Unexpected Combos

Misty Copeland in Ash. Photo: Stephanie Berger

Now 16 years old, Fall for Dance’s audience has lost some of the mania that was a given years ago, with viewers shrieking and whooping for, improbably, ballet dancers doing fouettés. But after the first act of 2019’s opening night, which included a solo for Misty Copeland choreographed by Kyle Abraham, the latter was returning to his house seat, and got a standing ovation from the intermissing crowd. After a shy wave and a smile, he was followed by his lighting designer—who also got an ovation, if less fervent. Such is the crowd at New York City Center’s FFD—taking ownership of the art form onstage and in the enthusiastic house.

In her solo, Ash, Copeland flitted and spun in short, cursive phrases punctuated by poses that articulated her muscular, curving limbs. The stage was bare except for a big lighting rig which held a spotlight trained on her. She wore Bartelme + Jung’s costume of a gold panné leotard under vertical widths of chiffon that poofed out as she moved, evoking a jellyfish pulsing through the water. Her aspect felt private, internal, and not directed at pleasing the audience, though that’s exactly what she did.

2018 Milestones

The Trout by Mark Morris. Photo: Stephanie Berger

DANCE

Jane Comfort’s 40th Anniversary Retrospective, La MaMa

Well-produced video, tight direction, and a welcome reminder of the breadth of Comfort’s warm-hearted oeuvre and the tightly knit dance community.

Balanchine: The City Center Years

A dream mini-festival of companies and dances that reminded us of City Center’s sometimes overlooked history.

The Trout, by Mark Morris, Mark Morris Dance Group, Mostly Mozart, Lincoln Center

Displayed Morris’ musical insightfulness and the intelligence to embrace simplicity, even if it pointed out the diminished dance offerings at Lincoln Center.

Canto Ostinato by Lucinda Childs, INTRODANS, Fall for Dance, New York City Center

This mesmerizing gem performed by a Dutch troupe was overshadowed in a strong festival that is more focused, if less populist, than ever.

The Runaway, by Kyle Abraham, New York City Ballet

Taylor Stanley’s dynamite solo was the transcendent performance of the year in a work that felt revolutionary in the Koch Theater.

Dearest Home, Kyle Abraham, A.I.M., Quadrille, Joyce Theater

In contrast, this subtle work had just enough narrative implication. One of five fascinating choices for a continuing series done in-the-round.

Lazarus, Rennie Harris, Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, City Center

Subtle but gut-wrenching movement metaphors and well-paced dynamics building in two acts to an exuberant and elating finale.

RIP

Paul Taylor

ART

Cy Twombly, Gagosian

Who needs museums? (Kidding. Sorta.)

BOOKS

The Overstory, Richard Powers

Interwoven stories, all somehow involving trees, made me realize how much I take them for granted.

Warlight, Michael Ondaatje

In wartime, seemingly neglected children have been cared for by a colorful supporting cast of characters.

The Library Book, Susan Orlean

History and a crime make for surprisingly compelling reading. Plus, a killer title and book design.

Clock Dance, Anne Tyler

Redemption and personal re-invention sneakily prevail in this novel with many odd characters.

There There, Tommy Orange

The fates of a roster of characters comes together at a powwow in Oakland, CA.

Rennie Harris' Lazarus Lifts the Ailey Company

Lazarus. Photo: Paul Kolnik

On Dec 11, City Center turned 75, and this season is Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater’s 60th. They celebrated together with a program featuring not only Ailey’s finest, Revelations, but also longtime City Center artists Paul Taylor and Twyla Tharp. The evening showcased Ailey Company’s strengths and weaknesses underlying its artistic model.

The late Paul Taylor’s work might seem a fine fit for Ailey, but its “cover” of Piazzolla Caldera merely skims the surface of this rather dark dance. Its two most important characters are the first male solo and the spurned woman (done respectively and most memorably in recent years by Taylor’s Michael Trusnovec and Annmaria Mazzini). The man leads the group of men, moving first and slicing and attacking like a toreador. Jamar Roberts performed this role for Ailey, and lacked the necessary ferocity, thereby diffusing any dramatic tension. The female part was danced by Jacqueline Green, who also presented very little of the built-up angst and desperation of the character, who is cruelly rejected by every man on stage. Both Roberts and Green are tall, lithe, elegant dancers, but in this case lack the grit and aggression that roil beneath the surface of this deceptively shadowy piece.

The Taylor lexicon also might appear easy from a technical point of view. Stag leaps, low jetés, and chassées comprise its core. The Taylor company obviously renders these moves constantly in Taylor’s repertory, thus they are consistent among performers. The Ailey company doesn’t perform these daily, and each dancer does the moves slightly differently, resulting in a lack of visual cohesion. When you watch the Taylor company, there are passages when these synchronized sections whir and click like a Swiss clock’s movement, creating visual harmony. I missed this tuned, symphonic sense with Ailey’s interpretation.

Twyla Tharp’s Golden Section is a signature work by this uncategorizable, prodigious choreographer, and a very challenging one to perform. It’s not easy to appear as if you’re carefree and louche while doing super hard steps that require great coordination and precise timing between dancers. That said, Ailey has been performing this on and off for many years, and it looked better synced than I remember. David Byrne's jaunty score, which hasn't aged a bit, does a lot of heavy lifting by moving the action along.

