Pale Fire

Lauren Lovette (lying down) in "Serenade," at the School of American Ballet. Photo by Paul Kolnik.

Last week, it was ABT’s Isabella Boylston, a bright flash streaking across the stage of the Kennedy Center in Ratmansky’s “Bright Stream.” This week, it’s Lauren Lovette, a young member of New York City Ballet, burning a hole through Wheeldon’s “Polyphonia.” Lovette is only nineteen, and joined the company less than two years ago as an apprentice; she became a member of the corps last September. Clearly, people are watching: Wheeldon put her in his ballet “Estancia”  last year, and she is one of five corps dancers selected for the company’s new touring ensemble, Moves. One can see why. She’s hard to miss even when dancing in a large group, moving with a fullness and musicality  that belie both her size (tiny) and tender age. Especially noticeable is how she takes hold of a phrase; it flows right through her, all the way through her fingers and into the air around her. And her eyes: alert, inquisitive, alive.

But “Polyphonia” is a different thing altogether. First of all, there are only eight dancers. She and her partner Chase Finlay (also excellent) performed the sixth section of the ballet, set to the spare, Satie-like “Hopp ide tisztán” from György Ligeti’s “Three Wedding Dances” for four-hand piano (the whole ballet is set to Ligeti piano pieces). With its quiet, almost elemental musical structure and bluish lighting, this section immediately conjures up Frederick Ashton’s lunar “Monotones,” set to Satie. This of course is no surprise; Wheeldon danced many Ashton works when he was a member of the Royal Ballet. As in that ballet, the choreography is made of slow, simple, limpid movements, which must fill vast expanses of space and music: Finlay “pulls” Lovett up onto pointe; with excrutiating slowness, she swings one leg forward and then back, like a pendulum; he circles around her; she bends her back deeply over his arm; as if in a dream, he walks—or glides—backward and out of sight. Lovett is left all alone in the middle of this enormous, empty stage. A few days ago, when Sara Mearns performed the role, she seemed to expand, radiating energy outward; Lovette, instead, pulled inward, drawing the viewer toward her inner world. She repeated the same phrase from the beginning, rising quietly on pointe and elevating her leg, and then began to add gestures, a scooping up of the hands, a turn with the arms held aloft and then lowered into a kind of prayer. She accelerated slightly, she slowed down. Her fingers sparkled with life. She drew attention to every detail of the choreography and made us see it once again. In other words, she not only danced it beautifully, but made it her own.  Look for her in  “Polyphonia” when she dances it again on Feb. 3. She is one to watch.

About the première, Susan Stroman’s “For the Love of Duke,” the less said the better.  To begin with, only the first section, “Frankie and Johnny… and Rose,” is new; the second, “Blossom Got Kissed,” is from 1999. The latter is a mildly amusing little story about a ballerina who has to learn to swing in order to get the guy and steal the show. It contains mostly ensemble dancing, most of which is pretty snazzy—lots of high kicks and flirty hands. It’s ok. But “Frankie and Johnny”… What to say? It depicts a love triangle—two girls, one guy—and the ways in which men misbehave and women are willing to preen and show themselves off for a man. It seems to hail from a parallel universe in which all people are expected to behave in this way, and no-one blinks an eye. A cliché of a cliché. Tiler Peck and Sara Mearns, wearing sparkly tights (with matching toe shoes) and bright pink and red little skirted leotards, swan around and show off their legs, do splits, straddle their partner (the always delighted Amar Ramasar) in lifts, and glare at each other. The only enjoyable part (for me) was the onstage band (the David Berger Jazz Orchestra), playing some mean Ellington tunes. There was a horn player who could really make his trumpet talk.  But it don’t mean a thing.