A scene from Russian Seasons. Photo by Paul Kolnik

One could not imagine two ballerinas more different from each other than Sara Mearns and Teresa Reichlen, both of New York City Ballet. Mearns, all wild attack and in-the-moment electricity; Teresa Reichlen, basking in cool effortlessness and Botticellian radiance. To see them in successive ballets, as one often does, is like experiencing a radical shift in scenery: from stormy seas to a cool forest dell. But to see them dancing together, as we did a few nights ago (Jan. 31), in the leading roles of “Concerto Barocco,” is to watch two different ballets overlapping in time. Each dancer could steal just a little something from the other; Mearns could rein herself in just a touch, for the sake of balance and delicacy, just in this ballet; Reichlen could let herself go a little bit more, come down just slightly from her golden cloud. On the other hand, it is exciting to see them together; their wildly different approaches accentuate the “conversational” aspect of the ballet, the way in which one violin calls out to the other, which responds, in its own voice. This is a ballet about women, the ways in which they interact, their differences and partnerships and graceful alliances, in which the lone man (danced by a reverent and self-effacing Justin Peck) serves only to further exalt the feminine figure. If the ballerina could fly, or tilt off balance without falling over, she would not need him, and yet, in a way, he completes her. It is striking how he appears, just in time to partner her (Reichlen) as the other ballerina disappears quietly into the wings. He carries her in low-gliding lifts about the stage, sustains her as she pulls into a wildly off-balance position on one toe, only to disappear again. The two women trace small circles through the corps, and the cavalier returns again, ready to serve. He’s there when you need him, gone when you don’t.

The company is bursting with interesting ballerinas right now. The final work of the evening, Balachine’s “Firebird,” was led by long, lean Maria Kowroski, who made a most exotic, mournful beast, magnifying the tragedy in her solitude; her wingspan is impressive, but it is the small touches, the way she touches her brow or flutters her fingers, that make the role sing. Between these two ballets, Sterling Hyltin took on the lead role in Jerome Robbins’ “In G Major,” made for the 1975 Ravel Festival. Set to a jazzy, stylish piano concerto, and sporting pastel beach-wear and a sunny, stylized seaside décor by Erte, it is an easy ballet to dismiss. Like the music to which it is set, the choreography has a distinctly jazz-age, Parisian feel. Robbins’ dancers could even be a simplified version of the characters in Le Train Bleu or Les Biches: young sophisticates romping at the seaside, their nonchalance embodied in flirty jogging, sauntering, and skipping steps. Hyltin flirted with the boys, swinging those feminine, sexy hips of hers; and her partner, Adrian Danchig-Waring, a stretchy, intense, slightly androgynous-looking dancer floated through the scene, sweeping all the girls off their feet. But the real magic happens in the pas de deux, set to Ravel’s adagio. Here, the composer took a pared-down approach: the orchestration is reduced to a minimum, and the simple piano melody, in ¾, has the feel of a faded, but cherished memory. The choreography is equally pared down, mostly built on walking steps: the man and the woman walk toward each other, and then away. The whole thing is like a summer romance, full of longing and just a touch of regret—summer romances are not built to last. There is nothing showy, nothing overwrought, just a few of those magical Robbins lifts that come out of nowhere. The lovers cannot stop gazing at each other; the erotic pull draws them together again and again, and yet they don’t yet have the intimacy of a real couple. It is the tender, tentative eroticism just before love. Hyltin’s femininity and girlish sophistication, combined with Danchig-Waring’s somewhat exotic—and androgynous– intensity took us to the heart of the affair.

A few days later (Feb. 2) came one of the highlights of the season: the return of Alexei Ratmansky’s “Russian Seasons.” He made this work for the company in 2006; it was last performed in 2008. This was his second ballet for an American troupe, and how lucky City Ballet is to have it in its rep. With an almost completely new cast, it still feels fresh and essential, vibrantly alive. This is a ballet one can return to again and again. Set to a song cycle by Leonid Desyatnikov (for mezzo-soprano) that follows the Russian Orthodox calendar, it has a profoundly Russian feel, but is also very contemporary in the facility with which Ratmansky deconstructs the source material. The songs, and choreography, hint at death, loneliness, aggression, even madness, but also at joy and friendship, the changing of the seasons and marriage. All of this is handled with a light touch, with little flourishes of humor and casual gestures and even a sprinkle of deconstructed balletic mime. As in many of his ballets, Ratmansky creates a world onstage in which the dancers come alive. Sara Mearns, in the role originally created for Sofiane Sylve (the girl in red), screamed with her body, reaching and kicking furiously, desperate to escape some terrible fate (the Russian lyrics speak of her being married off to an old man). Wendy Whelan, with her essential, wiry lyricism, seemed to glide across the stage, at first playful, but later defeated by life, gathering invisible flowers at her feet as she crouched, alone and shunned by the other couples; she mimed a trail of tears. Megan Fairchild, in green, played a simple soul–perhaps mad– haunted by three male spirits (Amar Ramasar, Jonathan Stafford, and Sean Suozzi) that she couldn’t see. She dove between them, or crawled under a bridge formed by Ramasar’s body; they skittered threateningly behind her and pushed her down to the ground when she tried to rise to her feet. Then they clapped their hands, as if to release her from her spell. Dark forces were afoot. In one of the most thrilling sections, various dancers do all sorts of things across the stage, in groups or singly; check their stockings, do a folk dance with their arms behind their back, jump in unison, until finally, without explanation, they come forward in ones and twos, bowing deeply in the Russian manner (hand to the heart) to the audience and departing, as if it were the end of the show. But no, it’s just a feint; the next section begins, with its little cuckoo-like figure in the strings. Four dancers, two men and two women, lean on each other droopily for support, as if exhausted from working in the fields. Then, out of nowhere, one of the girls pushes a boy down to the floor. Then another does the same. They look at each other in surprise.

