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La Boutique. Photo: Kyle Froman. |
Watching La Boutique, a new work by Gemma Bond for ABT's 2024 fall season, I pondered the purpose of ballet commissions. Are they simply to stay alive, in some respects, like a shark needing to swim to keep going? To identify new choreographic voices, and in the case of Bond, an ABT alum who carries the troupe’s DNA? To challenge the dancers, who can mix some new dances into their warhorse-heavy repertory? To provide the audiences with reasons to buy tickets if another Swan Lake isn’t enough? Likely all of these things, and ultimately to produce a good dance that pushes all involved—craft-wise, artistically, genre-wise.
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Isabella Boylston and Thomas Forster in La Boutique. Photo: Kyle Froman. |
And while La Boutique does pose technical challenges for the dancers, it falls short of challenging genre norms and audiences. Its music, La Boutique Fantasque by Ottorino Resphighi after Gioachino Rossini, provides a dynamic background of swooping orchestral music. Jean-Marc Puissant’s costumes tweak the standard tutu and tunic with bold geometric accents. Leading the 26-member cast through brisk balletic passages dotted with modern touches such as layouts, Isabella Boylston and Thomas Forster performed a grand, romantic duet. (The complex patterns woven by the dancers’ paths were interrupted by two men crashing together at one point, revealing the need for more rehearsal.) Clifton Taylor’s lighting, in one scene, drenched the stage in blue so that it appeared to be a sea. But in the end, La Boutique didn’t make enough of an impression to demand being reseen.
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Léa Fleytoux and Skylar Brandt in Mercurial Son. Photo: Kyle Froman. |
In contrast, Mercurial Son, a premiere by Kyle Abraham, piqued interest with its contemporary electronic score by Grischa Lichtenberger, and metallic-hued costumes by Karen Young that at moments whipped frothily around spinning bodies. Abraham manages to make his cast of seven feel like many more. Each dancer, and in one case a pair, carved out individual styles and motifs in solo stage crossings. Balletic moves mixed with Abraham’s sui generis hip-hop flow and fractured lines. Super fast spins alternate with luxuriant posés. Calvin Royal, carved elegant shapes and collapsed in a winking dying swan quote. I look forward to seeing this again to catch more details I may have missed.
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| Melvin Lawovi in Mercurial Son. Photo: Kyle Froman. |
The slate finished with Harald Lander’s Études, set to Carl Czerny’s score, which premiered in 1948 by the Royal Danish Ballet. This treatise, demonstrating the building blocks of ballet through a highly stylized class, while long, is gratifying and instructive viewing if a bit like homework. Devon Teuscher’s superb line, and Jarod Curley and Andrew Robare’s top-like pirouettes, all contributed to this précis of the balletic language. But the friction between this museum piece and Abraham's au courant Mercurial Son raised questions about ABT's direction, or at least curatorial eye.
