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?

Sylvie Guillem—an Etoile in our Midst

Sylvie Guillem is one of the iconic dance stars of our time who can command packed houses solo, no matter what she chooses to perform—in the tradition of Nureyev/Fontaine, Baryshnikov, and currently Diana Vishneva and Nina Ananiashvili, at least in New York. Guillem performed an evening called 6000 Miles Away at the Koch Theater last weekend, presented by the Joyce Theater Foundation and titled to allude to London's distance to last year's tsunami in Japan. She chose work that flattered her strengths, such as her jointless, alarmingly limber extensions (at 47 years of age) and St. Louis-arched feet. And yet the evening's sum total felt slightly perfunctory and distant.

Sylvie Guillem in Rearray. Photo: Bill Cooper

Guillem danced in two of the night’s three works. William Forsythe created the strongest of those two, Rearray, from 2011. While the choreographer has moved away from creating similar ballet-based dances and toward dance-theater for his own troupe, The Forsythe Company, he made an exception for Guillem, on whom he set In the Middle, Somewhat Elevated. How could he not be lured to work with a dancer with such natural physical gifts? The series of duets contained his trademark spidery legwork mixed with proper posés, blackout scene changes, and a spacious soundscape by David Morrow. Guillem was partnered by Massimo Murru of La Scala, offering a warm, humorous counterbalance to the perpetual alabaster cool of Guillem, the étoile.

Mats Ek choreographed Bye (2011), the most theatrical of the dances, to Beethoven. Charming film elements (by Elias Benxon) were projected on a door-shaped panel that served as a portal and a mirror, or perhaps simply as a window onto the thoughts in Guillem's head. Wearing Katrin Brannstrom's plain, everywoman clothes, Guillem's face appeared large on film, and she emerged from behind the panel—morphed to flesh from film, to color from black and white. The effect was sentimental and introspective.

The middle dance, 27'52" (2002), was choreographed by Jiri Kylian and performed by Aurélie Cayla and Lukas Timulak, to music by Dirk Haubrich after Mahler. Kylian's signatures were ample—flexed feet, a hotplate flicking of extremities. Cayla removed her top for reasons unclear, and both tucked themselves under flaps of floor covering. Kees Tjebbes designed the effective, clear lighting, featuring an array of downspots. In an evening dedicated to Guillem, the dance's merits fell short merely by her exclusion.