Lovette Delivers at Taylor; Alex Katz at Guggenheim; Transverse Orientation at BAM

John Harnage in Solitaire. Photo: Whitney Browne

"Taylor—A New Era" 

These simple, clear words headlined the cover of Paul Taylor Dance Company’s Playbill for its 2022 fall run at the Koch Theater. Since the later years of the founding choreographer’s life (he died in 2018), under the leadership of Artistic Director Michael Novak, the organization has been trying out different strategies for moving forward without new work by Taylor. After a confusing tango with the Paul Taylor American Modern Dance umbrella (begun by Taylor himself) under which a varied slate of American choreographers were commissioned to create new works on the Taylor dancers, things seem to have reverted back to the old PTDC moniker, or simply Taylor.

Branding aside, the programming concept has certainly evolved. The Orchestra of St. Luke’s continues to be the house band, but this time, it performed musical selections with no dance on a handful of programs. While I enjoyed hearing excerpts of Philip Glass’ The Hours by the orchestra, I couldn’t help feeling that it was a bit of a wasted opportunity to showcase the talented dancers who were backstage. Nonetheless, it highlighted the importance of live music to the company.

On a bright note, Lauren Lovette’s premiere of Solitaire is further proof of her creative talent, and that naming her resident choreographer for five years was a wise choice by Novak, if somewhat of a gamble. Substantial on many levels, Solitaire featured the crisp, elegant John Harnage in the sort of poet-on-a-journey role not unfamiliar to fans of Taylor’s oeuvre. It is set to music by Swiss composer Ernest Bloch, with dramatic string sections and a sense of gravitas and impetus. Santo Loquasto designed costumes and the set, which included an ominous diamond-shaped element that loomed like a guillotine over a serene mountainscape, descending and rising.

But what pops is Lovette’s facility with making modern phrases that flow organically, but which challenge the skilled company’s technical chops seemingly beyond what most of the repertory has until now. That’s not to say that Taylor’s vocabulary is not challenging, but Lovette’s accomplished ballet career heretofore has likely seeped into her movement—in the best way. It’s not ballet, but there’s an integrity and underlying structure that comes across. She has also found a way to convey an unspecific narrative that feels like a rich story waiting to be written. Solitaire was sandwiched between Taylor’s joyful, bittersweet Company B and Syzygy, a study in freneticism done in a completely different vocabulary, forming a satisfying slate with breadth.

Shawn Lesniak and Jada Pearman in The Green Table. Photo: Ron Thiele

Speaking of which, the season included Kurt Jooss’ The Green Table, another example of the expansion of the troupe’s artistic horizons. (It had been remounting classics of American modern dance in pre-Covid seasons, but not by international artists.) This classic 1932 work about the senselessness of war, and how it is wrought by those far from the battleground, remains timeless and gut-wrenching. It makes sense for Taylor to take on this legendary dance, with its muscular phrasing and trenchant messaging. A bonus was seeing Shawn Lesniak in the role of Death (once danced by Jooss himself), carving sharp swaths, and forming perfect, machined angles with his long limbs. In other dances, without the lavish mask, makeup and headdress, I could see Lesniak’s gifts anew, and look forward to seeing him in more and more big roles.

Madelyn Ho and Alex Clayton in Syzygy. Photo: Whitney Browne

As much as (most of) the previous generation of dancers is missed, it is a pleasure to become acquainted with the new one. The dancer who seems to now be the most cast, at least in prominent roles, is Madelyn Ho, who was in everything I saw over three programs. She counters her small size, which might be less visible to the uppermost seats, with an extra dash of verve and joy. She dances with delicacy and articulation, plus ferocity and athleticism. Arden Court showed off many of the newer men—the explosive Alex Clayton, a soaring Devon Louis, and the sheer joy of Austin Kelly.

Maria Ambrose, John Harnage, Shawn Lesniak, Jada Pearman,
Kristin Draucker in Polaris. Photo by Ani Collier

Alex Katz—Gathering, Guggenheim Museum

The season coincided with Gathering, a Guggenheim retrospective of Alex Katz’s work, who designed many works for Taylor. Two outstanding Taylor/Katz collabs from the 1970s—Polaris and Sunset—were performed on the season finale program. Both display Taylor’s varied genius. Polaris, in which the same movement is performed by two different casts, with varied music, lighting and mood, rendering two completely unique dances; and Sunset, with its lush, romantic score by Elgar (plus loons), its old world approach to flirting and courting, and the contrasting depiction of an unrequited bond between two soldiers.

