American Ballet Theatre at City Center
American Ballet Theatre at City Center
By Marian Horosko
At City Center October 23 – November 4, American Ballet Theatre, “America’s National Ballet Company,” had a season full of surprises. Kevin McKenzie, artistic director of the company, is to be congratulated for his choice of repertoire and casting. He has brought the company to undisputed world-class status. It was a season to remember.
Paloma Herrera and Marcelo Gomes in "From Here On Out" // Photo: Gene Schiavone
“Ballo Della Regina,” a 1978 Balanchine work restaged by Merrill Ashley, is a cheerful classical work to ballet music rescued from the original production of Verdi’s “Don Carlos.” The work, performed by two soloists, four demi-soloists and a corps of 12, is Balanchine at his sprightly best, including steps from the vocabulary of dance seldom used by him: taqueté, hops on pointe (in this case, changements on pointe). The corps seemed to enjoy performing a purely classical work, but the two main dancers, Yuriko Kajiya and Herman Cornejo, alas, lacked the elegance and graciousness required of the Balanchine style. Since Cornejo is short in height for a male dancer, it is difficult to pair him with a partner on pointe, no matter how small that partner might be. On pointe, Kajiya is still half-a-head taller. It makes for a distortion in the partnering. Cornejo’s bravura style, however, wins him applause but is unsuitable in this work.
Works in the repertoire, by Tudor, De Mille, Tharp, Robbins and Lubovitch, provided showcase opportunities for the company, with few of the dancers creating memorable characterizations to the well-worn roles. But it was three new works that emphasized the taste and judgment of the artistic director: “Clear,” by Australia’s Stanton Welch, Finland’s Jorma Elo with his “C. to C.” and France’s Benjamin Millepied’s “From Here on Out,” that ushered in a new virtuoso level for the male dancers in the company, and heralded a new requirement to be added to classical ballet technique for all future dancers…cross-over techniques.
Welch, to the music of Bach’s concerti for violin, oboe, and harpsichords, accompanied the classical vocabulary, cleanly executed, although the habit of being cute (fluttering fingers, peek-a-boo gestures) seems to be a national trademark of the “English” psyche. “Clear” shows the masterful craftsmanship and diverse style of this busy choreographer, who has been commissioned not only in Australia, but for his choreographic début with the San Francisco Ballet, as well as commissions from Houston Ballet, Singapore Dance Theatre, and Ananiashvili’s principals of the Bolshoi Ballet, as well as three earlier works for ABT. Jose Manuel Carreño, Gennadi Saveliev, Sascha Radetsky, Craig Salstein and Alejandro Piris-Niño reached new levels of technique, intensity and projection in this work. Paloma Herrera, in her pas de deux with Carreño, has shed her “in-you-face-style” for mature artistry. Wherever you see Welch’s name in whatever company, don’t miss enjoying his lucid and unfettered classical style. It is a hint of what future classical works will be, technically and structurally.
Jorma Elo’s “C. to C.” (“Close to Chuck”) was set to piano études by Philip Glass, “A Musical Portrait of Chuck Close.” The work created a scramble in the audience, at its ABT world premier, to find out who was Chuck Close. Close is an artist who has made paintings, drawings and prints of Glass since they formed a friendship, as youths in 1969. In this painting of the composer through choreographer Elo, the ballet becomes a portrait in arresting scenery by Close, and brilliantly executed costumes by Ralph Rucci…long black skirts make the dancers appear to be skating, as in Russian folk dances. The choreographer, after setting the painterly and musical mood, shifts into percussive, almost spastic movements as the dancers shed the skirts. Julie Kent is at her best; Kristi Boone arrived at new depths of interpretation.
But it was “From Here on Out,” by Millepied, that supplied the bravura of which the company is capable. Beginning with a group of 12 dancers in a cluster, bringing to mind Balanchine’s description of this pile-up, “a musshel,” it disperses into couples, two men and one woman, four men and two women, then five couples. The energy is intense, focused and inventive. Especially startling is an occasional slide on the pointe shoe’s leather arch, below the pleating, that adds another movement to the pointe vocabulary. What will it be called?
The pas de deux are spellbinding, including Maria Riccetto with Alexandre Hammoudi, and especially Sasha Radetsky with Jacquelyn Reyes. But the mesmerizing coupling of Paloma Herrera with Marcelo Gomes remains in the mind’s eye. Physically and emotionally suited to each other as they phrase, shape and illuminate this excerpt, the work will be a challenge to other dancers. The commissioned music by Nico Muhly will take several hearings to untangle.
It was a season to remember.