Russian Seasons is the best new ballet the company has commissioned in years; it’s probably still one of Ratmansky’s finest. It will be performed again on Feb. 7, 15, 23, and 24. It would be a shame to miss it.

* Please feel free to leave a comment. If you would like to receive an alert when new pieces are posted on the Dance page, please drop me a line at dancinginthefastertimes@gmail.com. You can also check my updates on Twitter: @MarinaHarss

And now, with the success of Wim Wenders’ “Pina,” 3D has entered into the discussion. Everyone talks about how unsatisfying it is to watch dance on film, and to a certain extent I agree.  In performances recorded on sound stages, the dancers tend to look cramped, and the camera always seems to be either too close or too far. You don’t really feel the weight and amplitude of the movement on a screen; the music seems disconnected from the steps, as if it came from a recording rather than an orchestra playing in the same space (as it often does). But still, it’s better than nothing.

In fact, I’ve rather enjoyed the recent live HD screenings from various theatres around the world, most notably the Bolshoi, which is actively pushing the medium, in a kind of drive for world ballet domination (just kidding, sort of). The technology for live broadcasting has improved a great deal, and it is a thrill to peek into these vast, glittering theatres, and to form an impression of national and company styles, and of the various abilities and attributes of dancers we wouldn’t otherwise get to see. The images onscreen are crisp, the dimensions larger-than-life; the multiple cameras offer several points of view (though the editing also sometimes misses crucial passages), as if one were sitting in both the orchestra seats and the balcony at once. You get to see faces and feet, but also shifting, beautiful, geometric floor patterns. Would that New York City Ballet, which now has a sophisticated media suite thanks to the State Theatre’s David Koch-financed renovation, would devote energy and money to broadcasting its fine dancers and rich repertoire. (There are surely union issues to be resolved, but it would be worth it.) This past fall, Live at Lincoln Center broadcast “The Nutcracker” over PBS’s network of stations, but used its own movable media facilities, stationed in a trailer parked outside of the theatre. Let’s hope the company can pick up where they left off.

Of course, there have also been many dance films over the years, both fictional and documentary: “The Red Shoes,” “The Turning Point,” “The Children of Theatre Street” (a favorite), and the entire oeuvre of Fred Astaire. Two years ago, there was the ghastly and gory “Black Swan,” and in 2011, the remake of “Footlose” and Wim Wender’s “Pina,” a tribute to the late Pina Bausch, which I only got around to seeing quite recently. Wenders’ innovation is the use of 3D, which is meant to enhance our experience of observing the dance excerpts, many of which are filmed en plein air, in the streets of Wuppertal. 3D supposedly brings us into the space with the dancers, makes the visual aspect more intense, awakens the senses, and corrects some of the flatness one usually experiences when seeing dance on film. I’ll say that I’m not convinced, at least not yet. As in the past, I found the 3D “experience” disconcerting; everything looks weightless, transparent, and filmy, as if we were looking at multiple translucent images superimposed over each other rather than a single, unified picture. The likeness is blurry with the glasses, and also without the glasses. The spectacles at the Elinor Bunin Munroe Film Center at Lincoln Center were sturdier than most, and fit well. But still, I found myself removing them repeatedly, to give my eyes a rest.  Not the ideal way to lose oneself in a movie.

That said, some images had a particularly visceral effect, probably because of the technology: In one, a small theatre model suddenly came to life, and we were in the midst of a performance of “Café Müller” (a lodestone work to which the film returns again and again). In another, the film-maker’s (and thus our) eye wandered among the dancers on a dirt-strewn stage during Bausch’s angst-ridden “Rite of Spring.” We were incredibly close to the performers, closer than we would ever be in a theatre, and could see every grain of dirt as it clung to the dancers’ sweat, and the performers’ unbelievable commitment. For this is what comes through most powerfully in the film—both in the voiceover interviews and in the performances themselves: the almost religious, completely unrestrained commitment of Bausch’s company to her vision, and to her. It is a powerful testament to her almost guru-like influence that one of the dancers in the current company is the daughter of two former company-members. As she says, “I have never known a world without Pina.” These people, all of them interesting, mature, complex, and emotionally compelling, are utterly devoted to her and to her dances. There is no faking. She drew them out as people and as artists, and they have given her everything.

That said, this evocation of the dancers’ personas and devotion, does not really make the most powerful case for the choreography itself. Wenders seems intent on going beyond Bausch’s dances to reveal the emotional content, as if the choreography were not enough. Bausch of course played into this notion of the dance as conduit to feeling with such pronouncements as “I don’t care how my dancers move, but what moves them.” But it is, paradoxically, an underestimation of her own work as a choreographer/woman of the theatre and of the company-members as dancers and artists. What makes a Bausch’s work powerful is not simply individual moments of emotional exposure, but the construction of the works, the voyage, the story she tells over the course of an evening through movement and words and music and set designs, and how the dancers tell it with their bodies. What the film shows, on the other hand, are isolated, often repeated fragments from a small set of works (“Vollmond,” “Café Müller,” “Kontakthof,” “Rite of Spring”) which give a skewed impression of her dances over the years. It all looks the same: angst, angst, angst, and more angst. Coy, forced little smiles that say “yes, we know that you know that we know” and “isn’t this clever”? Women in gauzy dresses and heels, men in trousers and button-down shirts. Falling, falling, and more falling. Men and women grappling, and then letting go, and grappling some more. All of this is certainly part of the Bausch esthetic, but the experience of a full evening of Bausch is, at its best, more than a sum of these parts.