Kairos. Photo: Paul Kolnik

The program on Dec 18 offered highly contrasting works. Wayne McGregor’s Kairos (2014), a company premiere, offers more of the British choreographer’s affinity for exaggerated positions and ballet shapes. While Ailey’s dancers are obviously accomplished in many styles, they aren’t strictly ballet dancers, and so many of the lines that might make sense on point, or on exaggeratedly balletic bodies, here feel blunted. Idris Khan’s set—scrims with graphics resembling musical staff lines—make the dancers appear like musical notes. But this somewhat promising metaphor is diluted with the use of Max Richter’s version of Vivaldi’s Four Seasons, a by-now clichéd composition that elicits thoughts of background  car commercials. McGregor’s athletic, balletic style may be tempting to set on Ailey for many reasons, but for me there is an emotional void at its core.

How wonderful then to follow this soulless work with the world premiere of Rennie Harris’ Lazarus in two acts. A central character (Daniel Harder) falls and rises several times in the piece, a motif that could be seen through various lenses in civil/human rights—racial, economic, despotic—or even as a metaphor for an artist and his life and work. The beginning of the piece feels like a dream (or nightmare) scape, with a soundtrack mixing words and sounds (barking dogs) accompanying seemingly discrete scenes featuring a group working or praying. They support Harder as he coughs and collapses, and in a harrowing scene that elicited gasps, lynched bodies achieved through the simplest of gestures—a listing head and small twists of the body on the balls of the feet. 

Jamar Roberts supports the stricken Harder, who then does an arduous phrase, falling forward with the body folded, rear leg aloft. The pace quickens to Michael Kiwanuka’s “I’m a black man in a white world,” and the costumes shift from old fashioned cotton blouses, skirts and pants to more modern garb. The group claps, skipping and crossing their feet, but then appears to be sprayed with fire hoses. Jeroboam Bozeman, wearing only jeans, symbolizes modern man acting with individual intent. The corps, lying down, transforms from a sprouting field, to waving grass that subsumes Harder’s body, to cresting waves.

In the second act, the dancers sport LA Laker-inspired purple and gold tunics. The movement is less trance-like and more rhythmic, clicking and snapping crisply. Harris’ choreography is less reliant on the hip-hop in which he made his name, with more strands of upright fast footwork and joyous space-eating steps. (It feels very connected to Ron Brown’s style.) The pure joy of dancing is rapturous and contagious, and the dancers literally dust off their heels, shaking off the historical luggage and issues of mortality to simply live. Harder walks toward the light, and the audience departs on a cloud.

A couple of notes on dancers: Clifton Brown looks truly joyous and inspired in Revelations, after so many years performing it on and off; his power and stasis in "I Wanna Be Ready" are particularly moving. Vernard Gilmore has been with the company for 21 years, and has gradually (for me) developed into its emotional center with his unshowy, grounded approach in a company of spectacular dancers. 

Martha Graham Dance Company—Sacred/Profane

Leslie Andrea Williams and Lorenzo Pagano in Embattled Garden. Photo: Melissa Sherwood

It's remarkable to see the Martha Graham Dance Company standing relatively strong, 92 years after its founding. It has survived the death of its founder, an ensuing legal battle over her creative output, moving its headquarters, then flooding which destroyed much of its costumes and sets, and the inexorable company turnover as time moves on. Yet at City Center on April 11, as part of Sacred/Profane, the company and its supporters gathered to celebrate its survival, and indeed growth, albeit as a limb off of a big trunk.

So often Graham's classic works are accompanied by taped music, and the recordings tend to sound tinny and worn, old as they are. So it was a pleasure that the opening performance of Embattled Garden was elevated by the use of live music, written by Carlos Surinach, and performed by the Mannes Orchestra. Noguchi's sets remain singularly sculptural and functional; here the downstage piece becomes a safe harbor and a lookout point, the upstage the pseudonymous garden of Eden. The young cast of four (Anne O'Donnell, Lloyd Knight, Leslie Andrea Williams, and Lorenzo Pagano) was well-balanced; the men look as strong as the women, who in this company have often drawn the gaze. 

Laurel Dalley Smith and Ari Mayzick in Histoire. Photo: Melissa Sherwood

The evening marked the premiere of Lucinda Childs' Histoire, an expansion of a 1999 duet to music by Krzysztof Knittel. Laurel Dalley Smith and Ari Mayzick perform the duet, a kind of abstracted tango in which they face one another, arms angled like goalposts, and move about the stage at a fixed distance, as if there was a force field between them. Childs' signature arabesque spins and extended-leg lunges punctuate the dance. Knittel's synthesized, recorded score evokes the bandoneon that soon accompanies the next sections, playing two of Astor Piazzolla's songs. (They will be familiar to Paul Taylor audiences from his Piazzolla Caldera.) 

Three other couples, in grey, populate the stage; the couples' interactions are more physical and in keeping with how tango is usually done. But there is tension between the passionate, warm music and the rectilinear, formal attitude of Childs' choreography. In a sense, this sense of tension is not unlike when you watch traditional tango, in which sensuality simmers beneath a social veneer.