Paul Taylor, by Alex Katz

Katz’s show at the Guggenheim includes a portrait of Taylor, as well as a painting of the company performing. It’s hard to say what makes Katz’s work feel so quintessentially American—the distinct light, the flat expanses, the reductive line and composition, or all of the above? The exhibition includes some of his more intrepid experiments, such as painted aluminum cutouts (he created a bunch of dogs like this for Taylor’s Diggity) and repeated images of his wife Ada within one picture. The coincidence of his retrospective with a featured spot in the Taylor season underscored the artist’s continual output in the last half century.

Transverse Orientation, BAM

BAM presented Transverse Orientation by Dmitris Pappaionnou, whose Great Tamer had been shown a few years ago. The big imprimatur for Pappaionnou was that he was the first choreographer to be commissioned by Tanztheater Wuppertal Pina Bausch after her sudden death, as well as creating the opening ceremony for the 2004 Athens Olympics. So many artists have been influenced by Bausch, but most have been careful to avoid direct quotes. But Pappaionnou took the plunge with Transverse, inserting vignettes evocative of Bausch—a woman transformed into a fountain, and a giant wall built of foam blocks which toppled forward. Somehow it felt okay, as if enough time has passed, and because he has collaborated with TWPB. Tanztheater lives, and this iteration felt like a proper homage to Bausch and another phase in the form's continuum.

I can’t say enough about the main protagonist in Transverse, a life-sized bull puppet designed by Nectarios Dionysatos. The dancers skillfully manipulated the bull’s head so as to act as how I imagine a bull would, although it was more Ferdinand than raging. Others moved his hooves and tail, also amazingly expressive. The bull served as a sort of id to man’s ego, represented in oft-naked performers. 

The piece is constructed of many scenes, most short and some quite long, that evoke a range of sensations—humor, awe, absurdity, pathos, and so on. Magically, images crystallize from thin air, as a madonna-like woman cradled in a sheaf, bearing a dripping object that turns out to be a baby. She is subsumed into the stage floor, which is torn up to reveal a lagoon. A man swabs at the pool futilely with an old mop. I thought of melting permafrost and our inability to take action in the face of an existential crisis. And then walking to the subway past the Opera House's load-in doors, where the lagoon was draining onto Ashland Place, of the magic of theater to deliver such messages.

NYCB's Fashion Gala 2017

Pulcinella Variations. Photo: Paul Kolnik

When costuming dance nowadays, rehearsal type clothes are becoming fairly common. And why not? The price is right, the dancers can move freely, and really, we usually watch for the movement or story more than anything. But New York City Ballet’s fall “fashion gala” shines the spotlight equally on the fashion designers for the premieres, in this season’s case, of four ballets. Some of the costumes succeeded wonderfully, in addition to some of the dances. The premieres were unveiled at the gala, devoid of intermission as well as Peter Martins’ Chinoiserie study, The Chairman Dances (memorable for the wrong reasons), which will precede the four premieres in repertory in the coming weeks.


With 11 ballets now in the company’s repertory, and a number for other companies, Justin Peck could be excused for running out of ideas in such a short time. But his Pulcinella Variations demonstrates further artistic growth. Other than Alex Ratmansky, there is perhaps no classical ballet choreographer making such musical, flowing phrases organic to the vocabulary. If you think of ballet as a language built of letters, words, and phrases, these are full-blown paragraphs, properly punctuated. He knows the company’s dancers in and out, as well as their capabilities. Stravinsky’s Pulcinella Variations is a delightful choice, offering seven movements in which to showcase the varied skills of his peers. Most notable are Indiana Woodward, Anthony Huxley, and Tiler Peck (dancing with Gonzalo Garcia). All dance lucidly, imaginatively, and expand and collapse time with their superb command of technique. Tsumori Chisato designed the surreal, eye-popping costumes with huge eye and floral motifs, and while these are among the most memorable couture in recent seasons of NYCB's fashion galas, the dance itself is just as notable.

The Wind Still Brings. Photo: Paul Kolnik

When young choreographers receive big commissions, it’s not a surprise that their tendency is to use all the amazing talent they have to work with in big, showy ways—kind of like flooring the Ferrari to see how fast it accelerates. But as a viewer, that can be wearying; it’s good to see Troy Schumacher taking a deep breath and infusing his new work with some contemplative moments.


