The Royal, Ranging Far & Wide

Natalia Osipova in The Dream. Photo: Bill Cooper

The Royal Ballet was in town after a decade's absence, presented by the Joyce Theater Foundation at the Koch Theater. The first program comprised The Dream, by Frederick Ashton, which is familiar to ABT audiences, who might also have felt a fleeting inferiority complex as Natalia Osipova danced Titania, as she also dances with ABT, but missed the last couple of weeks due to an injury. She fell here, eliciting gasps from what seemed like the entire Koch house, but seemed alright subsequently in this role that places fewer high technical demands on a ballerina than many of the classics. In any case, her impish charm and ethereal bearing supported the supernatural aspects of Titania. Matthew Golding danced Oberon with a compatible lightness (although he seemed confined by the stage), and Valentino Zucchetti the role of Puck, bounding into split jumps and lending the character some witty humor. 

Song of the Earth. Photo: Johan Persson

Song of the Earth, by Kenneth MacMillan, balanced out the program. This multi-part suite to Mahler, sung live onstage by Katharine Goeldner and Thomas Randle, utilizes a highly formal, inventive vocabulary that ranges from geometric to emotionally expressive. The simple costumes and lack of set elements (apart from some masks) and obvious storyline shifts the ballet's entire impetus to the dancers, movement, and music. Edward Watson (eloquent, if slightly early in his timing) danced the Messenger of Death, with Laura Morera (who moved with muscularity and great intention) and Nehemiah Kish in prominent roles as well. The exactitude of the steps and positions requires the dancers to rein in excess emotion; every carved step is meaningful.    

The second program offered a view of the variety in the Royal's repertory. Wayne McGregor's Infra is marked by a graphic set by artist Julian Opie, a horizontal video board with simplified images of people walking, hovering above the stage. The dancers below, in tops and trunks, mirrored the walkers at moments, and in between, wielded their bare gams in McGregor's brand of exaggerated balletic lines emanating from the pelvis, forced pointe shoe arches, and split developpés. The general chilliness of McGregor's aesthetic is humanized by the physical interaction and kineticism on display.

Edward Watson in Infra. Photo: Bill Cooper

An act of Divertissements followed, mixing in ebullient classical (Ashton's Voices of Spring) with its deceptively breezy looking one-armed lifts and skimming assisted grand jetés. Contrasting male solos followed—Borrowed Light (Alastair Marriott), an expressionistic romantic morsel; Le Beau Gosse, (Bronislava Nijinska), a humorous number featuring athletic poses and references; and The Dying Swan (Calvin Richardson), a robotic male interpretation of everyone's favorite ballet cliché. Wheeldon's duet, Aeternum, showcased Claire Calvert's enviable high insteps and arches, and Carousel Pas de Deux featured the charming tomboy antics of Lauren Cuthbertson and the suave, leggy Golding, looking a bit Chippendale, shirtless in a vest and scarf.

The Age of Anxiety. Photo: Bill Cooper

Most fascinating was Liam Scarlett's The Age of Anxiety, evoking shades of Jerome Robbins Fancy Free with its musical theater underpinnings, a Leonard Bernstein score from which the dance derived its title, and a first-scene bar setting. Seemingly taking place post-war, one woman and three men drink separately in a well-worn bar, eventually gathering and moving on to a swanky modern apartment, most likely the woman's (Sarah Lamb). They mix and mingle, taking turns pairing off with the woman, and the men with each other. The finale features one of the men, apparently elated by the imminent freedoms on the horizon, rejoicing in the city's golden dawn. With the city's upbeat mood from the Supreme Court's ruling for marriage equality still prevalent, it's hard not to think of Age as somehow prescient.

The second program was gratifying as it showed unfamiliar repertory. The choice to present The Dream is somewhat mystifying; even though it is well-liked here, and is a sensible balance, both aesthetically and length-wise to Song, it is maddeningly familiar. I also wish I could have a better acquaintance with the company's wonderful dancers (who aren't shared with ABT). May they visit sooner next time.  

Program alert: This fall through spring, the Royal Ballet will be featured in ROH Live Cinema broadcasts and will include classics (Giselle, R&J, repertory) as well as premieres of Scarlett's Frankenstein and a production of Carmen by Carlos Acosta.

