#MeToo, from a viewer's standpoint

Andrew Veyette and Sterling Hyltin in Everywhere We Go, by Justin Peck. Photo: Paul Kolnik

The fallout of #MeToo has been surprisingly swift, with no end in sight. It seems that there have been abuses in every field, wherever power is there to wield. The seemingly genteel world of dance has not been immune, most prominently with the resignation of Peter Martins at NYCB. Past accusations of spousal abuse are public knowledge, but the list of aggressions to dancers and students lengthens each day, not to mention the DWI's that Martins has received, including last week's.

I don't mean to diminish the charges brought to light in recent weeks, which are shocking to hear about, much less live through. But I bring up another sort of abuse of power that has simmered throughout the two decades I've been watching NYCB, and that is from a viewer's standpoint—the commandeering of resources by Martins to create new work for NYCB over the years, and the continuing imposition of that repertory on audiences despite lack of critical support. 

The company's website says he has made over 80 dances, most for NYCB, in four decades. Add up all the hours of time, and bags of money, invested in the creation and presentation of these dances, and no doubt it would be staggering. Dancers, rehearsal directors, composers, musicians, set/costume designers/fabricators, administration to support it all. But audience time as well, for not only do ticket buyers pay a premium price for their seats, but their time is valuable—especially in New York where there are dozens of dance events a week from which to choose.

A few of his dances hold up to scrutiny, including his first, Calcium Light Night. But nearly all of Martins' choreography that I've seen is unremarkable, roughly in the manner of Balanchine, but with passages of absolutely rote ballet that any competent teacher might put together in ballet class as an exercise. Some of it is truly pointless. I've often felt angry after being forced to sit through his dances if I wanted to see works by some of the other far more talented choreographers in repertory. It's like he's flaunting his power at the world—"I don't care if it's any good, or if you like it; I'm the one in power and I can do what I want." When no one stops him, why shouldn't he?

The Wind Still Brings, by Troy Schumacher. Photo: Paul Kolnik

Another kind of arrogance is seen in, perversely, his blind belief that NYCB's nonpareil dancers are able to perform too many steps, joined together clumsily, done too fast, and come out unscathed. As often as not, they fail. Why make these top-notch dancers look foolish? Is it a kind of challenge to them from Martins, like "bet you can't do this"? He himself was an accomplished principal, so perhaps he is measuring everyone against his own skills. I also recall silently cursing the ubiquitous partnering where a man lugs a woman around, flipping her in various ways. Of course Martins is not alone in this tendency, but when the choreography is so consistently tepid, these things tend to stick out even more.

With the advent of the Fashion Galas, begun in 2012, lavish costumes were created by Valentino and numerous other name designers. Certainly these galas have raised enormous amounts, but the expenses have likely been proportionately high. They have been notable events, but in a certain sense, the dance took a back seat to the fashion (although less so in recent years with the recruitment of emerging designers).

In the near past, with the emergence of such talented choreographers as Ratmansky, Wheeldon, and Peck, the number of Martins dances in season repertory has seemed to dwindle. However, he has not been above inserting an existing work of his on a program before eagerly anticipated commissions by younger choreographers, even at the last minute. You got the sense that he knew he had a captive audience that had no choice but to sit through Bal de Couture once more to see Justin Peck's latest work.

Martins had plenty of merits to be allowed to remain in his post for so long. He is to be credited for fostering the talents of the men above, as well as founding the Diamond Institute in 1992 to develop younger choreographers. Commissions have included a number of women recently, such as Annabelle Lopez Ochoa, Lauren Lovette, and Gianna Reisen. The technique has remained at a high level, with a whole new generation of accomplished principals emerging in the last decade. The company looks fantastic in repertory by Peck and Ratmansky, who craft interesting and challenging movement without making the dancers look as if they can't handle it. As a long chapter in this illustrious company comes to a close, we look forward to the future, which has in a sense already begun. 

Fashionable Premieres at New York City Ballet

Tiler Peck and Robert Fairchild in Funérailles. Photo: Paul Kolnik

Things have been so optimistic in the ballet world in recent years, that we can now reasonably expect to see good stuff on a New York City Ballet slate with four new works, even if three of them were generated with an eye toward the fashion angle of the season's gala.

Funérailles, a Liam Scarlett duet for newlyweds Tiler Peck and Robert Fairchild, boasted the fanciest duds, by Sarah Burton of Alexander McQueen: a navy-to-white ombre chiffon gown with a sculpted bustier for her, and a navy waistcoat for him, both with gold ornamentation. The pair emerged from the deep shadows, swooped about a bit to Liszt played by Elaine Chelton, and were re-subsumed by the dusk. Short, bittersweet, no harm done, with a whiff of romantic desperation lingering in the memory. (I'm torn over whether there should be a limit on how much this pair dances together; as wonderful as they are, it seems either too comfortable a setup, or forced.)