Schumacher (recently promoted to soloist), with his premiere The Wind Still Brings to music by William Walton, shows artistic maturity and emotional generosity to augment his usual youthful, athletic style of movement. There are large group passages (he employs 14 dancers here) in which bodies pour on and offstage, coalescing and dispersing, with the requisite duets and solos. But it’s the dreamlike middle section that makes an impression. The dancers spread out over the stage and lie down. A woman wanders on and lies down beside another, who rises seemingly in response; the first woman then also stands. The pair moves to another pair, and thus all four are on their feet, and so on, like a message spreading steadily through whispers. It’s quiet, thoughtful, and feels like many private moments strung together. Jonathan Saunders designed the varied, striking peach and blue costumes; each design is worn by a man and a woman, including skirts and tunics, and the mens’ hair is slicked back, lending a fascinating overall feeling of androgyny.

Composer's Holiday. Photo: Paul Kolnik

The 18-year-old Gianna Reisen, an apprentice at the Ballet Semperoper Dresden and a graduate of School of American Ballet, choreographed Composer’s Holiday to music by Lukas Foss. Although 12 dancers perform, there’s an intimacy to the proceedings that makes it feel like a smaller group. There are striking pictures: a woman is carried aloft in the opening scene; a couple leaps over a line of dancers, trying to touch; another woman walks on mens’ backs like stepping stones. The classical style contains challenging flourishes and quirks (a woman is carried off, slung over a man’s shoulder fireman-carry style). Virgil Abloh designed the costumes; the womens’ tutus evoke Degas’ above the knee length skirts, the men wear dark patterned tops.

Not Our Fate. Photo: Paul Kolnik

Not Our Fate, by Lauren Lovette, features a pairing between Taylor Stanley and Preston Chamblee, in addition to eight others. All the men wear timeless white t-shirts and slim black pants, designed by Fernando Garcia and Laura Kim. The women sport fitted black jackets and voluminous white scarf skirts that show movement, but overpower their bodies and lines, in addition to feeling archaic, especially in contrast to the men. The score, by Michael Nyman, is typical of his flowing, repetitious phrasing, which after awhile feels like the relentless noise from a jackhammer down the block. Nonetheless, Lovette creates inventive formations, such as when the group forms perpendicular lines around a featured soloist, moving to each stage quadrant. And a motif is memorably repeated in the final scene, when Stanley alights on Chamblee’s shoulder. We're not quite used to seeing same-gender couples, but we're well on our way. And how refreshing is it that including a female choreographer or two is no longer newsworthy.

New York City Ballet's season runs through October 15.

Dance Notebook—Evidence and Romeo & Juliet

Annique Roberts in The Subtle One. Photo: Ayodele Casel

Evidence at the Joyce, Feb 24, 2015

A great distinction about Ronald Brown's 2014 dance, The Subtle One, is its jazz score by Jason Moran, played live by his trio in Tuesday's performance at the Joyce Theater. It had been awhile since I'd heard jazz played live for dance; so much of what is played live falls under the Bang on a Can style of new music, often without a melody or flowing pulse. So it was a pleasure to hear music by Moran, who scored the film Selma, plus a song by Tarus Mateen, who played bass.

The dance is, like its title, a subtle one. The smoldering star Annique Roberts begins moving at an even, moderate pace, marked by unfurling arms and a oft-repeated balance in which the she reaches forward yearningly with one arm. She is joined by the rest of the company, which breaks from briskly rhythmic ensemble sections into twos and threes, arms pumping like locomotive wheels. The work, while unspecific in story, refers to a stanza by Alan Harris about the strength of spirituality. The overall elegiac quality of the piece is enhanced by the white and peach-ombréd tunics, by Keiko Voltaire.

Beauty, Beast, and Balanchine

It's high ballet season at Lincoln Center. Pretty amazing that on any given day, for the last half of May anyway, there might ostensibly be 5000+ people simultaneously watching ballet within a couple of square acres of Manhattan. Crazy, right? Notes on last week, when I saw NYCB's All Balanchine program and ABT's Don Quixote.