Bringing these solos and duets outside of the theatre, like the monorail in Wuppertal or a park or a traffic intersection, doesn’t help either. It underlines the essential theatricality—the underlying fakeness—of the situations they depict. What can feel hyper-real onstage, seems artificial and forced in the city, where people are living real, sometimes dramatic experiences every minute of every day. And why do the travelers in the monorail not react when they see a lithe, wild-haired dancer, garbed in evening wear, thrashing in one of Bausch’s sorrowful solos? They barely look up from their books. The artifice is striking, as it is in the voice-over testimonials by her dancers, touching as they are. They stare significantly into the camera while their voices speak of their love for her, of the ways in which she saved them, made them into who they are. They are touchingly sincere, but their quasi-religious devotion is so strong that it blocks real insight into Bausch’s work as a choreographer. How did she make the dances? What techniques did she use to draw out these visceral performances? Is it really possible that there was never any conflict in the studio? As it is, one would think these works magically made themselves. Where are the nuts and bolts?

We get more nuts and bolts in the new documentary about the Joffrey Ballet: “Joffrey: Mavericks of American Dance,” directed by Bob Hercules, who made the recent “Bill T. Jones: A Good Man” for the “American Masters” series on PBS. It was shown recently at the “Dance on Camera” festival at Lincoln Center, now in its fortieth year.  It’s an illuminating film about a choreographer and company-director we don’t hear about enough. Once New York’s third company, the Joffrey decamped for Chicago (after a financial meltdown) in 1995. The tale of Robert Joffrey, this raid balletomane who brought Nijinsky’s “Rite of Spring,” Massine’s “Parade,” and Kurt Jooss’s “The Green Table” back to life through sheer determination and love, is important and should be told. The footage in the film shows a company that is excitingly diverse, with a variety of body types and a warm, engaging manner, in contrast to the high stylization of New York City Ballet. What we see of Joffrey’s own ballets, like “Astarte” and “Gamelan,” shows a choreographer more interested in spectacle and engagement with his times than with real innovation or form. But the liveliness and eclecticism of the company speaks to a greater connection to the culture at large than at either ABT or NYCB. And some of the dancers, especially Gary Chryst—who played the Chinese Conjurer in “Parade” and the Profiteer in “The Green Table”– come across as electric, utterly unique performers. It is difficult to imagine them in any other company.

I had only two complaints about the film: first, a certain over-emphasis on the “American-ness” of Joffrey and the too-frequent references to Balanchine in negative terms, as “beholden” to European forms or “measured” (in contrast to Joffrey and Arpino’s dynamism) in his approach. I would argue that “measured” is not the first word that comes to mind when thinking of Balanchine, and that his dialogue with European ballet was the very substance of his innovation. In any case, such repeated references revealed a chip on the shoulder that was diminishing to Joffrey’s legacy rather than celebratory or positive. Joffrey and Arpino’s achievements should speak for themselves. Secondly, the talking heads in the film were too few; it would have been interesting to hear a wider range of points of view. But much supporting material is available on a connected website, joffreymovie.com, which is well worth perusing.

Another film in the festival, “Balanchine in Paris,” by the French filmmaker Dominique Delouche, was an intimate portrait of particular slice of the Balanchine universe, his work with French ballerinas. Both Ghislaine Thesmar and Violette Verdy are interviewed, and also shown both in archival footage (sublime) and in recent coaching sessions with current members of the Paris Opéra Ballet. There is also footage of Alicia Markova, one of the “baby ballerinas” of Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes, teaching the nuances of the role of the nightingale in Balanchine’s “Chant du Rossignol” to a young dancer (Myriam Ould-Braham) at the Opéra. Markova’s understanding of the role is profound, and legible in the examples she shows to her pupil, at the venerable age of ninety.  (You can see this on YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=16TB_PkzKC4 ). It is also evident how difficult it is to break through habits of contemporary technique: incredibly high extensions, perfect positions, a tendency to rely on muscle or esthetics rather than interpretation. In the work of all three former ballerinas, the detail, intelligence, and musicality of their imaginations shines through. Violette Verdy, in particular, is able to articulate the most subtle detail, as when she distinguishes between two swoons in a pas de deux from “Liebeslieder Waltzer”: in the first one, she tells the ballerina that the woman “fait semblant d’être soumise” (pretends to be submissive), while in the second, “je crois que c’est du vrai” (I think it’s for real). In explaining a passage from “Sonatine,” with music by Ravel, she tells the ballerina that a certain, playful moment, is “très Ginger et Fred.” It changes the quality of the movement completely, makes it more free, less effete. Then we see a short clip of Verdy in “Sonatine”—she is all charm, all music, all warmth.  By contrast, the present-day ballerinas come across as exquisite, but cold. Verdy’s constant refrain is, “un peu plus riche, plus généreux.” Words to live by.

* Please feel free to leave a comment. If you would like to receive an alert when new pieces are posted on the Dance page, please drop me a line at dancinginthefastertimes@gmail.com. You can also check my updates on Twitter: @MarinaHarss

This was the company’s first all-Wheeldon evening, and it included a beautiful early work (“Polyphonia,” from 2001), a company première (“DGV: Danse à Grande Vitesse”), and the aforementioned new ballet (“Les Carillons”). Expectations were understandably high. And the evening succeeded, on many levels, though it was marred by a terrible moment during “Polyphonia,” when the senior ballerina Jennie Somogyi very visibly suffered an injury to her ankle (or so it appeared) during a pas de deux with Gonzalo García. She looked stricken, stopped dancing, gasped, turned, and, in evident pain, limped offstage. Never has the distance from center stage to wings felt so terribly long. Somogyi had already suffered a severe injury several years ago, and has fought hard to come back. She has been dancing gloriously. It is not anything anyone wants to see.

Fortunately, Tiler Peck, who has danced Somogyi’s role in “Polyphonia” before, was on hand, and was able to finish the ballet with her usual level-headedness. The evening was saved, but the dark cloud remained. Before any of this had happened, however, the company had already pulled back the curtain on “Les Carillons,” Wheeldon’s new ballet. It is set to music from two versions of Bizet’s orchestral suite “L’Arlésienne,” which began life as incidental music for a pastoral tragedy by Alphonse Daudet. The music has sort of an eighteenth-century feel, with a stately opening theme dominated by strong rhythms, followed by country dances interwoven with more delicate, plaintive passages, and ending with a lusty farandole (a peasant dance) and the bell-like melody which inspired Wheeldon’s title.  What the music does not have, since it was not conceived as an integrated musical composition, is a clear progression from one section to the next. It feels very much like a series of miniatures, with little to connect them and not much sense of development. This is important only because it inevitably affects the shape of the dance. “Les Carillons” is built as a series of dances, with some overlapping material to pull them together: an ensemble, various pas de deux, solos, and a grand finale.

