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La Belle aux Bois Mourant

“Sleeping Beauty”
New York City Ballet
David H. Koch Theater
New York, New York
February 13, 2019

by Michael Popkin
copyright © 2019 by Michael Popkin

Nearly 15 months after Peter Martins’ resignation from New York City Ballet, where an interim artistic team continues to run things during the search for his successor, his elaborate production of “The Sleeping Beauty” went back on stage Wednesday night for the first of fourteen performances. Yet with a full house and Martins himself in the audience, the opening night was anything but a success. As a spectacle, the staging looked dated. Its contraction of the story from four acts to two with a single intermission, by means of making the action continuous and using scenic projections to cover the changes of era, combined with certain Walt Disneyesque elements in the décor and costuming to make the ballet feel closer to a Broadway musical like “Cats” or “The Lion King” than the ravishing Margot Fonteyn-Royal Ballet experiences of yesteryear.

Photo © Paul Kolnik of New York City Ballet in the Garland Dance from “The Sleeping Beauty”

A Trio — Well Chosen, Well Performed

"Divertimento No 15" "Appassionata" "Hurry Up, We're Dreaming"
San Francisco Ballet
War Memorial Opera House, San Francisco, CA
February 12, 2019

by Rita Felciano
copyright © Rita Felciano 2019

Superb, intriguing, inviting is a good as tag I can come up with for San Francisco Ballet’s second 2019 Season program. Attending with a friend who grew up on New York City Ballet in its seventies, it was amusing to see at how stunned he was with the quality of the SFB dancers. The program, indeed, was very much worth beating the rain to the Opera House. Opening with the best of all, Balanchine’s “Divertimento No 15”, it was followed by the local premiere of Benjamin Millepied’s oddly chosen “Appassionata” to a fine dramatic performance by Mungunchimeg Buriad. The evening closed with a crowd pleaser from last spring’s Unbound Festival, “Hurry Up We’re Dreaming” by no-longer newcomer Justin Peck.

San Francisco Ballet in "Divertimento No. 15". Photo: Erik Tomasson

Youth Has Its Evening

"Interplay", "In the Night", "N.Y. Export: Opus Jazz"
New York City Ballet
David H. Koch Theater
February 5, 2019

by Carol Pardo
copyright ©2019 by Carol Pardo

Youth must be served, as the old saying goes, and no choreographer served youth as assiduously as Jerome Robbins. He admired the audacity of the young Twyla Tharp, using Central Park as a performance space, and was often the first to spot -- and spotlight -- young talent at the New York City Ballet, particularly among the male dancers. And, above all, youth and young people were a favorite subject of his ballets from "Fancy Free" on. Youth permeated this all-Robbins triple bill (filled with debuts), excessively so by the end of the evening.

New Combinations

“Herman Schmerman,” “Principia,” “The Runaway”
New York City Ballet
David H. Koch Theater,
New York, New York
February 3, 2019

by Gay Morris
copyright© 2019 by Gay Morris

Under the rubric, “New Combinations,” New York City Ballet brought together a premiere by Justin Peck, a new ballet from the fall season by Kyle Abraham, and a ballet by William Forsythe that hasn’t been seen in full since 1994. It proved to be the kind of imaginative programming that makes elements and associations visible that might not otherwise be apparent.

Photo:   Taylor Stanley and company in Justin Peck’s "Principia." Photo: Erin Baiano. 

 

Not Quite, But on the Way

"Impact"
Kristin Damrow & Company
Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, Forum
San Francisco, CA
January 31, 2019

by Rita Felciano
copyright© Rita Felciano 2019

Every once in a while a piece of information pops up in my computer that intrigues more than others. Such was the case when the Kristin Damrow & Company announced the premiere of “Impact,” at Yerba Buena Center’s Forum, a large non-proscenium space that has challenged many a choreographer. Brutalist architecture, apparently, influenced this piece by an artist unknown to me. Since we live with some prominent examples of these accumulations of stressed concrete—a cathedral, museums, hotels and a jail—the idea of pitting the human body against such monolithic strength sounded promising. Even though Damrow’s work was not completely successful, it showcased a choreographer with a fine sense of spatial deployment. It also impressed with the evident care and competence that went into the design of Damrow’s concept. It made me want to see where else this company is going. 

Anna Greenberg with ensemble in Kristin Damrow & Company's "Impact."
Photo by Robbie Sweeny.

It’s All in the Music

“Serenade,” “Mozartiana,” “Tschaikovsky Piano Concerto No. 2”
New York City Ballet
David H. Koch Theater
New York, NY
January 26, 2019 (matinee)

by Marianne Adams
copyright © 2019 by Marianne Adams

You cannot go wrong with the music of Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky or the choreography of George Balanchine, and so in some ways New York City Ballet’s “All Tschaikovsky/ Balanchine” program, a fairly regular staple of the company’s seasons, was set up for success. The many debuts in two of the bill’s works wouldn’t have made or broken the overall impression of this performance, but as it happened mostly delighted with fresh but faithful interpretations.   

Photo of Lauren Lovette and Ask la Cour in “Serenade.” Photo © Paul Kolnik

Passionate Whirlwind

“Verklärte Nacht”
Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker
Baryshnikov Arts Center
New York, NY
January 30, 2019

by Martha Sherman
copyright © 2019 by Martha Sherman

in Anne Teresa De Keers- maeker’s “Verklärte Nacht,” Cynthia Loemij crashed elegantly to the floor in tumble after tumble, a wave of relentless feeling and pain. Set to Arnold Schönberg’s dramatic early string sextet, both the score and the choreography told the story in Richard Dehmel’s 19C poem about love and forgiveness. With a crisp and beautifully danced duet, De Keersmaeker, like Schönberg, hewed closely to the story and offered a simple arc of emotion through her powerful movement poem.

Cynthia Loemij and Boštjan Antončič in "Verklärte Nacht." Photo © Maria Baranova.