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It's His Company Now

“Songs of Bukovina,” “Symphonic Variations,” “Other Dances,” “Serenade after Plato’s Symposium”
American Ballet Theatre
David H. Koch Theater
New York, New York
October 21, 2017 afternoon

Copyright © 2017 by Michael Popkin

The two ballets by Alexei Ratmansky on the program, including his newest work, were vibrant and full of life. Meanwhile iconic works by Ashton and Robbins were more or less dead on arrival. On Saturday afternoon at ABT, if you needed proof positive that it’s Ratmansky’s company now, the dancers his, their contemporary techniques molded primarily for his material, you needed but open your eyes.

Photo copyright © Marty Sohl of ABT in “Songs of Bukovina”

Different Notes

"Her Notes", "Symphonic Variations", "Other Dances", "Thirteen Diversions"
American Ballet Theatre
David H. Koch Theater
New York, New York
October 22, 2017, matinee

by Mary Cargill
copyright © 2107 by Mary Cargill

ABT's Sunday matinee showcased four ballets choreographed to concert music, music which was originally intended to stand alone. The choreographers all faced the challenge of improving, so to speak, the original works of art, and though all works were very well danced and had impressive moments, only Ashton's "Symphonic Variations" melded the steps, the atmosphere, and the music indelibly. 

ABT in "Thirteen Diversions" photo © Rosalie O'Connor.

Corps' Night Off

"Her Notes", "Symphonic Variations", "Other Dances", "Serenade After Plato's Symposium"
American Ballet Theatre
David H. Koch Theater
New York, New York
October 19, 2017

by Carol Pardo
copyright © 2107 by Carol Pardo

American Ballet Theatre has long had a dual identity in New York. In the spring at the Metropolitan Opera, the company presents itself as the guardian of 19th century imperial Russian tradition. Spectacle, scale, hierarchy rule. The fall season, at the home theater of the New York City Ballet, is more egalitarian. Mixed bills provide dancers throughout the ranks with more opportunities to show who they are and what they can do and, for those of us who often find seven weeks of "Swan Lake", Minkus and Macmillan stultifying, the season is a welcome contrast. At this performance, the company took on another identity: a top notch contemporary chamber ballet company with four works, two from the last century, but ageless; two from last year, none with more than a cast of ten, the evening requiring only twenty dancers in all, among them most of the available principals and soloists and only two members of the corps de ballet which otherwise had the night off.

David Hallberg in "Other Dances Photo: Rosalie O’Connor.

Monk on Monk

"Dancing Voices" 
Meredith Monk and the Young People's Chorus of New York 
Lincoln Center White Light Festival
New York 
October 20, 2017 

by Tom Phillips
copyright 2017 by Tom Phillips 

As an artist Meredith Monk has never done just one thing at a time. With “Dancing Voices,” which helped kick off Lincoln Center’s White Light Festival this weekend, she attempts both a retrospective of her own career as composer-choreographer and a transmission of her dharma to a new generation of artists.  

“Dancing Voices” is divided into two parts. Part One is a selection of her early experiments, from the Sixties to the early Nineties, performed with a chorus of young kids. Part Two is more recent, reflective works, with older children joining in. The first part was the most fun, and the most moving.

Meredith  Monk, photo by Julieta Cervantes.

Pioneer, Apprentice, Perfectionist

DEMO: Jerome Robbins – American Dance Genius
Terrace Theater 
The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts
Washington, DC
October 20, 2017 

by George Jackson
© 2017 by George Jackson

The centennial of Jerome Robbins’ birth in 2018 will spur big celebrations. This first one, part of Damian Woetzel’s Demo series, was small in scale and simple in format. Oddly, it suited the ballet choreographer and director of musicals, movies and television productions who had started as an American character dancer and became a complex individual. Seven dancers, active or retired, took to the Terrace Theater’s modest stage to deliver bits and pieces of the Robbins opus. These “pas” were dissected and discussed. Most members of the cast were current or former New York City Ballet dancers -- Tyler Angle, Tiler Peck, Unity Phelan, Amar Ramasar, Daniel Ulbricht and Heather Watts -- with Woetzel doing more than just being the program’s moderator. Trim and suave, he danced a little as Robbins’ hesitantly eager “Faun” and in ballroom turns around the floor from the “Shall We Dance?” number of “The King and I” musical. Woetzel’s ballroom partner, who had come up to the stage from the audience, was Julie Kent - a ballerina emerita of American Ballet Theatre and current director of The Washington Ballet. Robbins had begun dancing and choreographing for (American) Ballet Theatre, and later performed with and co-directed New York City Ballet. 

Woetzel, Phelan, Angle, Peck, Ramasar and Ulbricht under an image of Jerome Robbins. Photo by Teresa Wood.