Because of the episodic nature of the ballet, it will take further viewings for it to fully cohere in the mind, but what can be said on first viewing is that it gets more interesting as it goes along. The first section, which opens with an all-male ensemble set to a formal theme and variations, felt a little expository, with Wheeldon very markedly presenting material that was then tweaked in various ways throughout the ballet: a flexed-footed pirouette for the men with the leg held out to the side, a flourish of the arms and hands that began overhead and descended, in florid stages, to a low position behind the back.  The women, wearing long, silky, sleeveless dresses in bright, saturated colors, with a sheer panel at the front, were presented, from the start, as sensually alluring, shaking their shoulders and twirling their wrists. The men wore brown tights and over-elaborate tops (by Mark Zappone) with only one sleeve (and the other arm bare), decorated with bright-colored panels and sheer fabric. The décor (by Jean-Marc Puissant) was a painterly drop curtain, washed with broad, sinuous brush-strokes in soft, muted colors. It was attractive, but didn’t seem to go with the costumes, or with the dramatic, somewhat florid feel of the dance.

After this opening section, a series of pas de deux began with a duet for Sara Mearns and Amar Ramasar. As usual when Mearns is involved, there was a certain drama to the choreography, with a lot of strenuous pulling, often off-balance, and an emphasis on the legs (big, swooping circles in the air, powerful kicks).  A small ensemble lingered in the shadows, commenting on, echoing, and observing their  interactions. This theme of watching returns throughout “Les Carillons.”

Then followed a quartet for Tiler Peck, Gonzalo García, Ana Sophia Scheller, and Daniel Ulbricht, the most salient feature of which was a very gymnastic-looking turn in which the women grabbed one foot as they raised it forward in front of their bodies, and then pulled it up overhead and then down again. Then came a shift in tone, introducing a quiet, plaintive pas de deux for Wendy Whelan and Robert Fairchild. This is where things began to get more interesting. Again, the other dancers hovered nearby, watching the drama unfold. Whelan, the transparent, delicate soul, was raised from a kneeling position by Fairchild, and supported as she half-walked, half-slid across the stage. Fairchild carried her in a slow, drifting lift, and folded her slender body, like an origami figure. She was a portrait of melancholy, a lost soul. As she returned to a kneeling position, he hovered over her, his leg held above her shoulder in an arabesque, and then departed. Whelan stayed, wandering amidst a celebratory ensemble doing little jumps with their feet tucked beneath them (a hop similar to the one  Alexei Ratmansky used in his “Nutcracker”—could this be a sign of cross-pollination? If so, how interesting). This section had a nice, complicated layering effect, with two, and then three groups moving in vigorous counterpoint, while Whelan traced her slow, meandering trajectory.

In another male ensemble, the men were, as at the beginning, like a battalion of knights, lunging forward in a diagonal on one knee, holding out one arm as if clasping a sword, and then assisting each other in ever-higher jumps. A folk theme introduced Sara Mearns in a kind of wild gypsy dance, flicking her wrists, flinging her legs, tapping her heels, and shaking her shoulders. It goes without saying that she’s phenomenal in this sort of thing. Then, a rather interesting, lengthy pas de deux for Tyler Angle and tall, sinuous María Kowroski, revealed backward-swooning développés and a sexy move in which she straddled Angle’s leg from behind as he lunged forward; the romance built toward a rather showy one-armed overhead lift. But my favorite moment came after this, in a solo for Tiler Peck accompanied by a lilting flute melody (a minuet), with a neat little trick I had never seen before: she swiveled her feet in and out on pointe, repeatedly, as if playing a private game. The whole solo was saucy and playful, and skillfully made use of Peck’s ability to combine a multitude of detailed movements in different parts of her body (a head swivel, a flourish of the wrist, an off-balance turn) all at once, making everything look smooth and seamless and easy as pie. And then came the big finale, the farandole, with a recapitulation of many of the motifs in the ballet.

The cast—both principals and ensemble– was uniformly strong (as it was in the other tow ballets of the evening), the music lively and danceable (if perhaps a little square), and Wheeldon’s choreography rich with ideas. And yet, at least at first viewing, it didn’t quite rise above a sum of its elements. It didn’t seem to have a strong underlying idea, a real, compelling argument, the way that, say “Polyphonia” or “After the Rain” does; with those ballets one knows immediately, and powerfully, what the choreographer is trying to say. “Carillons,” like Bizet’s music, still feels like a compendium of well-made parts. Perhaps this impression will change.

The evening’s closer, “DGV: Danse à Grande Vitesse,” is a bit of a slick, shiny crowd-pleaser. It works, people like it, and it has a driving, though exceptionally relentless, score by Michael Nyman. It’s sexy, fast, and virtuosic, and enormously stylish. Teresa Reichlen looked phenomenal in her role as a goddess of movement. The theme of high-speed locomotion, and the excitement of travel, comes through loud and clear. The set, like an explosion of titanium coming up through the stage, is fabulous. There are lots and lots of exciting, cartwheel lifts for the women, whose arms and legs become like spokes in a fast-turning wheel. The whole thing is like one, long, never-ending crescendo. And on it goes.