Polished Coolness—Polish National Ballet

Moving Rooms. Photo: Ewa Krasucka

Judging from its New York debut at the Joyce, you might think the Polish National Ballet to be one more compact, highly skilled post-classical ballet company that draws choreography from a shared pool of European choreographers, in addition to staging works by its own artistic director, Krzysztof Pastor. But the company numbers 90 (though a fraction of that performs in New York) and counts in its rep major story ballets such as La Bayadère and Don Quixote. Another case of perhaps meaning well in tuning the chosen repertory to the modern eye, but perhaps missing a chance to show its true artistic depth, which is most likely economically untenable.

That said, I confess that I was lured to see PNB in by Emanuel Gat's Rite of Spring. Its five dancers move through Gat's simmering, undulating salsa steps in crimson light that enhances a red rug defining the action hotspot while adding a note of domesticity. Robert Bondara and Kurusz Wojenski lack the feral quality of Gat and Roy Assaf (Gat's original cast), but with Marta Fiedler, Aleksandra Liashenko, and Karolina Sapun they weave the movement crisply and fluidly to the recorded orchestration of Stravinsky's score. It remains a hypnotic, inexorable ritual driven by primal instincts. 

Moving Rooms. Photo: Ewa Krasucka

There's no doubt that the company's technical skills are topnotch, as seen in two works by Pastor. Adagio & Scherzo (2014), to Schubert, is danced in front of Rothko-like painted designs by Malgorzata Szablowska. The vocabulary favors ballet steps pushed to the extreme—thwacked split extensions, straight arms with broken wrists, forced arch tendus,  tensile with angst. Moving Rooms (2008) features a light-carved checkerboard and other geometric shapes by Bert Dalhuysen; the dancers stand like chess pieces, and unfortunately give off about the same emotion. The chosen music, by Schnittke and Gorecki, included violin and organ passages that swelled to a cacophony, underscoring the extreme seriousness of the proceedings. Even a tango-inspired passage did little to alleviate the building sense of oppression. The movement by these dancers is inarguably beautiful, but in its repetition came to feel like a gymnastics competition, with little nuance or dynamic shift.


The run raises a perpetual question—how can an out-of-town company such as Polish National Ballet show its full wares in New York? It might have brought two programs, including some classical fare, or substituted a classical dance for one of the two by Pastor. Even adding a short pas de deux might have provided some depth for those of us new to the troupe. It is certainly clear that the dancers are impeccably trained and physically gifted. Perhaps their next trip to New York will provide some depth.

ABT's New Sleeping Beauty—A Fresh Look from the Past

Gillian Murphy as Aurora. Photo: Gene Schiavone

ABT recently had its New York premiere run of Alexei Ratmansky's grand, ambitious new production of The Sleeping Beauty at the Met Opera House. As traditional as it is—with powdered wigs, knee-length tulip tutus, and pantaloons—the most radical element, other than anarchist knitters, is the choreography, which evokes royal court dance of centuries past rather than the full-out athletic style to which we've become so accustomed. Ratmansky drew from Petipa's choreography as recorded in Stepanov notation for an authenticity so outmoded as to appear radical. William Christie and Les Arts Florissants have brought new audiences to early music, but such a rediscovery has been rare in ballet.

Part of the radicalism is that the steps don't always default to a dancer's maximum range, as is often the norm. (As stunning as the Mariinsky and Bolshoi can be, freakish flexibility is now standard.) The women wear pointe shoes (even the girls wear them in the garland dance) but when they chainé, it's nearly always on demi-pointe. Many of the preparatory and closing positions of moves feature broken lines and coyly angled arms and heads; pirouettes are executed with the foot poised near the ankle. The biggest partnered lifts feature Aurora's legs forming a taut diamond shape, or a series of compact fish dives. I imagine that the dancers had to fight everything reflexive and had to re-learn Ratmansky's particular syntax by rote repetition. No six o'clock developpés or mindless strings of filler steps here. 

