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The Many Meanings of Meaning

“Polyphonia,” “Bright,” “Opus 19/The Dreamer,” “Voices”
New York City Ballet
David H. Koch Theater
New York, New York
January 30, 2020

by Michael Popkin
copyright © 2020 by Michael Popkin

The premiere of Alexei Ratmansky’s “Voices” on Thursday aptly illustrated the Balanchine aphorism (“There are no new steps, only new combinations”) that New York City Ballet employs as the motto of its annual winter New Combinations evening. Highly classical in it steps but unexpected in its mise-en-scène and conception, “Voices” proved a refreshing bit of nonsensical dance, but at the same time a provocative exploration of just what sense and nonsense are.

Photo © Erin Baiano of Sara Mearns and Company in “Voices”

A Ballerina Gives Us One for the Ages

“Jewels”
New York City Ballet
David H. Koch Theater
New York, New York
September 17, 2019

by Michael Popkin
copyright © 2019 by Michael Popkin

In “Diamonds,” at the New York City Ballet's fall opening performance of “Jewels”, Maria Kowroski was how you’d like to remember her. Not that she’s going anywhere. But by now the company’s senior dancer (she joined NYCB in 1995), she, along with her partner Tyler Angle, rescued opening night from lackluster performances of “Emeralds” and “Rubies” and made you forget about what came before. An incandescent performance, shot through with artistry, what was most surprising about her reading in particular was how frankly emotional she made it, and how she did it simply by being herself, by opening up to her partner without adding any overt or histrionic expression to her dancing. Also surprising was how, for a tall dancer who was all legs early in her career, she last night got the expression out of her upper body, back and arms.

Photo © Erin Baiano of Maria Kowroski and Tyler Angle in “Diamonds”

The Romantic Agony

“Jane Eyre”
American Ballet Theatre
Metropolitan Opera House
New York, New York
June 4, 2019

by Michael Popkin
copyright © Michael Popkin 2019

Cathy Marston’s expressionist ballet based on Charlotte Brontë’s “Jane Eyre” got its first performance at American Ballet Theatre Tuesday night. Originally produced in 2016 in Doncaster, England by the Northern Ballet, this was its U.S. premiere. With an excellent score by Philip Feeney and scenery by Patrick Kinmonth (who also designed the costumes) the ballet’s twelve scenes over two acts were absorbing to watch and provided a star vehicle for ABT’s young ballerina Devon Teuscher in the title role. Who would have thought that a narrative work based on a mid-19th century novel that every schoolgirl once read, but packaged for the contemporary stage in the Euro-Dram dance language of Cranko, MacMillan, and Tudor by way of Christopher Wheeldon and Wayne McGregor, would provide the most rewarding new ballet staged in New York this year.

Photo © Gene Schiavone of Cassandra Trenary, James Whiteside and Devon Teuscher in “Jane Eyre”

Les Neiges d'Antin

“Brahms-Schoenberg Quartet,” “Tschaikovsky Suite No. 3”
New York City Ballet
David H. Koch Theater
New York, New York
May 15, 2019

by Michael Popkin
copyright © 2019 by Michael Popkin

The return of “Brahms-Schoenberg” to the stage was a highlight of the still unfinished season at New York City Ballet this week. The ensemble ballet of all ensemble ballets, the first work Balanchine made for at Lincoln Center after the company moved from City Center, showed Balanchine reveling in the space afforded by the larger stage with gorgeously elaborate blocking for the corps de ballet, soloists and principals over four flowing romantic movements. With Karinska’s beautiful tulle costumes and David Mitchell’s drops providing period detail and mood, the orchestra and dancers delivered an immersive experience in the twilight borderland where music and dance combine.

Photograph © Paul Kolnik of Emily Kikta in "Brahms-Schoenberg Quartet”

Serving Two Masters

“Bright,” “Bartók Ballet,” “Tschaikovsky Suite No. 3”
New York City Ballet
Spring Gala
David H. Koch Theater
New York, New York
May 2, 2019

By Michael Popkin
copyright © 2019 By Michael Popkin

Positive sentiments were very much in evidence when New York City Ballet’s new co-directors Wendy Whelan and Jonathan Stafford opened their first gala with remarks about their dedication to the institution that had nurtured them and to its core values: on the one hand preserving the company’s incomparable Balanchine/Robbins repertory and on the other its continued dedication to new work. And the air in the theater really did seem to have cleared when you looked around at a gala crowd studded with former dancers, from Jacques D’Amboise and Edward Villella (representing the founding generation) to many of Whelan’s contemporaries from the 1990s. Yet the program that followed – where the new work was represented both by an opening bit of fluff from resident choreographer Justin Peck and then an ambitious new ballet by Pam Tanowitz; and the Balanchine repertory by “Tschaikovsky Suite No. 3” (with its “Theme and Variations”) that closed the evening – revealed an uncomfortable tension between the company’s twin goals.