Teresa Reichlen and gang in Clearing Dawn. Photo: Paul Kolnik

Corps dancer Troy Schumacher (read Marina Harss' New York Times piece here) was finally invited to set a piece—Clearing Dawn—for his employer after giving it quite a successful go independently; his troupe, BalletCollective, with a focus on cross-genre collaboration, gives performances soon. Thom Browne's crisp grey and white prep school costumes—revealed after massive overcoats flew from the dancers' shoulders, to return at the end—set the schoolyard recess tone, replete with a game of tag, fisticuffs, make up hugs, contests, adrenalized romps, and the subsequent onset of fatigue. Judd Greenstein's score, laced through with coursing runs and fluttering flutes, complemented the interplay. Expect Schumacher to make more work for NYCB.

Belles-Lettres. Photo: Paul Kolnik

In a short time, Justin Peck has become the go-to guy for reliably good dances. Belles-Lettres, to César Franck, with warm-hued, oddly-mixed costumes by Mary Katrantzou, is a more serious dance than many of his previous ones, with less bright gaiety and fewer visual winks. It implements the geometries that have distinguished Peck's work, placing Anthony Huxley as the lone man/poet among four couples whose darting, hummingbird movements frequently follow the fleeting piano line played by Susan Walters. The predominant form is the couple, and the news is unusual pairings: Lauren Lovette with Jared Angle (nice to see him partnering a woman proportionate in size), Ashley Laracey and Adrian Danchig-Waring, Brittany Pollack with the exuberant Taylor Stanley, and Rebecca Krohn with Tyler Angle, both alabaster cool. The first part, with its darker lighting and minor-key mood, ends after Huxley's big solo; the light turns to gold, the music morphs into a major key. It showcased Huxley's rapidograph style, but the reliance on the traditional couple felt like a minor regression from Peck's inclusionary groups.


The big attraction was Alexei Ratmansky's Pictures at an Exhibition, to Mussgorsky's suite. As in past works by the choreographer, the sets—Kandinsky's Color Study Square parsed and tweaked in Wendall Harrington's projections—root the work in a Russian context without affecting the narrative. The 16 sections, often connected in smooth segues, feature groups and solos. Sara Mearns, mercurial, whipped out arabesque turns and slammed her palms on the stage. Wendy Whelan and Tyler Angle partnered, dancing to a pulsing melody, at moments evoking other duets which this frequent pairing danced, including a ship prow lift (Wheeldon's After the Rain) made more difficult with her feet on his torso instead of his thighs. The pair had earlier in the evening danced Wheeldon's This Bitter Earth, again made even more eloquent by virtue of Whelan's impending departure.

Gonzalo Garcia and company in Pictures at an Exhibition. Photo: Paul Kolnik

Four women who stomped inelegantly (and refreshingly) and windmilled their arms banded together in a gang. Underutilized principal Gonzalo Garcia was prominently featured in a duet with Tiler Peck; fairly matched physically, they often danced in unison. The similarly overlooked Abi Stafford paired with corps member Joseph Gordon, with Gretchen Smith, emergent from the corps. 

Because of Whelan's impending retirement, I kept wanting to read into the actions that revolved around her, including a moment when she knelt to scoop up some invisible thing on the ground as the company gathered around. As she was borne away by Amar Ramasar, Tyler Angle reached for her yearningly, looking bereft. After a false ensemble ending (another Ratmansky signature, seemingly), the company rushed downstage, the womens' movements—lifts with blossoming arms—punctuated the music like fireworks. It was a gleeful ending to another major, varied ballet by Ratmansky, now choreographing for both of New York's big companies, to our benefit.

I should add that the bill opened with Peter Martins' Morgen, a 2001 work to Strauss recostumed by Carolina Herrera. The set's gigantic columns, ostensibly meant to add classiness and provide places for the dancers to hide and mischievously emerge from, merely overwhelmed the dancers and made it difficult to light the stage adequately. All three women partnered with all three men, a disheartening fact once realized partway through the piece. Martins' fondness for complicated partnering, including a lot from the "baggage handler" school, and overly fussy steps that can vex these fine dancers, were in full view. The long evening would have been the perfect length without this piece, and Herrera's gowns could have been displayed in the lobby. 

NYCB's Gala—Hearts and Birds Aflutter

Tiler Peck and Tyler Angle in Two Hearts. Photo: Paul Kolnick

There's a general sense of boundaries blurring between cultural genres in the city these days.  All that dance in museums. Film and new classical music in festivals like Crossing Brooklyn Ferry. And fashion everywhere, from Schiap/Prada at the Met, to Prada for Pina Bausch, to Rodarte and Gilles Mendel at New York City Ballet's spring gala last Tuesday. Combining things in different ways, after all, can result in alchemy, or merely frosting.

Kate & Laura Mulleavy of Rodarte's black and white geometric costumes for Benjamin Millepied's NYCB premiere of Two Hearts felt fresh and crisp. Millepied recently retired from the stage to heed his busy choreographic slate. While he's already suffering from a bit of  overexposure, he does have a way with ballet's vocabulary; he speaks it fluently and can write paragraphs with it. He can craft ambitious, devilish phrases, or make soft, flowing combinations that show off the essential expressiveness and beauty of ballet, which is the general tone of Two Hearts.