More soon on: the Dance on Camera Festival and Pina

* Please feel free to leave a comment. If you would like to receive an alert when new pieces are posted on the Dance page, please drop me a line at dancinginthefastertimes@gmail.com. You can also check my updates on Twitter: @MarinaHarss

New York City Ballet began its winter repertory season on Jan. 17, with a rather wan evening of Balanchine: “The Steadfast Tin Soldier,” “Le Tombeau de Couperin,” and “Who Cares?” It was an off night. “Steadfast” was too sweet; “Couperin” too docile. The high point was when Ashley Bouder flew in like a bat out of hell in “Tchaikovsky Pas de Deux,” and fell. “Who Cares?” suffered from its usual surfeit of brassy cheer. “Who Cares?” always puts me on edge, with those terribly tinkly, jarringly optimistic arrangements of Gershwin by Hershy Kay, and chintzy electric pink leotards for the corps. The choreography for the ensemble is amongst Balanchine’s least inspired. And yet: Tiler Peck gave one of the most sizzling, wily, feminine performances I have ever seen. As she traced her diagonal from front to back in “The Man I love,” covering her eyes and arching her back extravagantly, she was transformed (and with her, the ballet), all smooth and silky, but sizzling and dramatic too. And always with that easy, nothing-to-prove way she has. She extended her arms on a note in the trumpet, and the movement merged with the brassy sound; her body is an instrument. For a moment, the orchestration and the cheesy costumes just ceased to matter. She gets it, and makes it sing. (Another nod goes to Emily Kikta, a tall, vivacious new corps dancer. I’d never noticed her before (she joined last August) but the vigor and joy of her dancing made her stand out from an otherwise dutiful corps. I look forward to seeing her again, soon.

The following night, Jan. 18, was mostly the same, with Tiler Peck and Gonzalo García as the principal couple in “Tchaikovsky Pas de Deux,” and a different closer: “Union Jack,” vastly preferable to “Who Cares?” Again, Peck reveled in her newly-blossoming feminine charm. The girl has style, and she suddenly seems to have grown an inch or two. García looked a little forced, as he often does. Why is it that this beautiful dancer, who started off so well, has never really settled into the company or found his groove? There are a few ballets, like Robbins’ “Opus 19: The Dreamer,” that he has taken to completely. He owns them. But outside of this small group of ballets, he still dances like a fish out of water. It’s a shame, because the company is sorely lacking in male dancers with his qualities : his lyricism and dreamy introspection, but also his lovely jump and fine line. But he’s hit or miss.

“Union Jack” is always a pleasure, with its battalions of kilted clans filing in, accompanied by Scottish tattoos, doing pas de basques till the cows come home. How I love to see the stage flooded with dancers, 72 at once, filling every inch of the stage and moving in unison. It’s the pleasure of military parades, of the changing of the guard, of Olympic spectacles. Balanchine knew the powerful effect only vast multitudes moving with elegant precision can produce. And he knew how to present them with just a touch of irony, an eyebrow raised, as if to say: isn’t it all marvelous. Lest we forget, he created this tribute to British military tradition, ending with the entire cast signaling “God Save the Queen” with hand flags, for the Bicentennial of the American Revolution, which makes absolutely no sense, except that in a twisted sort of way it does. My only quibble with this cast was having three regiments in a row led by three of the least rhythmically-inclined ladies in the company: Janie Taylor, Wendy Whelan, and Maria Kowroski. All three have qualities in abundance, but rhythmic pop is not one of them. (Maria Kowroski, especially, can shave the edges off of any rhythm.) Just one of them would have added an interesting contrast; two, an added twist; but three in a row is positively eccentric. My other gripe is the Costermonger Pas de Deux, a supposedly humorous dancehall number that never seems to get any laughs.  I have been assured that it can be done, and I’ve seen it get part of the way there with Jenifer Ringer in the female role. As it is now, the high point is the arrival of the donkey, a stage veteran who apparently is the only remaining member of the original cast (from 1976). With him, arrive two small peppy girls, who join in the finale. One of them, Callie Reiff, was the biggest ham I’ve ever seen in one so diminutive a body; just the thing to spice up this tepid act.

Things spiced up significantly in the second week of the season, with a program made up of Balanchine’s “Donizetti Variations” and “Firebird,” and Jerome Robbins’ “In Memory Of…” (Jan. 26). The latter is certainly not top tier Robbins, but, with Wendy Whelan’s performance, it nevertheless holds a certain fascination. This ode to death—in which a young woman is drawn away from the world of the living and into a place inhabited by angels—is dominated by an overlong pas de deux with a shadowy character (danced by Ask la Cour). It begins rather brutally, with death’s hands yanking at her forearms, but ends with great tenderness, as the dark prince offers the woman his hand, which she takes, with infinite acceptance, and almost gratitude. It is horrifying to see La Cour drag the great Whelan across the stage, her body limp and lifeless—she has an uncanny ability to mask all muscular effort, as if she’d truly given up the ghost. As always, Whelan’s imagination, the infinite shadings and limpid soulfulness  (and underlying strength) of her interpretation, brings this rather rambling and overly tormented ballet to life.

“Donizetti” is simply too fun for words, and oh, the music! Playful, clever, melodious, full of fun, but also of lighthearted drama. Each musical number (drawn from the ballet music for “Don Sebastien”) paints a little scene, which Balanchine is more than happy to fill in, again, with just a hint of dry humor. Only once does he take the satire a bit too far, and yet, even here, it works: In a dramatic passage in the music (perhaps evoking a storm), the small ensemble runs out, girls hiding their eyes with their forearms. Something exciting is afoot! One of the girls, realizing that the others are distracted, seizes the moment and does a happy dance, full of pas de chats, until, in her excitement, she “twists” her ankle and is forced to return to her assigned spot. It’s silly, for sure, but that’s the point. The whole ballet is like a tongue-in-cheek Bournonville divertissement in miniature, a twenty-minute “Napoli,” complete with skads of petit allegro and pretty dirndl-like dresses for the girls. Devin Alberda, of the corps, deserves special mention for the clarity and elegance of his footwork in the ensemble, and the intelligence with which he pulls off the choreography—he looks engaged, amused, and not over-taxed. Megan Fairchild, with her light jump, frisky piqués, and happy demeanor, is almost perfect for the central ballerina role, if she would just take the sweetness down a degree or two. Joaquin de Luz manages the dizzying pyrotechnics—all taken at lightning speed—of the virtuoso male role with aplomb and just the right hint of cocky charm, ending every display with a handsome hand-on-hip pose, beaming out at the audience. What other man in the company could pull off this bravura choreography with such easy panache?