Diana Vishneva and Marcelo Gomes. Photo: Gene Schiavone

The lavish costumes and sets (by Richard Hudson, inspired by Léon Bakst) set a royal tone. Elaborate hats, headpieces, and wigs—to my eye, distracting at times—reinforce the idea that no expense was spared in this co-production with Teatro alla Scala in Milan. Only the artificially garish hue of the Lilac Fairy's satin dress and gown hints at the 21st-century origination.  

Gillian Murphy (Aurora) and James Whiteside (Désiré) led one performance I caught, with Stella Abrera as the Lilac Fairy. This is a forceful cast with more edges than softness. Murphy is so competent that it would indeed take some kind of toxin or witchcraft to keep her down. Craig Salstein was Carabosse, swathed in pewter lamé and matching makeup, and squired by huge rats. 

In the June 13 evening performance, the more finely burnished pair of Diana Vishneva and Marcelo Gomes danced the leads. They are becoming our era's superstar duo if they aren't already. Gomes manages to make Désiré more impetuous and thoughtful than impatient. Vishneva opted to do some chainés on pointe, whereas Murphy consistently performed chainés on demi-pointe. (Piqué turns were performed on pointe throughout.) Principal Veronika Part, rarely seen this season, danced the Lilac Fairy with graciousness, and Nancy Raffa, a company ballet master, Carabosse; interestingly, both men and women past and present are cast in this juicy character role.

The legend has been fleshed out to include commonly excluded elements. The Act I fairies include not only characteristics, but allegories: Wheat Flower and Breadcrumb, presumably representing abundance and resourcefulness. In Act III, gemstone fairies make appearances at the wedding, in addition to the fairy tale characters such as Princess Florine and Bluebird (with a proper pas de deux), an ogre couple and a gang of boys, and Cinderella and her prince. (Others don't even dance.) It's an exercise in traffic control, as is the Garland Dance; one can only imagine what it must be like backstage. But the all-hands-on-deck casting, which allows casting principals in supporting roles, also provides a substantial opportunity to gauge the talent and resources of this major company. That this is the second Sleeping Beauty production in the span of eight years not only acknowledges the shortcomings of the last production, it also speaks to the strength of the company's development department, and is a confident bet on Ratmansky by the executives. 

Photo: Gene Schiavone

For my taste, The Sleeping Beauty is one of the more trying traditional romantic story ballets still regularly staged. It's thin on overall plot, thick on allegory and bodies, and demands a great deal of patience not required of viewers by most contemporary ballet productions. (Short attention span?) While some musical themes by Tchaikovsky are lovely and evocative, many of the variations end abruptly, necessitating the steps to also end bluntly. And yet there is the accompanying textural richness and depth of tradition. 

It is in fact disorienting to see the archaic form when we're so accustomed to seeing the hyperextension of every line. But it gives this production a unique, genteel style that looks forward by looking to the past. Interestingly, over the course of the run's last week, the style rebounded somewhat away from the archaic and shifted toward the modern, or the second time around, it wasn't so shocking to my eye. (It could also have been Vishneva's reluctance to fully embrace the archaic style.) What will it look like next year or in five years? No doubt we'll find out.

Philippe Parreno at the Armory—Ghosts of Broadway

There are many worse ways to spend a half day in New York than absorbing Philippe Parreno's multi-faceted installation at the Park Avenue Armory, on view through August 2. The idea that it's a love letter to the city crept up on me, despite the city's monogram being embedded in the title—H {N)Y P N(Y} OSIS, 2015. (It's pronounced "hypnosis.") Indeed, the exhibition's power has grown in my mind during the days after seeing it.

The drill hall is divided into a nave-like space by two columns of Parreno's marquee sculptures, suspended works that mimic the portal fixtures above Broadway and smaller theaters, collectively entitled Danny The Street. Where the apse should be stands Bleachers, a rotating accretion of stepped seats, evoking similar casual step seating at Times Square and the Highline. On the three sides of the apse hang huge screens, which move up and down, onto which New York-themed films are projected. (The films were not screening while I attended a preview. Subsequent photos show their importance in the environment.)

Ann Lee. Photo: Susan Yung

An LED panel work, Ann Lee, sits among the marquees. It—she—comes to life periodically in an animated manga avatar, whose words are eerily parroted by human girls performing throughout the space. The character was purchased several years ago and "employed" by various artists, notably Tino Sehgal, co-credited on this piece. Ann Lee is a symbol of collaboration—programmed, at rest, or animated.