Photo © Erin Baiano of Daniel Applebaum, Indiana Woodward, Jonathan Fahoury and Gretchen Smith in “Bartók Ballet”

Character and Destiny

“Sleeping Beauty”
New York City Ballet
David H. Koch Theater
New York, New York
February 21, 2019

By Michael Popkin
Copyright © 2019 by Michael Popkin

“Sleeping Beauty” is many things to a ballet lover. One of Tchaikovsky’s greatest scores, the ballet laid the foundation for the post-World War II ballet boom when Ashton’s staging for the Royal Ballet, starring Margot Fonteyn, took the Euro-American stages by storm with its Rose Adagio and famous balances. But first and foremost, the debut of young Indiana Woodward as Princess Aurora on Thursday night at New York City Ballet, opposite Anthony Huxley as Prince Désiré, reminded us that “Beauty” is still an absorbing drama. It’s a rare performance that shows you this, but the young dancers’ knack for stringing the ballet’s iconic moments together with a dramatic line brought it to life.

Photo © Erin Baiano of Megan LeCrone, Indiana Woodward and Anthony Huxley in “The Sleeping Beauty”

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”

Speaking in Tongues

“Scotch Symphony,” “Tschaikovsky Pas de Deux,” “Divertissement Pas de Deux from ‘A Midsummer Night’s Dream,’” “The Four Temperaments”
San Francisco Ballet, The Mariinsky Ballet, Paris Opera Ballet, Joffrey Ballet
Balanchine, The City Center Years
New York City Center
November 2, 2018

by Michael Popkin
Copyright © 2018 by Michael Popkin

City Center’s 75th anniversary celebration of Balanchine ballets was a rare example in today’s arts world – routinely long on hype and short on substance – of a festival that focused on a worthy subject and actually delivered. A far cry from the empty gala spectacles at New York City Ballet or American Ballet Theatre that have recently obscured the dance horizon here, it was thought provoking and beautiful to see these Balanchine ballets and pas de deux danced by other companies associated with his opus, on the stage the works were made for, or, in the case of “The Four Temperaments” (which debuted in 1946 at New York’s Central High School for the Needle Trades), the stage at least where it was danced most early and often. Most aesthetically surprising was how, if Balanchine came to City Center in 1948 as it were speaking the language of the Imperial Russian Ballet with an American accent, three of these four performances offered a series of translations: back into contemporary Russian, French, and a Midwestern vernacular heavily inflected with Modern Dance.

Photo Copyright © Erik Tomasson of San Francisco Ballet in “Scotch Symphony”

Women's Work

“Le Jeune,” “Dream within a Dream (deferred),” “In the Upper Room”
American Ballet Theatre
Fall Gala
David H. Koch Theater
New York, New York
October 12, 2018

by Michael Popkin
Copyright © 2018 by Michael Popkin

Is there something specifically female in the content or experience of a ballet by a woman, besides the fact that a woman created it? In programming a Fall Gala exclusively of works by women at the start of its brief fall season at Lincoln Center, American Ballet Theatre implicitly put this question on the table. In a brief and beautiful work at the start, Lauren Lovette - the youngest of the three choreographers whose work was seen that night (she’s also a principal dancer at New York City Ballet in her day gig) - gave the answer, yes. On an evening where Michelle Dorrance’s major new commission fell flat and the revival of Twyla Tharp’s “In the Upper Room” was poorly cast and often poorly danced, Lovette’s offering was the best thing on the bill.

Photo copyright © Marty Sohl of ABT Studio Company in “Le Jeune”

Friday Night LIghts

“Concerto Barocco,” “Tschaikovsky Pas de Deux,” “Stravinsky Violin Concerto,” “Symphony in C”
New York City Ballet
David H. Koch Theater
New York, New York
September 21, 2018

by Michael Popkin
Copyright © 2018 by Michael Popkin

The first Friday night of the Fall season at New York City Ballet felt like a breath of fresh air. Not that everything was perfect -- far from it, the principal dancing in particular alternated tours de force in some ballets with slack efforts or curious interpretations in others. But taken as a whole and particularly at the level of the soloists and corps de ballet, the company danced its core Balanchine repertory with a verve and attack that haven’t been consistently seen here in years.

Photo © Paul Kolnik of Tiler Peck in “Tschaikovsky Pas de Deux”