Leslie Andrea Williams and So Young An in
Legend of Ten. Photo: Ani Collier

Lar Lubovitch was awarded the Martha Graham Award, which, as Artistic Director Janet Eilber joked in a brief onstage presentation, Graham would never give to another choreographer while she was alive. Lubovitch created The Legend of Ten to Brahms' Quintet for Piano and Strings in F minor. In the first sections, the choreographer's signature fluid, looping movement is on full display; a repeating hook features the dancers tap-stepping and rolling their heads side to side, arms rippling softly. They form various patterns, shapes, and tableaus, which Lubovitch excels at. 

In the work's later movements, the dynamic becomes more percussive. Folk steps strengthen the sense of community. The dancers face inward, form a circle, and hold hands, stomping and kicking their legs back. They gesture as if strewing seeds, and mock clap and stamp their feet, cossack-style. This sense is underscored by their elegant boots; all genders wear the same elegant blouses, tights, and obi costumes in pewter, designed by L. Isaac with Naomi Luppescu. 

No one can match Lubovitch in creating beautiful, seamless movement. The shift in Legend from this pure beauty into a version of a functioning group, be they workers or soldiers, provides some welcome narrative structure. Incidentally, the Lar Lubovitch Dance Company will perform at the Joyce next week and celebrate its relatively young 50th season; the Graham dancers will dance Legend of Ten in a guest spot. 

The Meaning of Ailey

Shelter. Photo: Paul Kolnik

It’s already been six years since Robert Battle took over as artistic director of the Ailey company. Ailey’s masterpiece Revelations (1960) is still on just about every program over the month-long City Center run (through Dec 31), making the late choreographer’s presence feel disproportionately prominent in the season’s repertory. There are five Ailey works being danced this season—one more than by Battle, who, all the while, has been adding or showcasing commissions and older repertory by interesting dancemakers. Gone are the “best of Ailey” medleys that both awkwardly showcased highlights and underscored how thin some of his dances can be. And on the rise are dances by company members, such as a premiere by Jamar Roberts and a reprisal by Hope Boykin.

As the company’s repertory has, through time, necessarily experienced a decrease in percentage of Ailey works relative to those by others, to me the Ailey name has shifted to signify less a choreographic style and more the Ailey dancers. Many members have long tenures in the company, and have developed big fan bases, even as turnover continues regularly. It’s not quite a cult, but at this point it is more about the performers than the repertory, which exists mainly to showcase these remarkable artist-athletes.

Battle has been quietly remounting older works he has done for his own troupe, or as commissions for other entitities. Seeing some of his classics, like The Hunt (2001), I’m reminded once again of his own stylistic roots which emanate more from Paul Taylor than Ailey. Battle was a long-time member of and choreographer for David Parsons Dance, and Parsons was a Taylor dancer for many years. The Hunt, for six men, contains direct—albeit brief—movement quotations from Taylor’s Cloven Kingdom, such as inverted-curving arms and hunched shoulders rotating forward aggressively. In fact, The Hunt feels like a blood relative of Cloven; both feature men as barely tamed pack animals, alternating between hunting and societal rituals. It’s exciting, a crowd pleaser, and makes use of the dancers’ athleticism. Another Battle work that serves to spotlight physical prowess is In/Side, an emotionally expressive solo; I saw the amazing Yannick Lebrun perform it, funneling his energy toward a powerful finale. And Mass (2004) focuses ecclesiastical fervor into sheer kineticism, as the 16 robe-clad dancers move en masse and form geometric shapes and lines. Chalvar Monteiro distinguished himself with a charismatic presence.

Clifton Brown and Glenn Allen Sims in The Golden Section. Photo: Paul Kolnik

Jawole Willa Jo Zollar’s Shelter (1988) counterbalanced The Hunt in terms of gender (six women, although it is performed by a male cast at times) and theme (the prevalance of homelessness in a wealthy society). The spoken text, including poetry, felt slightly didactic at first, but the varying movement dynamics and invention quickly became the driving force. The dancers planted themselves in grounded stances and threw their legs up in high, hatchet-like kicks. The clustered nervously, a wary communal unit on the defensive.

In high contrast was Twyla Tharp’s Golden Section (1983), to David Byrne’s score. Few companies could handle the breakneck speed and technical demands, and Ailey essentially fares well; a little good humor offset any panic induced by the challenging choreography. The production was refreshed in 2006, but Santo Loquasto’s gold lamé or mustard velveteen pieces still encapsulate 80s glam. Belén Pereyra-Alem was notable for her precision and focused energy.

As for Revelations, it continues to bear up well after constant performance and viewing. There was a time when I didn’t relish seeing it yet again, but now, I look forward to it greatly. Its array of juicy roles are vehicles in which to discover new faces, or see tenured ones try something new. I was greatly heartened to watch Clifton Brown, who returned to the company after a break, in “I Wanna Be Ready,” displaying his amazing gift for delivering maximum emotion from minimal kineticism. And his heartfelt smile in “Rocka My Soul” was truly moving; a prodigal son was back home again—or had he brought a piece of home back to me?

