ABT's Fall Season Wrap-Up

Marcelo Gomes, Cory Stearsn, and Herman Cornejo in Fancy Free. Photo: Marty Sohl

ABT's two-week fall rep season at the Koch included a production premiere of Raymonda Divertissements, choreographed by Petipa with staging by Irina Kolpakova and Artistic Director Kevin McKenzie. Hee Seo and James Whiteside danced the leads, interesting complements of cool and hot, both with crisp, taut lines. The duo of Misty Copeland and Sarah Lane were warmly energetic and well-matched. Corps member Skylar Brandt danced a solo with lucidity, and soloist Christine Shevchenko once again demonstrated her burnished technique that has garnered her more and more roles. 

One thing that struck me immediately was how big the larger group of four corps men looked on the Koch stage (as exemplified by Alex Hammoudi); this is New York City Ballet's house, and the men are generally smaller in stature. Although ABT's ensemble men looked as if they could use another week of rehearsal, all nine couples performed shoulder lifts smoothly. The ballet is a reliable, classical confection and repertory staple, if a tad dry, to hummable music by Glazounov, costumed in hues of vanilla cream frosting by Barbara Matera.

How is it possible to distinguish Fancy Free, that 1944 Jerome Robbins staple to Leonard Bernstein (here staged by NYCB's Jean-Pierre Frohlich), performed with clockwork regularity in New York? How about Cornejo's triple tours en l'air into splits, and Marcelo Gomes' unfettered goofiness? Add in an aw-shucks sweetness by Cory Stearns, and welcome appearances by Stella Abrera and Gillian Murphy, and you have a rejuvenated vehicle with sparkle and pyrotechnics.  

James Whiteside and Misty Copeland in With a Chance of Rain. Photo: Marty Sohl

Frederick Ashton's Jardin aux Lilas was staged for the company by Amanda McKerrow and John Gardner. In the ballet's few years' absence from the rep, I'd forgotten how succinct and probing Ashton's choreography can be. Simple head turns, body direction changes, and lifted hands speak volumes about the players' psychological states. Two couples in love with the others' partners arrange furtive trysts in the sylvan moonlight, wary of being caught. Its simplicity and humanity makes you yearn for more Ashton. Chris Wheeldon's Thirteen Diversions (2011), to Britten, is a handsome, elegant dance for 24. Bob Crowley's silver and black costumes, and Brad Field's at times retina-searing lighting, underscore the ambition of the dance. But it hints at a weakness for the ubiquitous Wheeldon, in that apart from narrative ballets and icons such as After the Rain, he creates lovely, flowing dances that can be indistinguishable. However, it did match Boylston with Stearns, another unexpected, satisfying pairing.

BalletCollective—A True Collaboration Evolves

Troy Schumacher and Ashley Laracey in Dear and Blackbirds. Photo: Matthew Murphy

Collaboration is frequently used to describe the performance creation process, even if it's simply the gathering of disciplines in a studio or theater. But BalletCollective, under Troy Schumacher's direction, employs the sharing process from the genesis of a dance. Taking a poem or artwork as a source, the composer Ellis Ludwig-Leone writes music, and then Schumacher choreographs. (For more, read Marina Harss' recent NYT article on the process.) They riff on evocations or inspiration, and not literal interpretations. The underlying structure supports the piece, giving it an inner vitality that sets it apart from many of the handsome, but essentially formalist, ballets that have been made lately. (I should add that it's possible such sources have been used to create those ballets, but they are not presented as prominently as this.) 

The company, comprising New York City Ballet dancers, premiered All That We See at the Skirball this past week. Ludwig-Leone and Schumacher worked with artist David Salle, who showed fragments of a larger painting to the pair, waiting until the piece had been completed to reveal the whole picture, which we never see (although the beautiful poster/program shows the details from which they worked, including a pot of coffee and a bitten ice cream bar). The music and dance took form in response to "structure, line, and emotional response" rather than image or narrative. This process is fascinating to learn about, but not essential to viewing. The work's multi-sections shift in tone and dynamic, from Taylor Stanley's taut, snapping lines, to Meagan Mann's lushness, to Claire Kretzschmar's angular elegance. Ludwig-Leone's music, played live by the ensemble Hotel Elefant, ranges from energetic to jazzy to contemplative.