ABT's Don Quixote, May 16, Met Opera House

Paloma Herrera. Photo: Gene Schiavone

Bear with me while I descend to clichés: it starred Beauty (Paloma Herrera as Kitri) and the Beast (Ivan Vasiliev as Basilio). Herrera's cool charm and elegant lines nicely balanced his kangaroo-like jumps and leaps. Her center was clearly spot-on that night as she sustained ridiculously long, watch-checking balances. And no one can extend a leg in second and present a perfectly arched foot with such care.  

Vasiliev adds scissor splits to jetés, does three revolutions in the air instead of the standard two, holds Herrera overhead on one hand while  relevé-ing on one foot... things that have no terms because no one else does them. It's bizarre and sensational, but it pushes male ballet beyond the limit, and that's exciting if not always beautiful. They're an unlikely pairing, but that also makes for an interesting, quirky dynamic.

Veronika Part and James Whiteside danced the second featured parts of street dancer Mercedes and toreador. He is well-suited to this juicy, if brief, morsel of ham, with its taut-bow lines and bang-bang rhythms. She looked happy to be in this midi skirt-swishing role, less stressed out than she can while bearing the full weight of primary leads. Part also danced the Queen of the Dryads, magisterial, Amazonian, and elegant, in full tutu.  

NYCB's All Balanchine program, May 13, Koch Theater
The selection of repertory showcased the depth of corps members and soloists.

Lauren Lovette and Anthony Huxley in Raymonda Variations. Photo: Paul Kolnik

Raymonda Variations (1961) featured Lauren Lovette, clean and sparkling, with Anthony Huxley, technically a perfectionist, if slightly bloodless; could benefit from partnering work.

In The Steadfast Tin Soldier (1975), Erica Pereira and Daniel Ulbricht made the most of this mostly syrupy fable saved by a poignant ending. The part of a toy soldier suits Ulbricht—physically superhuman, but whose facial expressions can lack nuance. Good to see Pereira, a victim of the "lost soloist" syndrome.

Le Tombeau de Couperin (1975), a b/w leotard ballet inspired by the intricate interactions of Baroque dance, which could also be read as square or folk dance. Comprising two "quadrilles" of 16 corps members who perform four movements—it feels like work to watch, after a time, and one can only imagine the effort that went into choreographing it—but there's a warmth and graciousness to it that resists the affect of modernism. 

Le Tombeau de Couperin. Photo: Paul Kolnik

As I've likely written before, Symphony in C (1947) is the big test of major companies' depth, skill, and musicality, and among my favorite high classical Balanchine works. 

• 1st movement: an injured Andrew Veyette was replaced with Zachary Catazaro to partner Tiler Peck. While Catazaro looks the part of a swain, he needs polishing and partnering rehearsal; all in due time.
• 2nd movement: The luminous Teresa Reichlin glittered extra brightly with the relatively new crystal-encrusted costumes. Tyler Angle is a consistently brilliant, suave partner, but that seems to mean that he is cast with the taller, often more difficult to handle women, rather than those of a more suitable relative height (as is his similarly-skilled brother, Jared). A pleasant problem, indeed.
• 3rd: Hey, there's the elusive Gonzalo Garcia!, dancing with corps member Ashly Isaacs, in the danciest section. They treated the lilting rhythms fairly lightly but suited one another well. 
• 4th: This section is really more like half a movement, but it's always a pleasure to see Taylor Stanley's technical confidence and charisma; here he danced with Ashley Laracey, featured more and more often, with reason.

This week brings "Classic Spectacular," a mixed bill at ABT including La Gaieté Parisienne, and Jewels at NYCB.

Premieres at New York City Ballet—JP & JR

Andrew Veyette & Sterling Hyltin in Everywhere We Go. Photo: Paul Kolnik

New York City Ballet's recent premiere of Justin Peck's Everywhere We Go is a truly ambitious, symphonic-scale work to a 40-minute, nine-movement score by Sufjan Stevens. It confirms the building suspicion that we have ballet's latest big choreographic talent in our midst, one still in his 20s and a soloist with the company. Don't be surprised if the dancing soon takes a back seat to an onslaught of high-profile commissions.