Tiler Peck and Tyler Angle, the leads, suit one another particularly well. Angle's growing strength and partnering ability often land him too-tall female counterparts, but Peck is a good fit. He is a poet—a plush mover, with an innate sense of epaulement. She is one of the company's best musical dancers, and has the absolute control needed to express that ear. She can dance sharply and wittily, or dial the steps to the right emotion.

Millepied shifts mood and dynamic with each part, returning repeatedly to the central pair, augmented by 12 corps members. In one section, several men caught Peck frozen in various positions in midair. She and Angle shed, respectively, skirt and shell prior to their long final duet to a plangent folk ballad sung by Dawn Landes. Nico Muhly wrote the commissioned  score, which in an early section sounded like an instrumental conversation—the flute bleating words between pauses, and at other times, coursing like rapids in a river. Near the end of their romantic duet, Angle floats Peck parallel to his supine body, making this feat look easy. The curtain closes on the two lounging casually, as if posing for Manet.

Peter Martins continues to feel impelled to create new work for his company, which already has reams of the stuff in its rep. The inspiration for Mes Oiseaux, his premiere to music by Marc-André Dalbavie, was presumably the cast, all fleet of foot, "oiseaux," you might say, in Apollo's ratio: Taylor Stanley, Lauren Lovette, Ashly Isaacs, and Claire Kretzschmar. Stanley's movement is elfin, flitting, otherworldly, bold, and all three women vividly attack movement. Predictably, he partners each woman in the same or similar phrases, cradling their legs, dragging them into attenuated poses in turn. (In one near situation, Kretzschmar's back-leaning weight almost toppled her and Stanley, who had to grab her pelvis rather brusquely to correct things.)

Martins favors an extruding style (and its antithesis) that Balanchine used liberally—splayed hands crossing the body, pushing into space, legs collapsing in parallel. These signatures that once marked a ballet as modern now look faded and coy in new choreography. Gilles Mendel provided the costumes; the womens' unremarkable, if flattering, variants on skating dresses with curlicue cutouts.

The costumes for Balanchine's Symphony in C (1947) are newly redone by Marc Happel. I can't say they changed this brilliant repertory standard much, which is passive praise. The piece is a showcase for company standouts. Megan Fairchild presents the choreography in a textbook way, giving it a clear reading but not much character. Sara Mearns, on the other hand, shapes the choreography with emotion and danger. At times she is in complete control of it, and sometimes she seems in its thrall, like a scene from The Red Shoes. I'd want Fairchild to teach it to me, but I'd buy a ticket to see Mearns. Their two partners, Jared Angle and Jonathan Stafford, are strong, reliable partners, both perhaps a bit bound by a traditional stoicism. Though I have seen Angle smile, an unexpected bit of sunshine peeking through clouds.

Joaquin de Luz, in contrast, lands on the bravura end of things. He exudes joy and reflects his partners emotions as well. In the exuberant third movement he partnered Ashley Bouder, ever confident and strident and on top of the music, to her detriment. In the finale, when all four women dance in unison downstage, backed by the entire corps, she seemed a full beat ahead of Mearns, her musical opposite. And finally, Tiler Peck, luminous and playful, danced the brief fourth movement with Adrian Danchig-Waring, a rewarding bit of casting for this talented dancer. Let's see if he can transform the effort he invests in each movement into confidence to unleash even more expressiveness.

Despite featuring two premieres and an iconic ballet, this gala program felt somewhat apologetic. Martins didn't do the standard speech/toast. The season on the whole is rather quiet and pro forma. But if every season can't feature a leviathan Ocean Kingdom, maybe that's not such a bad thing.

New York City Ballet: Trouble in the Kingdom, 9/29/11

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New York City Ballet: Ocean Kingdom, by Martins/McCartney.

http://www.thirteen.org/sundayarts/blog/ballet/new-york-city-ballet-trouble-in-the-kingdom/1821/

Robert Fairchild and Sara Mearns in "Ocean's Kingdom." Photo by Paul Kolnik.

Critics have been ripping into the Paul McCartney/Peter Martins’ ballet, Ocean’s Kingdom,at New York City Ballet, like bears after their first post-hibernation meal. Is it that bad? I found this love triangle ballet pleasant enough and aesthetically bland, like Muzak, although troubling for other reasons (like Muzak). McCartney’s music has its moments, and is uncomplicated and melodic. The choreography—a vacuum—is the most basic and rote of ballet steps, with some heightened macho interest for the Terra Punks, led by Amar Ramasar, but the many duets between stars Sara Mearns (profiled earlier this month by SundayArts) and Robert Fairchild instantly vaporize from the mind after watching, with only their phantom desire and potential for better roles left to linger. Georgina Pascoguin, one of the company’s best actors, made the most of a baddie-with-a-heart-of-gold role, but you could feel Daniel Ulbricht’s abject resignation while sailing and spinning through yet another of a series of gee-whiz solos that have come become a trap for him in his young career.