Photo: Susan Yung

Yet another important dimension to the installation is music, at a preview performed player piano style by Mikhail Rudy on three grand pianos. The selection includes pieces by Scriabin, Wagner, Feldman, and Ligeti. Other sound/music was composed by contemporary musicians for the marquees, which pulse on and off in rhythm with the compositions. It is worthwhile to park yourself on one of the many benches or chairs and observe as the environment's components sync and the lighting increases and diminishes, as daylight does. When the space is at its darkest, a haunting evocation of the bygone city emerges, like a lively and twinkling Broadway ghost town that operates on its own; people are merely observers.

Admission to the exhibition is $15, which is in keeping with the going museum prices, but high when compared to the thousands of galleries in the city which charge no admission. Still, there is more than enough content in the Parreno show (the artist guessed that it might wind up at five hours) to justify the cost and time invested. And the Armory continues to mount work unlike any in the city—more along the lines of an installation at a bienale, and with great thought given to the complex context. 

ABT—Dark the Soul, Bright the Stars

Julie Kent & Marcelo Gomes in Othello. Photo: Gene Schiavone

We love ballet because it can defy mortality. The grace and ease with which the pros do the most difficult steps refutes gravity and the way most of us clump along, meat bags with a few muscles and bones. On the other hand, many of the full-length ballets in ABT's current Met Opera House season underscore the frailties and downfalls of being all too human.

Lar Lubovitch's Othello is revived every so often in part to showcase a powerful male dancer at the peak of his powers, and ABT has no better embodiment than Marcelo Gomes. Although the role was set on Desmond Richardson, it seems built for Gomes. As the curtain rises, simply sitting on his throne, clutching its arms, head bowed, he commands attention. The muscles on his bronze breastplate may not be his, but we don't doubt the power implied (we're also familiar with Gomes' strength).  

Xiomara Reyes, soon galloping into the sunset, in Rodeo. Photo: Gene Schiavone

It never hurts to have a good tale behind a story ballet, and Shakespeare's deeply troubling examination of loyalty and deceit reveals the darkest side of man's nature. James Whiteside made for a believably sinister Iago, slithering and scything his way around the stage's perimeter like an angry shadow. Julie Kent's Desdemona is effectively naive, and Stella Abrera, as Emilia, perfunctorily foreboding. The addition of Bianca (Misty Copeland) and Cassio (Joseph Gorak), who become vehicles for betrayal, flesh out the stage action while clouding the narrative. Still, these two magnetic dancers have some of the best sections of dancing, unchained from the text. The white scarf becomes a searing emblem of love; the more hands that touch it, the more tainted it becomes as a symbol of devotion. 

Agnes De Mille's Rodeo, on the other hand, begins with its lead cowgirl, Xiomara Reyes, longing for the camaraderie of the posse of cowboys, but being ignored until she accedes to at least some feminine conventions. Xiomara Reyes is retiring this season, but her lead performance makes that hard to believe. She's as sassy and tomboyish as ever, in this, one of her best dramatic vehicles. It highlights a buoyant sense of humor that can be buried in formal ballets, albeit where she excels technically. She will be missed in this role. James Whiteside danced the role of the cowboy who moves from buddy to beau, including a lighthearted tap segment.

Isabella Boylston as Giselle. Photo: MIRA

Giselle as well ponders the foibles of the heart, both figuratively and literally. Albrecht falls for, and guilelessly deceives, the frail Giselle, who after death is consigned to join the Wilis (basically, ghosts of unmarried women who taunt men and make them dance to death). Certain ballerinas are born to perform the role of Giselle, and Isabella Boylston is one of them. Her size, her ballon, and flexibility all contribute to a fine characterization. But it is her sublime delicacy that distinguished her rendition in May 23's matinee. When she lifted her leg in an arabesque early in the Act II duet with Alex Hammoudi (Albrecht), the movement was barely perceptible, floating upward steadily, like a feather on the slightest pulse of wind. Battus resembled the beating of a hummingbird's wings. Other dancers—particularly Russians, it seems—milk the drama more, or emphasize athleticism, but Boylston gives a nuanced, quietly magical performance free of histrionics.