The Red Shoes—Devilishly Entertaining

Photo: Johan Persson

If you're familiar with Matthew Bourne's theatrical productions, you expect a story told without text, only through movement, gesture and music. Oh, and scenery. In fact, the sets, by regular collaborator and designer Lez Brotherston, are so key that they virtually become another character in the cast. This is certainly true for The Red Shoes at City Center, in which a proscenium-within-the-proscenium seems to have a clever mind of its own by the end of the production, and even more possessed with spirit than the eponymous toe shoes.

The story, based on a fairy tale by Hans Christian Anderson, revolves around a love triangle between Victoria, a young dancer, the object of affection from both struggling composer Julian and impresario Boris Lermontov, who gives Vicky a pair of red pointe shoes when she is cast as the lead in his new ballet, The Red Shoes. The set design for the ballet is a modern, all-white construction of nesting arches which together comprise a surface to catch video projections (by Duncan McLean). All of the costumes and set elements for this sub-show are in striking black and white except for Vicky's red shoes, which represent the blurring between reality and fiction. While Vicky's success as the lead in the ballet is celebrated, Lermontov becomes jealous of her relationship with Julian, and drives Julian to quit, taking Vicky with him. Although torn, she ultimately chooses to return to the ballet, and in a delirious state, is struck by a train.  

Tackling the film by Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger, with music by Bernard Herrmann, is an ambitious task. Obviously, film is without limits as far as settings and editing go. But Bourne and Brotherston do amazing things with Proscenium, spinning it to take us back and forth between Covent Garden in London, and Paris, flipping our points of view between watching the stage, and watching the audience and foregrounded backstage antics. With other scenic changes, we jump to Monaco, the south of France, a dance studio, a salon. At one point, the proscenium's curtain is pulled half open, revealing Lermontov's study (with a kitschy bronze statue of a foot in a toe shoe); it rotates simply and brilliantly to reveal a shabby flat where Vicky and Julian restlessly pace.  

Ashley Shaw and Dominic North. Photo: Johan Persson

I caught the cast with Ashley Shaw and Dominic North as the young couple, and Sam Archer as Lermontov. (In some celebrity casting, Sara Mearns alternates as Vicky in New York shows, and Marcelo Gomes as Julian throughout the show's tour.) Shaw impressively evokes the spirit and bearing of the film's star, Moira Shearer. Perhaps more than most of Bourne's past productions, The Red Shoes demands ballet technique of its female lead, although I had to remind myself that most of the ballet is a caricature. It also requires Broadway worthy charisma and projection through physical means alone. And, unlike film's ability to show a close-up (and therefore emotion), we are never very close to Vicky's face, so her body must do the talking. 

While it is greatly entertaining, there are some weak spots. Character development is hasty and somewhat shallow (in part due to the lack of language), which provides the audience with less reasons to become as empathetic as when watching the film. The front of a locomotive is ferociously frightening in the end scene, if somewhat tonally jarring. And City Center's stage felt somewhat too small for the production, but Bourne is a master of creating high-impact movement with limited breadth. Dancers perch on furniture and stamp, clap and twist, which is echoed in spots around the stage. He uses vertical space as much as lateral, compressing a huge amount of action into a compact cubic area.

Bortherston also designed the costumes, flattering 1940s influenced fitted and flared dresses and high-waisted trousers. But it is his Proscenium that steals the show—swiveling, sliding, revealing and hiding the cast members, who dart through it and around it to unravel the story. The Red Shoes is another entry in Bourne's sui generis canon, one that we New Yorkers can only wish to see more of.

Thomas Adès—Composing and Performing with Friends

Polaris. Photo: Andrew Lang

Thomas Adès: Concentric Paths—Movements in Music featured four choreographers who set dances to pre-existing works by the British composer, produced by Sadler's Wells London and at City Center as part of the White Light Festival. The highlight—the composer played piano or conducted for all four works, with the Orchestra of St. Luke's and the Calder Quartet. Two veteran dancemakers were included—the ubiquitous Wayne McGregor, and Karole Armitage. But the revelations were the dances by Crystal Pite, who created a giant 264-limbed organism, and Alexander Whitley, whose velvety, muscular style captivated. These four dances and their requisite personnel—prime among them the composer, hard at work—make this scale of presentation a rarity. 

Pite's Polaris was easily the most popular piece on the bill, deploying 66 black-clad NYU students in mesmerizing shapes and formations, through which energy rippled and parted, like "the wave" done by fans in a baseball stadium, or magnetic filings being drawn to and fro. It is set to the pseudonymic 2010 composition by Adès, which includes a wondrous, yearning piano line, shades of a Bach symphony, and fractured notes coalescing into harmonic, organized order in the finale as the crowd looked up in anticipation, as if greeting ET's ship. 

In one scene, the dancers look like praying mantises, crouching low to the floor, elbows up; the insect evocation recurred in roiling swarms and mind-hive behavior. Kudos to lighting designer Tom Visser, who created an atmosphere of eerie moonlight and darkness, and Jay Gower Taylor's plowed-field-textured backdrop augmenting the alienscape feel. Pite's fluid and incredibly well-drilled piece would not be out of place on So You Think You Can Dance, or in an Olympics opening show, and it was a welcome addition on a highbrow slate.