Peck continues to push himself and the dancers. Stevens' music can be thrillingly ornate, with fluttering flutes and clarion brass and pensive piano; at times, any of these instruments provide the beat. A choreographic tendency is to match some of these breakneck time signatures to the point where the most sure-footed dancers slip just trying to keep up; the trick is to push up to that line without crossing it. Peck very deliberately slows down some passages so they look like slo-mo, a filmic device that works to concentrate our focus, such as when Theresa Reichlen floats slowly amid a whirling crowd before whipping off some fouéttés.

Peck has great skill and an affinity for geometry and patterning. He creates fresh tableaux with the 25 dancers at hand, building structures one body at a time and then diminishing them in reverse. We see circles that blossom like flowers, matrices, wedges, lines, columns, clusters. This tinkertoy tendency is complemented by artist Karl Jensen's riveting backdrop, which at first evokes an Escher image of greys and blacks, and then morphs (kaleidoscope style, only vertically) to reveal negative spaces—bowties, octagons, squares—where light shines through. 

Maria Kowroski & Robert Fairchild. Photo: Paul Kolnik

A respect for ballet's fundamentals is felt, but there are small inventions that brand it. Arms held overhead in "fifth position," but with the palms pressed together, arms straight, like a diver; or arms held straight out while spinning, Dervish style. While Sterling Hyltin is lifted, she makes the shape of a ship's prow figurehead, and another time, she is tossed to a mosh pit of men while posing like a reclining flirt. 

There are some new partner pairings: the vibrant Tiler Peck with Amar Ramasar (Stevens says he wrote a section with them in mind), Robert Fairchild with Maria Kowroski, both romantics at heart; Andrew Veyette with Hyltin, an ideally proportioned pair. And Teresa Reichlin assumes the cool lone wolf role, dancing solo or with several men or a pair of dancers. Veyette in particular seems to have blossomed in this work; he is among the most athletic of the men, and here bounds and bursts across the stage, unfettered.

Recently retired dancer Janie Taylor designed the smart costumes—white/navy striped tops and white trunks/tights for the women, and color block unitards with a pink stripe for the men. It's great to see a dancer's knowledge of functionality and style put to use, especially in a company that has in recent seasons turned to haute couture designers.

The one drawback was the piece's length. There were also several false endings when the audience thought it was over, only to have another movement begin. On the other hand, the many sections lend themselves to being excerpted.

Do I know you? Photo: Paul Kolnik

While watching Les Bosquets, the prior week's premiere by artist JR (with help from Peter Martins), a mental image recurred—Mr. Monopoly lighting a cigar with a $100 bill. The sheer lunacy of the premise—giving creative rein to a non-choreographer, enlisting more than 40 dancers for the eight-minute work, engaging whatever it took to create the individually unique costumes (by Marc Happel)... like other recent commissions, it feels like a huge amount of resources thrown at essentially a pièce d'occasion, a giant gesture of artistic hubris/audience outreach.

In any case, this artistically dodgy premise seems to have worked in terms of outreach, to an extent. Thanks to publicity about the project, chatter revolved around JR and his dance, even if it was about how he has never choreographed. (JR created the mezzanine floor mural last season, featuring the company lying in artful poses as the audience walked on top of them.) How Martins had to interpret JR's concepts into actual dance steps. About Lil Buck, a non-ballerino. About how the piece was inspired by the 2005 riots in and near Paris.

Lil Buck and Lauren Lovette. Photo: Paul Kolnik

As for the work itself, it is memorable for the impression made by the sheer number of dancers comprising two gangs, basically good vs. bad. Divided by gender, the two sides confront one another and clash, creating a chaotic mass that culminates in a human mound. Admittedly, it's a very strange sensation to see Lil Buck gliding on his sneakered toes, snaking his liquid arms, and angling his legs into diamond shapes, next to Lauren Lovette in a white crinkly (Tyvek?) tutu, moving through classical ballet shapes. It had the effect of reducing Lil Buck's very personal style to an oddity, when he has created a distinct genre of hip-hop. In one scene, the two stand face to face in front of a huge video of their alternating faces. The lighting is so dim that you can't see what they're doing (the above photo appears far lighter than the live performance), but presumably they were just staring at mimed (and smaller, real) cameras.

It's also a surprise that this work was not the performance focus of gala night, because it had the devil-may-care attitude characteristic of such fare (Justin Peck's premiere took that honor). On the one hand, it's not a bad thing that Martins has enough artistic freedom to direct resources to an untested dance collaborator, but on the other hand, it's a lot of resources. But without such experiments, true talents like Peck might not be found.