The evening closed with Balanchine’s “Firebird.” Though this version lacks the mystery and dramatic line that makes Fokine’s so dreamlike and stirring—where is the dance of the golden apples? What are these princesses doing in this strange land?—the music and glorious costumes (and curtains) by Chagall make up for an awful lot. I do wish Maestro Clotilde Otranto would take the tempi a bit slower, to allow the dark growl of the strings to sink deeper into our consciousness, and to imbue the scene with the princesses with a more plaintive hue. Their assembly felt more like a girlish garden party than the hymn to Russian homesickness that it is meant to be—after all, they are prisoners of an evil wizard in a faroff land. The side-to-side tilt of the princesses’ heads, meant to suggest Russian dances, and Russian dolls, loses its lilt when taken at top speed. Savannah Lowery, stepping in for Rebecca Krohn, has all the mystery and vulnerability of a champion cheerleader. I could almost hear the unwritten dialogue in my mind: “oh, my gawd, the Tsarevitch is so cute!” Jonathan Stafford, on the other hand, has significantly deepened his interpretation of the role of Ivan, the Tsarevitch. There is still a touch of blankness there, but it is plausibly the blankness of innocence. After all, this is his bildungsroman.

Of course the main attraction of Balanchine’s “Firebird” is the choreography for the magical beast, created for Maria Tallchief. She is fierce, powerful, feral, but also, underneath, harbors a tender heart. Her capture by Ivan in the first scene should be an ambivalent spectacle; such an animal should not be handled by a man. And yet, she feels the stirrings of love. The pas de deux is electric and tinted in aggression; she is repulsed and attracted. It has always been one of Ashley Bouder’s best roles, and on this night, Bouder danced with her usually dazzling precision, speed, and strength. But her interpretation has lost a little of its bloom; it’s too hard, too muscular, too measured for effect. Only in her second solo, after she saves Ivan and the princess from Kostchei’s monsters, did she allow herself to be vulnerable, to expand and show the essential loneliness of her character. Her eyes, which used to look out so hungrily into the audience, have lost some of their crazed ardor. And yet, the deep bend in her back, the serpentine undulations of her arms, spoke of eternal longing. This creature has known the first rumblings of human love, but it’s not to be.  Like the Firebird, there is something isolating about Bouder’s bravura; no-one can come near, not even the audience. Someone, or something, needs to touch her. As always, the splendor of the final Chagallian tableau, a resplendent wedding, is marred by the cruelty of the Firebird’s absence. Unlike the Lilac Fairy in Sleeping Beauty, she’s not invited to the party. As in all fairy-tales, there is a tinge of cruelty to the restoration of order.

Next: reflections on Win Wender’s “Pina” and other dance on film, and my thoughts on NYCB’s all-Wheeldon evening, including a new work: “Les Carillons.”

* Please feel free to leave a comment. If you would like to receive an alert when new pieces are posted on the Dance page, please drop me a line at dancinginthefastertimes@gmail.com. You can also check my updates on Twitter: @MarinaHarss

We are  lucky to have two very satisfying major productions here in New York, in addition to myriad smaller ones, each with its own virtues (mainly, the often impressive dancing of children from ballet schools all over town, who prepare for months for this moment). The creator of the “Yorkville Nutcracker,” Francis Patrelle (a much-loved teacher) had the clever idea of setting his version in late nineteenth-century New York, complete with references to Gracie Mansion and the Conservatory at the Bronx Botanical Gardens. “Nutcracker in the Lower,” set in a Lower East Side tenement, has flamenco and hip-hop. The New York Theatre Ballet’s one-hour version, newly re-choreographed by Keith Michael, is remarkable for the integrity of its hard-working dancers and its economy of means, as well as its marvelous costumes, designed by Sylvia Taalsohn Nolan (whose day job is designing costumes for the Metropolitan Opera).

But all of these smaller productions lack one essential ingredient: a live orchestra. Because, really, “The Nutcracker” is all about the music.  Tchaikovsky’s score is a  microcosm, a peek through the keyhole into a complete world, or rather into two worlds: the childhood of the mind and the childhood of dreams. By turns, the music is nervously excited (as in the overture), domestic (the party scene), disquieting (the music for the tree), irresistibly danceable (the waltzes for the snowflakes and flowers), and witty (the second-act divertissements). But then, suddenly, it begins to bleed emotion. The music that accompanies the children as they enter the snowy forest (on their way to the Land of the Sweets) and the powerful descending scale of the Sugarplum Fairy’s pas de deux are among the most moving passages Tchaikovsky ever wrote. Balanchine also had the good idea to steal the violin entr’acte from Tchaikovsky’s “Sleeping Beauty” and use it for the scene in which Marie (or Clara in other versions) returns to the parlor, after bedtime, to tend to her broken Nutcracker. This haunting violin cadenza shifts the tone from one of domestic coziness to one that opens the way for the inexplicable events and overwhelming feelings that follow. It also foreshadows the six-note melody (essentially an ascending and descending scale) that accompanies the tree’s magical, and rather frightening, rise.

Along with the choreography, the manner in which the music is performed (tempi, dynamics) has a definite impact on the ballet’s feel. New York City Ballet’s version is crisp, fast, clean. It suits Balanchine’s crystal-clear, dynamic choreography, and the effect is bracing, brilliant, invigorating. American Ballet Theatre’s is slower, more opulent, more leisurely, allowing space for Ratmansky’s heavily detailed, layered, more theatrical take. (It must be said that the playing of ABT’s orchestra is also less precise, and that the pauses between the sections are too long, sapping some of the drive.)

