (or break off whatever else they are doing) by periodically walking in an even line across the stage, pacing in step to the tempo. When marching like this the dancers abandon their classical deportment and adopt a deliberately contemporary posture and expression; while in the dances themselves the steps look like short classroom exercises often performed in unison. With a great deal of symmetry we see a pair or group of dancers do pas de basque in one direction for four beats, then reverse the step in the other direction for four more; or again they balancé in one direction then the other, occasionally weaving in short runs that contain low grand jetés in attitude. Twice the entire cast also forms a line across the back of the stage and links hands while facing the audience; they then advance downstage and the allegro movement ends with that pattern.

Meanwhile the middle adagio consists of intricately patterned entrances for smaller groups (in dim light against a luminous green background), beginning with a brief entrance for a male principal who is then joined by another man before their dance quickly morphs into a series of quartet entrances for other dancers. This was the one moment when the work threatened to develop a true dramatic character.

Finally for the concluding minuet, Morris employs a bold choreographic figure that has a partnered woman whipping her working leg into fast bold extensions to a melody that has a similarly bold emphasis. (The lighting design here is a deep red backdrop). As the music makes its repeated four chord statement, the man promenades his partner through fast pirouettes that end with her whipping into arabesques, until the ballet suddenly ends in darkness, with the curtain falling nearly on the action and in a conclusion that feels unresolved.

In the first night’s cast, Gillian Murphy and Sterling Baca had slightly more prominent roles than the others during the opening allegro, while Stella Abrera also stood out during the concluding minuet, where her extensions looked particularly good. Young Skylar Brandt also caught the eye in a repeated move that had her balance by supporting herself on the floor with one arm while her partner moved her about.  

Yet as the work proceeded with its very intricate local structure within the movements, it became less and less intelligible as a whole and failed consistently to hold one’s attention. The simplicity of Morris’ classicism was here charming but limiting. Unlike the many classical choreographers trying to be dramatic and modern, here was a modern dance maker who reduced ballet to classical simplicity and a very limited palate of symmetrical steps, with the contemporary feel being mainly the casual informality of the group. But whether you’re doing classical or modern dance, there’s no substitute for having an intelligible structure and perhaps some dramatic content to a work for a theatrical stage and the ballet on its first viewing – despite its many individual appeals and being clearly stamped with the Morris style– came up short as to both elements. One who knows his “Drink to Me Only With Thine Eyes” will recognize his work here; but where Virgil Thomson’s popular American melodies provided an emotional ground for that ballet, and the songs a structure for it, the score here didn’t give Morris those resources.

In contrast to Morris’ ballet, the degree to which classical ballet can combine with music to create a transcendent emotional experience could not have been better demonstrated than it was by the thirty minutes of perfection that followed during the company premiere of “Monotones I and II.”  

Ashton’s 1965 ballet made a startlingly lyrical impression, transporting the audience to a space of perfect light powered by the celestial music of Eric Satie and where the action of the two successive trios of dancers, in their stripped down leotards and headdresses, suggested at once a visit to paradise but also the weightless exploration of outer space that was one of the iconic images of the mid-1960’s. In this work of spellbinding mood and perfect simplicity -- where not a thing was out of place or either excessive or underdone -- you seemed to see a world compressed upon the stage.  Against the music’s slow celestial chords, the two successive trios swam in light, with even the occasional glitter of the sequins on their headgear amounting to poetry.  

Where the first trio, that has the dancers dressed in yellow gold, consists of two women with a man in the middle, the casting of Joseph Gorak between Isabella Boylston and Stella Abrera was exquisite. All three dancers have superb lines, Boylston in particular has never looked better in a costume, and the trios’ slow and symmetrical evolutions had a nearly hypnotic quality.  

The second group of dancers, in white, had Veronika Part between Thomas Forster and Cory Stearns and suffered from a slight glitch when the opening night lighting came on too bright, so that instead of the two sections proceeding in equally dramatic half light, the second section was more illuminated than the first. Yet here Part was superb as the girl in the middle, developing her working leg into slow extensions that had nearly a meditative feel, as if thought had become action, or the proverbial word become flesh. It’s a killer ballet because not an elbow can be put wrong in the partnering as it will destroy the profound impression, and here not an elbow was.  

Ending the evening, the revival of Tharp’s 1990 “The Brahms’ Haydn Variations” provided a refreshing emotional landing after the celestial experience of “Montones.” Among the eight couples, Cornejo and Kochetkova stood out for their superlative authority and dramatic power. With Marcelo Gomes aging and transitioning into a dual role of dancer emeritus and choreographer with the company, Cornejo (along with David Hallberg) is now one of ABT’s two prime male stars; yet during twelve years as a principal dancer, Cornejo has never had a consistent partner with whom he’s worked instinctively. Kochetkova’s arrival has changed that; they’re perfectly matched in physique, temperament, style and power, dance wonderfully together, and watching them here made me want not to miss a step this couple may take together in the spring.

Photos: middle Isabella Boylston, Joseph Gorak and Stella Abrera in “Monotones I” © Marty Sohl; bottom:  Cory Stearns, Veronika Part and Thomas Forster in “Monotones II” © Marty Sohl