The Grit in the Oyster. Photo: Andrew Lang

Alexander Whitley is a British choreographer who has spent time with the Royal and the Birmingham Royal Ballets, but whose work is rarely seen in New York. For The Grit in the Oyster, he chose Adès' 2000 Piano Quintet, which the composer played onstage with the Calder Quartet. Dancing were Natalie Allen, Wayne Parsons, and in particular the pliant and warm Antonette Dayrit, who led off and finished with an absorbing solo passage. Whitley's style is informed by ballet, but it's performed barefoot. At no point does any movement appear to be catalyzed simply for its own sake; the impetus arises unbidden and is carried through the dancers' bodies and limbs organically. It comes across as unaffected, muscular, and feline in its elegance and innate physicality. He frequently integrates floor work, building upon it with deeply planted lunges and triangular braced limbs; lifts include diamond- or scissor-shaped leg formations. The music begins with a dark piano line, and grows as all five instruments join in—fractured violin lines, warm cellos, darting rhythms, plucked and sawed strings. 

It's in contrast to McGregor's phrasing in Outlier (2010), which feels abound with random starts and stops. His ballet looks effortful and self-conscious, decorated with mannerisms and oddities. Adès' Concentric Paths violin concerto (2005) shocks from time to time with a seismic "boom" chord, threaded with keening or tumbling melodic lines. The dancers of McGregor's company wring the most out of his inside-out, hyperextended vocabulary but apart from its impressive athleticism, it fails to move.

The fourth work stands apart for its literary derivation: Armitage's Life Story (1999) which uses the same-titled composition by Adès and poem by Tennessee Williams. Ruka Hatua-Saar and Emily Wagner take the stage in front of Adès on piano and soprano Anna Dennis. The narrative ponders the aftermath of a feverish romantic encounter, apparent in the dancers' brisk flirtations and forthright exchanged gazes. Armitage injects wit and sassiness into the duet, which mirrors the character of the aria—vaulting octaves with free abandon in dialogue with the piano part, and in turn, in dialogue with the dancers. 

Au revoir, Sylvie

Sylvie Guillem in Bye. Photo: Bill Cooper

The mature, modern prima ballerina can express her artistry in so many ways apart from wishing to be cast in the repertory of her choice. These days, customized, or vanity, “projects” are not uncommon. In New York this week, Sylvie Guillem’s Life in Progress, at New York City Center, celebrated her farewell to American stages at the age of 50. Nowhere in sight were toe shoes or plucked feathers; rather, she chose repertory by leading modernists Akram Khan and Mats Ek, with a duet by William Forsythe danced by guest artists from his company.

Khan’s Technê, a US premiere, featured Guillem squat-walking in a circle like an animal around an oddly uncredited, sculptural mesh metal tree, touching it as if it were an interloper, to live music by Alies Sluiter. This study of odd slinky moves punctuated with an occasional whipped spin or leg gave Guillem chances to show off her extension and feet (but not her copper hair, covered by a brunette cropped wig).

DUO2015 by William Forsythe, with score by Thom Willems, was danced by two of his company members, Brigel Gjoka and Riley Watts, both superb translators of his humorous, torqued style. Unfortunately, in this program designed around Guillem, it proved to be the most kinetically interesting. Careful poses, at times contortions, mixed with bursting phrases; they retreated upstage into the dark, and then darted forward in spins and quick tours. It was a reminder of how well-suited Guillem is for Forsythe’s contemporary style, which relies on a foundation of ballet around which to build anti-balletic shapes. Memories would have to do.

Brigel Gjoka and Riley Watts in DUO2015. Photo: Bill Cooper

Guillem returned with Emanuela Montanari in Russell Maliphant’s Here & After (also a US premiere). To Andy Cowton’s mystical, pulsing strings, the orange-clad duo was bathed in similar shades of striated light. They swept their arms in ovals and around one another’s head, crafting swirls and curves in synchronicity, clockwork-style. An exercise in style and timing, it didn’t reveal much about the two dancers.

The finale was suitably titled Bye, a reprise from Guillem’s 2012 stint at the Koch. It’s understandable why she would want to include it—a symbolic farewell that shows her stepping into, or returning to, another life. Its dramatic emphasis allowed Guillem to strike some singular poses to show off her lines, but the frumpy costume (by set designer Katrin Brännström) did her no favors. The packed house applauded heartily as it bade farewell to Guillem the dancer. But given her curiosity and resourcefulness, who knows in what capacity we might next encounter her?

Fall for Dance—Maturing, But Still Sweet

Vuyani Dance Theatre's Keaoleboga Seodigeng and Gladwell Rakoma. Photo: John Hogg

Fall for Dance has continued to evolve over the years. Less prominent are the super young crowds, the spontaneous whoops and hollers, and the programming that targeted these. The fare has become moderately more ambitious, less blatantly accessible, and the programs edited to run two hours or less (in early seasons, they were jam packed and exhausting in length). While the zazz and hysteria are gone, the festival is still a terrific sampling of dance from all over, at a reasonable ticket price. I caught three programs.