Like many, I’ve been watching Balanchine’s “Nutcracker” for as long as I can remember, first on television, later live. Though created almost sixty years ago (in 1954), it still works, like a beautiful machine: musically, dramatically, and in terms of stagecraft and timing, it is virtually flawless. As my companion at the Dec. 21 matinée exclaimed, the moment in which the tree grows and grows, its tip eventually disappearing above the proscenium arch, is more exciting than anything in “Avatar”—mainly because it’s really happening, before your eyes, creaks and all, buoyed by a surging crescendo–the aforementioned six-note figure. The first act  moves along briskly, with just a dollop of social detail to keep the eye engaged, as when all the girls pass over Fritz for their first formal dance, so that he is left to dance with his mother; or when Fritz conducts a little orchestra made up of his friends, and then instructs them to charge the girls;  or the way Marie’s father can’t quite decide where to hang the final Christmas tree decoration. It also has an underlying tremolo of wonder, from the start: Marie’s slow-motion hand-shake with Drosselmeyer’s nephew; the way the children hold their arms up to the tree, as if it were a totem; the sudden transformation of the Stahlbaum living room into a cabinet of wonders, outsized but spare, and slightly askew. All this shape-shifting is too much for Marie, and she doesn’t quite trust her eyes; she goes around and touches each and every thing, from the muskets of the life-sized toy soldiers to the elongated ears of the drum-beating bunny (played by a tiny dance-student). The appearance of Marie’s mother, hair loose, holding a candle, like the sleepwalker in “La Sonnambula,” foreshadows the drama to come. This is where the violin melody from “Sleeping Beauty” comes in.

Balanchine calibrates the dancing carefully: there is less dancing in the first act, of course, and much of it comes as formalized social dance, in which the children join in, or imitate their elders. They bow, they slide their feet, they form passageways with their arms while others pass under them. The dances for the automatons (a soldier and two commedia dell’arte figures) provide an early diversion, nothing too complicated, but clear and lovely nonetheless, especially the dance of the toy soldier, with its flat-footed beaten jumps and landings on one knee. The “real” dancing begins with the Waltz of the Snowflakes: fleet, brilliantly geometric, space-eating designs radiating across the stage. I’ll admit, it sometimes looks a tad rushed to me, but one can’t help but gasp at the virtuosity and amplitude of the movement, Balanchine’s gift to the corps de ballet. In the second act, Balanchine again plays a few subtle tricks with the music. Firstly, he detaches the Sugarplum Fairy’s solo from Tchaikovsky’s grand, culminating pas de deux. The solo is moved to the beginning of the act, becoming  Sugarplum’s greeting to her two young guests. But it is also a Balanchinean celebration of resplendent femininity. Balanchine makes Sugarplum a feminine ideal, a compendium of all the qualities to which Marie can aspire: delicacy, strength, grace. She needs no man; she is strong, beautiful, deeply self-assured—indeed, what could ever go wrong? Her solo is filled with sparkling jumps, floating half-turns in arabesque, and little hops on the beat that lead into strong, vertical balances on one leg. (On Dec. 21, Tiler Peck was, as always, expansive, naturally musical, and unemphatic. She is also developing a new womanliness, an appealing pliancy, that bodes well for other roles, like the introspective solo in “Emeralds.”) After this, the divertissements unfurl like little miniatures, never overwrought, one idea per dance, witty and clean. That is, until the waltz of the flowers and its airborne solo for Dewrop, who rides the melody—surprisingly dramatic for such a happy dance—like a wave, in a series of brisk, flying jumps. (On Dec. 21, Janie Taylor had a fiery tension, as if carrying an urgent message.) And then, finally, comes the pas de deux, grand and formal. The cavalier exists only to suport Sugarplum, to allow her to fully extend her range of motion, to catch her as she dives forward after a turn, to hold her aloft in floating lifts across the stage, and, in a final coup de théâtre, to pull her forward  as she balances on a hidden platform that makes it appear as if she is floating across the surface of the stage. All pretense of storytelling has evaporated: this is a show, an abstraction, a symbol. Here, again, Tiler Peck was triumphant, but without airs; she is truly a wonder.

Ratmansky’s take could not be more different. He isn’t interested in symbols or abstractions, not really. His “Nutcracker” is more human, more down to earth, while at the same time it taps into a sense of exoticism and whimsy quite unlike Balanchine’s. His children are slightly older, which makes them less cute, and more complex. Clara (played by Mikaela Kelly on both Dec. 14 and 20) is tall, sensitive-looking, and un-mannered; she could be Alice in Wonderland, pretty and unspoiled, with a broad forehead and long arms. One feels the tension between the child she still is and the young woman she is about to become, while Fritz (played by the excellent Kai Monroe) is still  the bratty boy, always making mischief. In general, the kids in this version are badly behaved, and Ratmansky has given them a little phrase that perfectly captures their petulance, a step-step-jump-with-the-feet-tucked-under that comes down right on the beat. The emphasis is on the clunk of their feet, not on the whoosh of the takeoff. The same goes for the snowflakes, who do a modified version of the jump, again timed to come down on the beat rather than use it as a launching pad. (The jump was a feature of the Czar Princess’s solo in his “Little Humpbacked Horse,” as well.) In general, Ratmanksy’s choreography here is more earth-bound, more lush, more complicated, and less airy than Balanchine’s.