There's always a sense of community in the company's works, akin to many of Jerome Robbins' dances; the simple act of placing one dancer near another instigates an emotional relationship. In a larger group—five in this dance—that can mean that Stanley and David Prottas partner Lauren King at the same time, or one another. The chemistry blends, clashes, flows, but rarely simply paints a pretty picture.

Claire Kretzschmar in All That We Seer.
Photo: Matthew Murphy

The relationship is more straightforward in Dear and Blackbirds, a duet choreographed for Ashley Laracey and Harrison Coll (as seen in this video), who unfortunately was injured and, fortunately, replaced by Schumacher in the performances (he and Laracey are married). He pursues her, she resists, succumbs, and has to coax him back after spurning him. It's sweet, playful, and conveys the boundless joy, and vexing melodrama, of young romance. One of them performs a ballet phrase, then stops to react or gesture. The varying expressiveness of the vocabulary is bound into the narrative.

The Impulse Wants Company (2013, performed at the Joyce last year) led off the bill, another dance using poetry by Cynthia Zarin as a source of inspiration. The seven dancers cross the stage, often facing into the wings, pushing the airs as if doing the breaststroke in water, playing off one another. Ludwig-Leone's violin line skitters, a piano thrills through arpeggios. Kretzschmar, now solo, shows us her expansiveness that brings to mind Wendy Whelan's modernity. Stanley, always exciting to watch, steals on, lunges deeply, and leaps, striking like a cobra. The dancers bounce in quick jumps to the tumultuous music.The vocabulary of ballet ties it all together, but we only rarely miss its full, connected phrases. This collective is coaxing it toward a new direction of their own device. Schumacher recently debuted as a choreographer at New York City Ballet; no doubt this boosted his own company's endeavors, and rightly so. 

Chris Ofili at the New Museum—Embracing the Dark

Chris Ofili: Night and Day. Courtesy David Zwirner, New York / London. Photo: Maris Hutchinson. All works © Chris Ofili 

Go see Chris Ofili: Night and Day at the New Museum as soon as you can, because it will give you ample time to revisit the stunning show before it closes on January 25. You are probably familiar with his "elephant dung" series largely from the late '90s—full of delight, trippy patterns, and cartoon-like figures. One of them—The Holy Virgin Mary (1996)—was made a martyr-icon by Mayor Giuliani in one of the great culture war episodes of recent years (the events are retold in the companion catalogue). A strong selection of this period occupies the second floor of the exhibition, curated by Massimiliano Gioni, Gary Carrion-Murayari, and Margot Norton. The candy-colored series bursts with life, flesh, and adolescent star doodles; dung balls serve as pedestal feet and sculptural nodes. The Afro series, from the early 2000s, are painted in red, green, and black, and are suffused with mysterious romance and vitality.

Chris Ofili, Ovid-Desire, 2011–12.
 Courtesy the artist, David Zwirner, New York/
London, and Victoria Miro, London. © Chris Ofili 

On the fourth floor is an intoxicating installation 
of wildly colorful canvases hung on a lavender floral  background. Many of these paintings (primarily in classic rectangular proportions of approximately 120" x 80") are from the Ovid series, painted around 2010 while he was working on a two-year commission from London's National Gallery in response to Titian's Metamorphosis series, inspired by the Ovid poem. Many titles are hyphenates—Ovid-Destiny, -Desire, -Actaeon. Even without the references, these paintings, of effusive yellows, violets, and greens deserve to be carefully looked at. 

Several evoke the interior compositions of Matisse, with tension strung between foreground and background. The verticality of the canvases is underscored by depicting one or two figures, a geological cleave, or splitting the rectangle with the floor taking half, and the wall the rest, as in Ovid-Desire (2011—12). Ofili applies layer upon layer, so that even fields that seem solid can, upon further examination, reveal subtleties of shadowy patterns. He frequently adds elements of relief, be they blobs or dung balls or simply bulked up sheafs of paint.