Black Grace, a troupe from New Zealand, performed two works choreographed by Neil Ieremia, displaying strength, precise timing, vocalization, and body percussion. The men, bare chested and muscular in Minoi (1999), embodied the fearsomeness that would surely rank them as dominant among humans. The women, wearing flowing slip dresses, moved more fluidly in the New York premiere of Pati Pati (2009); all joined in the ending. 

San Francisco Ballet's Variations for Two Couples (2012), by Hans van Manen, included Sofiane Sylve, in a welcome return to New York (in her prior time with NYCB, she exuded the glamour and fervor comparable to current company diva Sara Mearns), with Luke Ingham, Vanessa Zahorian, and Carlos Quenedit. The dance appealed in its simplicity and calm pacing to a varied and atmospheric medley of music by Britten, Piazzolla, and others. A simple straightening of a curved port de bras spoke volumes.

Two stars—Fang-Yi Sheu, lately pursuing independent projects, and Yuan Yuan Tan (a principal with San Francisco Ballet) performed Russell Maliphant's Two x Two (2009). A bit of an oddity well-suited to mature dancers looking for divergent dance vehicles, it was all about Michael Hulls' lighting—two distant boxes, with increasingly bright borders which illuminated slashing feet and hands. The women moved their arms and torsos fluently, writhed, and extended their legs on occasion, but with such eloquent dancers, it was a disappointment not to see more of their artistry.

It was kind of a big deal that Mark Morris' Words (to Mendelssohn performed live) premiered

Mark Morris Dance Group, Words. Photo: Ani Collier

at Fall for Dance, which primarily showcases tried and true works. It was the eve of the company's diverging tours to Europe and Asia. Morris explores the simplest of human moves in this work, punctuated by a silk drop carried cross stage to hide dancers' comings and goings. They wear multi-hued, unisex surplice tank tops and bermuda shorts (designed by Maile Okamura, a company member sadly absent from the stage for this performance), flattering to no one but satisfyingly functional. 

Morris' movement of course emphasizes the rhythms within the score, sometimes obviously, at other times playfully. Two men gesture conversationally; a pair of dancers take turns curving themselves in attitudes with arched backs around the other. Skipping and spinning looked novel and fun, as if we all might be able to hop onstage and join in, although Morris' dancers are experts at making it look easy. The dancers trudged and leaned on one another, exhausted children, or wound and rapidly unwound their legs, fluttering their hands. They swung invisible baseball bats, and formed lines and then rings of three, tossing their heads gleefully from side to side. Words will be performed by eight dancers on tour; 16 danced here, providing 16 interpretations of innocent pleasures.  

The third  program was all over the place, mixing genres, but feeling jagged and heavy in the process, in part due to the works chosen. South Africa's Vuyani Dance Theatre opened with Umnikelo (2011), choreographed by Luyanda Sidiya. This admirable troupe spares no effort toward gender equality, which is so far from classical dance's norm. The same shiny white tunics and pants are worn by all members, who have shaved or closely-cropped heads. When the company is not moving in unison, women partner men, lifting and suspending them in the air. The lead drummer is female, extremely unusual. The movement is an amalgam of modern, African, and martial arts, and one or more of the dancers at a given moment join in the vocalizing. While overly long for this program, the group was met with raucous applause in its choreographed ovation.

Sarasota Ballet's Nicole Padilla & Kate Honea in Frederick Ashton's Les Patineurs. Photo Gene Schiavone

If there could be a more jarring juxtaposition than shifting to Sara Mearns & Co. in Stairway to Paradise, I can't think of it. Choreographed by Joshua Bergasse (agh, Smash, you were too something for this world) this MGM number, with its nine Fosse-esque men giving us their best forced smiles and biggest jumps, features the uber ballerina—well, mainly her nonpareil gams, well-displayed in her tiny black costume with fringe and rhinestones, and capped by sparkly character shoes—stepping on the mens' hands, or being vaulted precariously in the air to be caught in various louche positions. Apart from looking fabulous, Mearns did appear self-consciously showy, which is not typical for her—or at least in this "please love me" manner. 

Trisha Brown's Son of Gone Fishin' was a tough piece to include in FFD; even for Brown fans, it's among her grittier works. Performed by her company, in a state of transition and uncertainty in the wake of her absence, it felt all the more urgent to appreciate its fleeting moments. But this piece in particular takes a certain state of mind, with its structure: A-B-C-center-C-B-A, and its fractured and at times irritating sound track. It left me impatient while trying to soak it in fully. It was another display of gender neutrality, which Brown has always put forth.
Peony Pavilion, by the National Ballet of China, with choreography by Fei Bo was an oddity. This version was adapted for the City Center stage, and focused on the lavish costumes—embroidered silk robes in jewel tones, or modernized interpretations—sheer silk with silver embellishments, and clean black and white costumes. I suppose it was gratifying to get a taste of the company, which hasn't been in New York in years. A glimpse is better than nothing, but it did seem a minor waste to see just 20 minutes of this work.