Hammoudi, a soloist, is maturing into his princely physique. He is on the way to becoming a much needed leading man of a large size. His long legs only accentuate the height of his grand jetes, and he can finesse the details in traveling steps with beats. It can't hurt to play against the company's finest character dancer, Roman Zhurbin, who succeeded in bringing some empathy to the beleaguered second fiddle, Hilarion. This young cast supplied rewards of a different kind than expected from the company's headliners—a variety of stars populating ABT's galaxy. 

A company is always in transition, but it feels as though ABT is going through more changes than in recent memory, with three principal women retiring (Kent, Herrera, and Reyes), a recuperating David Hallberg out for the season, the oft-cast Polina Semionova injured, and young dancers being groomed for promotions. So while there is Gomes, a fully matured artist in complete command of the repertory, we watch for greatness to emerge from surprising places. 

Lyon Opera Ballet and Hubbard Street—The Rep's the Thing

Sarabande. Photo: Michel Cavalca

Lyon Opera Ballet can be counted on to bring interesting repertory to New York. Last year, at BAM, it performed Christian Rizzo's ni fleurs, ni ford-mustang, a somewhat impenetrable, glacial  performance work that exploded into ecstatic dance only in its final minutes. This year, it presented at the Joyce works by three buzzy choreographers: William Forsythe, Benjamin Millepied, and Emanuel Gat.

The dances by the first two put to ample use the company's ballet training. Steptext, by Forsythe, dates from a relatively early 1986. Women are on pointe, and the movement is frenetic and all-out, pushing our expectations of the athlete/dancers. There is still a casualness to the affair; moves sometimes ended abruptly and petered out in a walk, rather than a tightly closed fifth or fourth position. Millepied's Sarabande (2009) has a similar dance-and-dash quality. Four men in nifty, colorful shirts noodle and play with the ballet steps they're given, interacting at moments with the on-stage violinist or flautist (reminiscent of Jerome Robbins).  


Gat's Sunshine drew particularly on the idea of a group—reliance on one another, assembling and breaking apart, pushing through the fourth wall to draw in the audience. Gat's lucid lighting scheme seemed to add vast dimensionality to the stage. His movement, so distinctive when he began choreographing a decade ago or so, has expanded to encompass a vocabulary that feels similar to a number of Europeans working today. But his theatrical sense remains fascinating. 

Sunshine. Photo: Michel Cavalca

A couple of weeks later, Hubbard Street Dance Chicago arrived at the Joyce for a two-program run over two weeks. Years ago, under the artistic direction of Glenn Edgerton, this company shifted its focus from jazzy fare toward the European ballet-influenced modern style, more akin to (and including repertory by) Kylian and Forsythe. It is a more global approach, and the company's dancers do well in the elastic, sock-clad movement. 

However, in the matinee I caught on May 16, many of the five dances on the program blended together stylistically. Two works by resident choreographer Alejandro Cerrudo displayed his seamless, organic movement, lovely and harmonious, but after 20 minutes or so, ultimately monodynamic and in the case of Second to Last (Excerpt), the use of Arvo Part's very familiar music did nothing to distinguish it. 

Crystal Pite's new solo, A Picture of You Falling, with text by Pite spoken by Kate Strong, was danced powerfully by Jason Hortin. It follows in the dance-theater canon of movement plus words, in stark lighting. And Robyn Mineko Williams, a longtime Hubbard dancer turned choreographer, contributed Waxing Moon, a trio. While the movement was slightly more angular and spasmodic than Cerrudo's, the tasteful black costumes, stark lighting, and long string of duets unfortunately felt very similar to the previous dances.

I Am Mister B. Photo: Yi-Chun Wu

What did stand out, for puzzling reasons, was I Am Mister B, by Gustavo Ramirez Sansano. The choreographer danced in Balanchine's Theme and Variations, and in theory this premiere is a celebration of Tchaikovsky's ebullient music, and an elegy to Mr. B. The women and men both wore blue dinner jackets, white shirts with narrow black ties, and black pants, to evoke the subject. This faithfulness to wardrobe fell flat when it came to footwear, which was the Hubbard's current rep default—socks. Three sets of semi-transparent copen blue curtains that reeked of a fusty baroqueness fell and rose periodically, compartmentalizing or opening up the stage. The dancers sprang and thrust their pelvises forward, chopping at the air with bent arms. One man spoke some lines so rapidly that I couldn't understand him. Perhaps they held the key to the work.