Silver Lining

"The Gift", "Songs of Bukovina", "Thirteen Diversions"
American Ballet Theatre
David H. Koch Theatre
New York, New York
October 18, 2017

by Mary Cargill
copyright © 2107 by Mary Cargill

ABT's Fall gala celebrated Kevin McKenzie's twenty-five years as Artistic Director with a silver jubilee.  Appropriately, it was a company effort, celebrating the JKO students and the ABT Studio Company as well as the current dancers; as the gracious hosts, Stella Abrera and David Hallberg noted in their opening remarks, 63 of ABT's 92 dancers started in the Studio Company. The main event, the premiere of Alexei Ratmansky's "Songs of Bukovina", highlighted some of the most talented younger dancers (and only one principal, the recently promoted Christine Shevchenko), and there were no male principals dancing that night, a well-deserved vote of confidence for ABT's corps and soloists.

ABT students in "The Gift" photo © Marty Sohl.

Milking a Classic

“La Bayadere”

The Mariinsky Ballet

Opera House

The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts

Washington, DC

October 17, 2017

 

by George Jackson

© 2017 by George Jackson

 

The plot for this exotic and bravura ballet keeps being altered. Right now at the Kennedy Center the story stops short with the hero immersed in a dream of his dead beloved among a bevy of similar bayaderes beckoning him to join her. Bayaderes were dancing girls who served in Hindu temples. The hero, an outstanding Hindu warrior, has been commanded to marry another girl, one from a very high caste. He isn’t told that the bayadere he dotes on will be murdered before his very eyes. For the current conclusion, he has fled from these facts into fantasy, presumably with the help of an opium pipe. Final curtain! Yet I didn’t want to leave, expecting to see the temple come crashing down as the gods’ punishment for human misdeeds. The so-called Shades Scene of the beckoning bayaderes starts simply, purely, with one woman stepping down a ramp, balancing in arabesque, then stepping and balancing further and further but being followed by another woman, and again another and still more. It is the ballet’s choreographic climax, but it isn’t an apt dramatic ending.

 

Above: The corps of the Mariinsky Ballet in "La Bayadere." Photo by Natasha Razina.

 

New Works, New Theaters

"Site Series (Inside Outside)"
"Skies Calling Skies Falling"
Margaret Jenkins Dance Company
The Diane B. Wilsey Center
War Memorial Building
San Francisco, CA
October 12, 2017

by Rita Felciano
copyright © Rita Felciano 2017

Margaret Jenkins opened her 43^rd season with dancers that were not even born when she started her company in San Francisco, after having been an original member of the Twyla Tharp Company for two years and then decided she wanted to make her own work in her hometown San Francisco. What exactly prompted her to return to a place that's lively, though not exactly known for a thriving post/modern environment, remains somewhat of a puzzle. But clearly the City remembers her. Opening Night at the refurbished War Memorial Building was packed, and the over fifty crowd held the majority. They clearly knew a good thing when they had the opportunity. Jenkins’ double bill was everything we have come to expect from this remarkable choreographer; it was cool, brainy and lush.

Kristen Bell of Margaret Jenkins Dance Company. Photo: Tom Kubik

Moving On

"Cortège Hongrois", "La Valse", "Square Dance", "Duo Concertant"
New York City Ballet
David H. Koch Theater
New York, New York
October 15, 2015

by Mary Cargill
copyright © 2107 by Mary Cargill

Robert Fairchild gave his farewell performance at New York City Ballet in Balanchine's low-key, pensive, and very personal "Duo Concertant", which was rescheduled to close the afternoon, in place of the apotheosis of closers, "Cortège Hongrois", which opened the performance. If the switch made for a somewhat unbalanced schedule, it let the audience thank Fairchild properly, as he handed out roses to the principal dancers amid a shower of confetti and  cheers from the audience. His open-hearted, honest, and very American elegance has illuminated so many dances, and "Duo Concertant", with a radiant Sterling Hyltin, encapsulated his many gifts.

Robert Fairchild's curtain call photo © Kent G. Becker.

It’s a Wrap

“Solo Echo,” “Concerto Grosso,” “Twelve of ‘em,” “Matria Etnocentra,”
Fall for Dance Program 5
Joyce Theater
New York, NY
June 21, 201

by Martha Sherman
copyright © 2017 by Martha Sherman

After a rich lineup for the 2017 Fall for Dance season, the fifth and final program was a fine coda, with a mix of top choreography, excellent regional companies, a New York star, and an international troupe that wrapped up the program and this FFD season with a rousing, rhythmic finale. A program deep in balletic virtuosity, this evening wanted for some intellectual challenge, but it was fulfilling to sink into the seats and be sated with beautifully executed dance.

Hubbard Street Dance Chicago in “Solo Echo.” Photo © Stephanie Berger.