National Ballet of China_Zhu Yan and Zhang Jian_Photo by Liu Yang and Si Tinghong

The final program of FFD was another ambitious mix. Wayne McGregor|Random Dance's Far started it off with real drama—four women held flaming torches to light a couple's first several minutes of dance, exiting one by one as the stage lights warmed. To a soprano aria, it felt intoxicatingly romantic. The work extended into several more sections of groups and pairs, lit inventively in a matrix of light squares, or a wash of silvery light. McGregor pushes and tweaks the classical language expressionistically, pushing arches and developpés ever deeper, sending waves through torsos. The music (by Ben Frost) grows snarling and harsh, with wild animals tearing through now and again. I can't decide if it's a utopian or dystopian vision of future ballet.

Pontus Lidberg was commissioned by FFD to create This Was Written on Water, a duet for two of ABT's newer principals, Isabella Boylston and James Whiteside, to music by Stefan Levin for a live string trio, and will become a part of Lidberg's upcoming film. Dance is but one creative element for Lidberg, who designed the falling-leaves decor. Harriet Jung and Reid Bartelme, who just performed with Lar Lubovitch last week, created the costumes, which included an elegant jade dress that fits Boylston like a glove. The movement was fluid and pretty, particularly on these two clean-lined dancers, but apart from a flexed foot or half cartwheel, felt fairly unremarkable, and more generic than Lidberg's ground-hugging passages seen in Within.

Aakash Odedra supplied the requisite indigenous dance on the bill. A variation on Kathak, Nritta was distinguished by rapid spins, loud stomps, rising on his bare toe tips, and space-eating stage crossings. But the main attraction, and festival closer, was the Sarasota Ballet in Les Patineurs (1937) by Frederick Ashton to music by Giacomo Meyerbeer. It's been awhile since this ballet has been seen in New York. The clever adaptation of skating moves—chassées, spins, backward chugs, even humorous falls—to ballet remains irresistible and innovative. The sets and costumes, by William Chappell, add confectionary appeal, and the young, fresh-faced dancers performed sparklingly. It was a delectable and memorable close to yet another Fall for Dance.  

Martha Graham, Reduced

PeiJu Chien-Pott and Lorenzo Pagano in Echo

I'm all for brevity—there is no sweeter lyric than "one hour, no intermission"—but not necessarily when it comes to reducing full-length Martha Graham dances to 20 minutes. The one-act version of Clytemnestra (1958) led off the gala evening program at City Center on Wednesday, with Katherine Crockett in the lead role. Introductory projected synopses provided the dance's basic plotlines and I suppose getting a taste of the myth is better than none at all. But with so many shorter dances to choose from, does it make sense to cut one of Graham's best-known full-length works?

Crockett stands out as the glamazon in the company, and her recent stints in acting with SITI Company no doubt have enhanced her dramatic skills. The other solo roles are so reduced in this short version that they make little impact. The six Furies, by their number, reinforce the visceral impact of Graham's style. And, as always, Noguchi's spare, sculptural set pieces resonate with the svelte, flattering womens' costumes by Graham and Helen McGehee. 

Panorama (1935) is a large group work danced here by Graham 2 and the Hellenic Dance Company. It has political shadings—the potential power of the people to bring about revolution and order, and more specifically, art's ability to effect change—but also can be a technical showcase for students or an entire large company. Clad in all red, the 35 dancers rush across the stage in small groups and through various traffic patterns; they mass, form a circle, and move in a ring, stopping to stamp a metatarsal in a kind of call to arms. Five are left onstage, and each dancer, suddenly filled with calm, strikes a different sculptural pose. The metaphorical possibilities are rich, but it could also simply be a formal exercise.

Andonis Foniadakis' Echo made its premiere on Wednesday. Narcissus (Lloyd Mayor) dances with his reflection (Lorenzo Pagano); they're observed by Echo (PeiJu Chien-Pott), who remains boxed out of their ego-fest. Foniadakis' style is quite engaging at first—swirling, cursive movement phrases that recall tai-chi for their flowing energy and logical continuity. Anastasios Sofroniou designed the knife-pleat, long skirts (that's nearly a trend, what with Ballets de Monte-Carlo's similarly pleated sheaths last week; do I hear three?) that flare out and float down like rippling sea cucumbers*, further expressing the movements' impetus. But there is little shift in dynamic, and the phrases take on a sameness. Seven shadow-like dancers in dark blue (the women wear half dresses, for some reason; the men turtlenecks) emerge from the shadows like harrowing restless spirits. Chien-Pott gets to swing her long ponytail in a circle, in a show of frustration, and Mayor and Pagano make convincing mirror images. It ended a brief, somewhat harried hour-long performance before the gala began—an odd, un-Martha-like act of dance deferring to fundraising. Not that I'm complaining.

* Post-script: A reader kindly pointed out that sea cucumbers are slug-like creatures familiar to us through Chinese banquets, not the fringy, rippling things I am picturing. So let's say, like parachutes. 

Making Old Ballets New: Puppets, Vampires, and Fates

Matthew Bourne's Sleeping Beauty. Photo: Simon Annand

Why do we need story ballets, if we do? If Tchaikovsky/Petipa's The Sleeping Beauty, now over a century old, is about the life of ballet itself, how does that speak to ballet and stories today? Why do we return to this tale, and to other "princess" ballets, including Cinderella, both in New York this fall?