Sansano's choreography is his own interpretation of the music that has nothing to do with Mr. B's classic. It felt as if Sansano loved the music so much, yet didn't want to do an end-run around Balanchine, that he worked in the conceit of the character of Balanchine, maybe breaking loose after a performance of Theme and Variations. What made it even more confusing was the fresh, sweet memory of seeing Herman Cornejo and Sarah Lane lead ABT in Tuesday's Met performance of Theme and Variations. Besides Balanchine's Symphony in C, there is perhaps no plotless classical ballet more musically adept and in concert with its score.

Hubbard Street's dancers continue to be outstanding performers, but I wonder if the repertory isn't too similar to draw on all of their talents. Maybe one piece without socks?

Refreshing, Ancient Bournonville at NYCB

Bournonville Divertissements. Photo: Paul Kolnik

It seems illogical to view New York City Ballet's Bournonville renaissance as fresh, as opposed to what defines new—brand new work by young choreographers, increasingly by men such as Justin Peck and Troy Schumacher, from the company's ranks. Bournonville (1805—79) is about as ancient a ballet choreographer as we see, and at that, we see very little. But we must thank Ballet Master in Chief Peter Martins for putting together a program of Bournonville Divertissements (1977) and La Sylphide (1985), performed on the evening of the company's spring gala.

Tyler Angle. Photo: Paul Kolnik

Apart from a story with a melancholy ending such as La Sylphide, Bournonville's choreography, as noted previously, is often characterized by a multitude of petit and grand allegro steps, and a generally sunny mood. Dancers are in the air more than they're on the ground. The style makes use of deep pliés from which to spring upward. There is rarely a moment of stasis. The body is an axis, and the turned-out fifth position a ready-set-go point from which to move in any compass direction, and up and down, with fluidity, delicacy, and ease, despite the speed and challenging technique. 

The Divertissements' many sections, derived from Bournonville's Napoli, Flower Festival in Genzano, and Abdallah, offered choice spotlights for many of the company's fleet-footed dancers. Erica Pereira danced with Allen Peiffer, whose shorts and sailor top gave him the look of a teenager. But it simply contributed to an air of youthfulness and promise. Tyler Angle excelled in the style, unsurprisingly, given his lofty ballon and deceptively effortless bearing. But Sara Mearns, somewhat unexpectedly, managed to articulate each position; her broad dramatic sweep and luxuriant emphasis no hindrance. 

Amar Ramasar and Adrian Danchig-Waring partnered Lauren Lovette and Lauren King (both delightful), Rebecca Krohn (with a warmer demeanor than ever), and Megan LeCrone, whose cool modern outlook was somewhat at odds in the work. Anthony Huxley, who danced the gem of a short solo, was superb as always. The entire cast, beating tambourines, took turns dancing and goading on the others in the jubilant, earthy Tarantella.
     

Sterling Hyltin and Joaquin de Luz in La Sylphide. Photo: Paul Kolnik

La Sylphide made its NYCB premiere in a staging by Martins. This production debuted at the Pennsylvania Ballet in 1985, with bright, mannerist sets by Susan Tammany, who also designed the kilts of purple tartan (read the fascinating story about how she also ushers). It's a bit of an odd duck of a ballet; two acts without an intermission. But it contains some great roles for a few dancers, including the previously mentioned De Luz, more radiant and magnetic than ever before, and like so many of the company's many principals, underused. Sterling Hyltin is ideal for the Sylph, whisper-light and delicate, and, as needed, alternately strong and frail. Georgina Pazcoguin played Madge, the witch, with ravenous, and at times contemporary, gestures, reinforcing her reputation as the company's leading character actress. Daniel Ulbricht danced Gurn, the spurned, yet ultimately redeemed suitor. The role is shallow enough that he made little memorable of it.

This dose of Bournonville is welcome, even in a repertory chock full of Balanchine and the talents of many youngsters. It also shows that the company can handle any challenge with flair.