Untitled (Afromuse), 1995—2005. Courtesy the
artist and David Zwirner, New York/London. © Chris Ofili 

As you enter the main third floor gallery, you encounter what seems to be a group of black paintings. After you've allowed your eyes to adjust, you notice subtle variations in what are really inky blues. Some appear reddish, some violet, some have a sheen. Shapes emerge—figures, animals, foliage. It evokes being outside in the dark, with no artificial lights on. Everything takes on a sinister feel, especially when a lynched man becomes clear. Ofili has a home in Trinidad, and he noted in a fascinating New Yorker profile: “I had found that if you put silver underneath blue, the blue sits back, like night, or glows like moonlight.” He uses ultramarine, Prussian, and cobalt blues that read like feelings as much as hues. The dark, foreboding gallery becomes, in the passage of a short amount of time, a place you want to linger in to absorb the depth and intricacies of the work.

Several sculptures are on view, as well as suites of drawings—the Afro Margin series of abstract, black and white drawings, and Afro Muses, an engaging group of cameo watercolor portraits with washy gem tone clothes. The exhibition fills the New Museum to bursting, perhaps the best use of its new building since it opened. And Ofili's oeuvre connects the present with the history of art, infusing it with a life we had perhaps forgotten.    

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.  

Lar Lubovitch's Cheeky Side

Alessandra Ferri & Tobin Del Cuore. Photo: Phyllis McCabe

Lar Lubovitch's choreography is so flowing and elegant that to serve it up in a kitschy vehicle such as Artemis in Athens is, well, refreshing. This production premiere takes as its bones a 2003 commission for a paean to Greek culture given by ABT, with gauzy toga-inspired costumes and Julie Kent and Marcelo Gomes as leads. 


This week, at the Joyce, no less a (retired from ABT) prima ballerina than Alessandra Ferri danced the lead, but instead of a toga, she wore Naomi Luppescu's saucy interpretation of a Girl Scout uniform, in keeping with the entire cast and even the pit band, Le Train Bleu, looking like dutiful scouts rehearsing a march (but sounding grown-up, edgy, and expressive playing Christopher Theofanidis' composition). You got the sense that Lubovitch had watched Wes Anderson's Moonlight Kingdom not long before sitting down with the designer to sketch out ideas. 

Tobin Del Cuore & Alessandra Ferri . Photo: Phyllis McCabe

A cheeky intro given by a fresh-faced scout with a clipboard alluded to the Athens in the title as the town in Georgia, which would explain, in part, the change to an American woodsy milieu, populated by roving pine trees. Despite her khaki uniform, Ferri appeared as evanescent and goddess-like as ever, lithe, buoyant, and flashing her gorgeously arched feet in Girl Scout issued pointe shoes. Tobin Del Cuore was her foil, Akteon, transforming into a faun (in a skillfully toned unitard with smart white lapels) after his BSA uniform was swiftly disbanded, like Shaq ripping off his sweats. The tall Del Cuore lifted Ferri as if she were weightless. Clasping his hands in hoof-like fists, he bounded through, appropriately, stag leaps. Hunted down by a scout troop armed with bows (whose arcs served Lubovitch's fondness for curves). Akteon's image was immortalized in the heavens, twinkling in a starry sky. It was a bit of enchanting, whimsical fun. 

The Black Rose. Photo: Phyllis McCabe

The company also danced the premiere of The Black Rose, a twist on The Sleeping Beauty, whose score Scott Marshall quoted generously in his collaged score. (He mixed the hallucinogenic music for Lubovitch's renowned Mens' Stories.) Mucuy Bolles danced the central character opposite Reid Barthelme, who is blinded and crippled by the heartless Barton Cowperthwaite (sinister, roguish, and knife-limbed), who also impregnates Bolles, and hilariously chases after her newborn baby with oversized cutlery. 

A group of party-goers formed the chorus, swirling and flowing in Lubovitch's signature cursive movement. Barthelme morphed into a 60's mod-like chap with Lennon glasses and a ruffled shirt (costumes by Fritz Masten). While this dance thumbs its nose at tradition while drawing from it, its goth undertones paint a dark picture of humanity. Together, the two short dances make for a welcome respite from the bounty of mostly serious dance prevalent in New York. 