Matthew Bourne's Sleeping Beauty: A Gothic Romance, at City Center through November 3, makes a strong case for modern relevance. So much of the original's magic has been stated simply as givens: Carabosse's overreaction at being overlooked on a party invitation list, future telling, and a variety of spells. Now, we in the 21st century know that's all a bunch of hooey, am I right? But vampires! That's something we can all get behind and believe without impunity.

Of course, there are still spells and magic in Bourne's version, which seems to exists more or less owing to the enduring strength of Tchaikovsky's score. But the added twist of vampires and their knack for eternal life certainly simplifies some plot gaps. Bourne is not alone in being frustrated that Aurora has not traditionally met her prince until the last half of the ballet, even if it did distinguish Aurora as among the most challenging and independent roles for a ballerina. Here, she meets her guy Leo (the Royal Gamekeeper, complete with a pair of coneys) early on, setting up a relationship for which she can yearn. Bourne neatly gives Leo a fighting chance with a little eternity on his side. As Aurora, Ashley Shaw is impetuous and charming, and Dominic North, as Leo, lanky and wide-eyed.

Does the vampire angle make it relevant? The same as hoodies and selfies, also prominent in Bourne's version, to an extent, as pop culture timestamps. No doubt the fanged legend is having a moment, despite being centuries old. Most importantly, aside from the score, Lez Brotherston's fantastic sets and costumes bring this ballet to vivid life. This longtime collaborator of Bourne's transforms the somewhat limited City Center stage into an enchanting diorama. Sumptuous bronze curtains drape over the primary opening—Aurora's bedroom window—which offers both entrance and escape. Another terrific idea was to make baby Aurora a puppet, letting her terrorize her guardians and react to the action, rather than lie in a bassinet like a loaf of bread.

Dancers ride on conveyer belts upstage (a trick that begs, why has no one done that before?). Leafless birch trees peppered with lanterns evoke a spartan wilderness. A gigantic full moon shadows Aurora like a guardian spirit. An Edwardian tea party feels straight out of Seurat's atelier. A modern-day nightclub lit by stingingly bright cobalt and red lighting is convincingly claustrophobic and sweat-inducing. Brotherston's fantastic feather-skirted costumes flow and flounce whimsically. And Bourne's bold movement is a latter-day relative of ballet, done in soft or street shoes, or even barefoot. It's accessible, yet still respectful of its source. Of all choreographers working today, Bourne has most successfully built a bridge between the classics and what the public wants. Don't be surprised if this turns up on Broadway.

Maria Kochetkova as Cinderella, with her back-up boys, the Fates. Photo: Erik Tomasson

Meanwhile, Christopher Wheeldon's version of Cinderella was at the Koch Theater, winding up San Francisco Ballet's two-week run. Besides his own reliable facility with the ballet idiom and an accomplished company, Wheeldon has the ace cards of the Prokofiev score, which has moments of brilliance amid spans of melodic milquetoast, and the talents of the trickster puppeteer Basil Twist, who crafted the two most memorable scenes. In one, dancers twirl what appear to be parasols, others wear horse heads, and Cinderella first appears in her signature golden ball gown, which sports a parachute train. In a brief, magical moment, they all assemble to form her pumpkin carriage, train billowing like a sail. In the second, a huge tree's bowers waft up and down, and receive projections of rippling, somewhat sinister leaves, or transform hues to mark the seasons.

Like Bourne, Wheeldon tweaked the original story, morphing the fairy godmother into four male Fates, giving the prince a best friend who conspires with him on pranks, and making Cinderella an orphan taken in by a family, including one sympathetic daughter who is bullied by her older sister. I saw Francine Chung and Carlos Quenedit in the lead roles, both perfectly capable in several romantic duets, if lacking in the intangibles that can transport such characters beyond us mortals. Chung has a sweet presence that connotes humility as well as a burgeoning confidence, and Quenedit a rakish flair.

The four Fates are Cinderella's regular companions and protectors; one lifts her in a draping arch as another then secures her by a leg, like a flag on a pole; she repeatedly rises and falls thusly. It's a comforting device, even if it softens the idea that Cinderella is completely alone in the world before meeting her prince. Wheeldon has a way with creating fluid, undulating, horizontal movements, and crafting subtly inventive partnering maneuvers. Another twist is the presence of several Spirits, essentially the seasons given metaphorical traits: Lightness, Generosity, Mystery, Fluidity. It's a lot to package neatly, and despite the garishness of many of Julian Crouch's costumes, and the relative flatness of many of the sets, leaves some lasting impressions.

It seems as though these particular story ballets persist in no small part because of their scores, even if both are not either composers' best. One modern tack is to string together bits of classical music, or perhaps pop standards, most likely destined for Broadway. But at a time when there's a scarcity of support for new symphonic music, let alone commissions for full-length ballet productions, choreographers are revisiting the romantic scores again and again, looking for ways to make them relevant. The puppetry in both supplies moments of magic, and Bourne comes closest.