Matisse Takes Manhattan

The Snail (L’Escargot), 1953. Gouache on paper, cut and pasted, on paper, mounted on canvas. 112 ¾ x 113” (286.4 x 287 cm). Tate. Purchased with assistance from the Friends of the Tate Gallery, 1962. © 2014 Succession H. Matisse / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York

Henri Matisse: The Cut-Outs, at MoMA through February 8

This large exhibition of Matisse's late phase paper cut-outs shows the artist's brilliant use of negative space, the reduction of a form, and his vibrant palette. It's one of those shows when words don't do justice.

Two Dancers (Deux danseurs), 1937-38. Stage curtain design for the ballet Rouge et Noir. Gouache on paper, cut and pasted, notebook papers, pencil, and thumbtacks. 31 9/16 x 25 3/8” (80.2 x 64.5 cm). Musée national d’art moderne/Centre de création industrielle, Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris. Dation, 1991. © 2014 Succession H. Matisse / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York 

Is it worth it, amid all the hyped and timed tickets? Depending on your capacity to endure crowds, yes. But investing in a catalogue might be smarter, and there's also a new children's book as well, and a dedicated, insightful website that includes such gems as this: 

Studio assistant Annelies Nelck with tracing of Apollo on the floor of the Hôtel Régina, Nice, c. 1953

Pacific Northwest Ballet—A Prodigal Daughter Bids Farewell

Tide Harmonic. Carla Korbes & Joshua Grant. Photo: Angela Sterling 

This month, we bid at least temporary farewells to two outstanding ballerinas: the incomparable Wendy Whelan, at NYCB, and the luminous Carla Korbes at Pacific Northwest Ballet. Korbes' retirement is somewhat of a surprise as she's in her early 30s, about 15 years younger than Whelan. It still feels like just yesterday when she emerged within NYCB as a soloist and was given larger roles, only to cross the continent to join PNB under Peter Boal's direction, where she has flourished and certainly danced more leading roles than if she had remained in New York. 

A Justin Peck "preview performance" of Debonair, to George Antheil's score, in PNB's program at the Joyce this week featured Korbes in an extended duet with Jerome Tisserand. (The piece will "premiere" on Nov. 7 in Seattle, which presumably means it will get a fancy party.) With that in mind, I assume the rigorous vocabulary of double tours en l'air and pirouettes will only be honed by then, and Korbes' already formidable elasticity and plushness will deepen. In addition to the traditional couple, Peck has created two sections for one woman and three men in which the woman dances alone—a rarer sight than you might imagine in recent abstract ballets. 

Laser legs in Tide Harmonic. Rachel Foster and James Moore. Photo: Lindsay Thomas

Laser legs in Tide Harmonic. Rachel Foster and James Moore. Photo: Lindsay Thomas

The bill began with Chris Wheeldon's 2013 Tide Harmonic, with music by Jody Talbot, who also scored Alice's Adventures. Four women bolt onstage, circling one another, unleashing developpés whipping piqués; the men rush cross stage in deep pliés. Wheeldon excels at inventive partnering, here making ample use of the women's bare legs as weapons. (Remember laser cats? Like that, but with lasers emanating from toe shoes, not paws.) On one toe, with the other bent leg, ankle gripped by her partner, a woman is rocked menacingly, side to side. Another section features two men mirroring one another, alternating phrases, circling the stage with their arms clasped congenially around one another's back. The piece exudes daring and speed, with movement experiments fitted together like a puzzle. Talbot's music is filmic in feel, with suspenseful, rushing passages, but it can also be overly aggressive for the choreography, which itself seems amped up to match the bold dynamics. Lindsi Dec stood out for her bold lines and highly arched feet.

Alejandro Cerrudo's Memory Glow, set to a selection of moody music, showed his sinewy, organic vocabulary on these fine dancers. Ample drama came from the chiaroscuro lighting, as well as the on-stage light fixtures, two of which were dragged by their cords into place to form an arc around the dancers. Cerrudo is from the post-Forsythe sock school of choreography, which extends the softness from pliable feet into the whole body, allowing torsos and limbs to ripple and react to impulses. A fleeing woman would be caught by her ankle by a pursuing man, or even by her forehead. Once again, the women wore legless leotards while the men were completely covered in polo shirts and crinkled slate pants. Women seem to be the focus of these younger ballet choreographers, but the emphasis on their bareness pushes this tendency toward objectification, even if it's meant as a tribute.