The party scene is filled with layers of detail; it’s almost too much for the eye to see (and the stage at the Howard Gilman Opera House at BAM is a bit cramped), but at the same time, there is something exciting about the complexity of the activity. Ratmansky is asking us to look, look, and look some more. There are endless details of chracterization: the parents are young, and, especially when played by Alexandre Hammoudi and Leann Underwood, they appear to be very much in love. When  Mr. Stahlbaum kisses his wife in the kitchen, she seems to blush a little. The children have private dramas, as when one little girl cries, not once, not twice, but three times, each time for a different reason. After the party, the two maids gossip and make fun of the guests, and one of them even does a funny little dance, imitating the grandma’s arthritic antics; but just as they are about to leave, one of them notices a spot on the floor and cleans it off with her apron and a bit of spit. A lovely touch. As is the fact that the Sugarplum Fairy (here, a non-dancing role) goes through the motions of playing the entire harp introduction to the Flower Waltz on a tiny golden harp held by one of her attendants, down to the last note. The dances for the toys are intricate; the one for Columbine and Harlequin, especially, becomes a complete commedia dell’arte pantomime, in which Harlequin bows and kisses his beloved’s feet and she happily claps her hands and turns her knees inward with delight. Gemma Bond, who was wonderful as the street urchin in the fall season run of Paul Taylor’s “Black Tuesday,” was once again vivid and funny here; her partner, Arron Scott, gave Harlequin a Petrouchkian feel. Here, magic (and terror) is not relegated to a separate space, but intrudes from the start; the seemingly spotless kitchen is overrun with rats, and, when Fritz breaks the Nutcracker, the other toys come to his rescue. It is an uncanny moment. As soon as Clara sees them, they freeze; not even Clara, the special child, is allowed to see the secret lives of toys.

In fact, Ratmansky’s “Nutcracker” has quite a dark side; sadness and death seem to lurk around every corner. In the battle with the mice, the toy soldiers tremble and curl up into little balls, terrified of dying. Afterward, the Nutcracker Prince lies prone, seemingly mortally injured. Clara breaks into tears.  (This introduces what is probably the most moving image of Ratmansky’s ballet,  the moment when the Nutcracker prince slowly rises from the ground and stands in a wide fourth position, his chest open to the sky, head back, as if breathing in life. This is echoed by his adult counterpart, standing across the stage.) Later, in the snowstorm, it is Clara’s turn; she loses consciousness, almost freezes to death. The strange sadness spills into the two pas de deux. The adult version of Clara appears vulnerable, overcome with emotion, which she expresses in the extreme twist of her shoulders, the deep bend of her torso, the fluttering of her legs. Instead of a symbol of perfection, Ratmansky gives us an image of struggle and partnership; growing up is hard, and we need each other in order to pull through. The pas de deux at the end of the first and second acts, are fiendishly difficult, with turning jumps into the man’s arms, multiple lifts-into-swoons, unassisted pirouettes in arabesque in which the man turns the woman by pushing her foot, and a  lift in which he spins as she perches on his shoulder, faster and faster. It looks dangerous. In fact, both casts—Marcelo Gomes and Veronika Part, and Eric Tamm and Gillian Murphy—looked extremely challenged by the choreography. Ratmansky is pushing these dancers in new ways, asking them to be less clean and more free, more expansive, more multi-directional and shaded in their movement. Some clarity is lost, but the sense of struggle, and, at times, of triumph, is intense. These are great dancers, doing great things.

So, we have two powerful “Nutcrackers” in town. Balanchine’s is still the more perfect, but Ratmansky’s offers a powerful, at times brilliant alternative. What a gift to see a choreographer of such imaginative breadth (and one who is pushing ballet in new directions) take on this beloved, but at times overly domesticated, work. His vision has begun to impose itself; for the first time, while watching Balachine’s forest scene, I longed for a pas de deux.  A new door has opened.

* If you would like to receive an alert when new pieces are posted on the Dance page, please drop me a line at dancinginthefastertimes@gmail.com. You can also check my updates on Twitter: @MarinaHarss

1. The Cunningham season at BAM, all of it, from start to finish, but especially Roaratorio, an irresistible celebration of movement, of social dance, duets, Irish jigs, and of Rhythmic diversity; Second Hand, a profound and beautiful meditation on life and death; and Silas Riener’s feral solo in Split Sides, which nearly made my head explode.

2, 3, and 4. The Bright Stream, The Little Hunchbacked Horse, and Seven Sonatas, all by Alexei Ratmansky, all proof that he is one of the most exciting, most humane, most playful, and most skillful ballet choreographers working today. He is bringing a new freedom, naturalness, and technical complexity to the art form, combined with a particular sense of joy and an unforced profundity. I look forward to each new work with an eagerness that verges on hunger.

5. Shantala Shivalingappa in Swayambhu.This young kuchipudi dancer and choreographer (and former Pina Bausch dancer) is technically brilliant, musically dazzling, and emotionally redolent. She tells stories with her eyes, fingers, and feet. And she’ll be performing again, at the Joyce, in a program of non-kuchipudi works, in June.

6. Chase Finlay’s début in Apollo. Seldom does the reality of a début match the expectation, but in this case, but it did, and then some. Finlay  transformed himself onstage into the young god and, in one word, was riveting in his first performance of this iconic work. Further proof that works from the past need not feel like museum pieces, this performance of Balanchine’s Apollo was electric, and revealed a young artist with an exciting future ahead of him.

7. Mark Morris’s Socrates, at the Rose Theatre. One of Morris’s most profound, truest works in a while. Here, choreography, music and words (Satie’s song cycle Socrate), costumes (by Martin Pakledinaz), and lighting (by Michael Chybowski) come together as one to create a mesmerizing evening of theatre. The sadness at the end is so great that I can hardly bring myself to applaud.

8. Alina Cojocaru and David Hallberg in Giselle, during ABT’s spring season at the Metropolitan Opera House. These two artists performed with total spontaneity and abandon. Cojocaru’s unmannered, seemingly natural interpretation of the role was profoundly touching; Hallberg’s ardor and amplitude were thrilling. Time stood still.

9. Lauren Lovette’s solo in Christopher Wheeldon’s Polyphonia. The young New York City Ballet dancer emanated an aura of mystery and intense absorption in this quiet,  lonely solo, a highlight of what is probably one of Wheeldon’s greatest works.

10. Balanchine’s Episodes and Tombeau de Couperin at New York City Ballet. The highlight of the “Black and White” week during the company’s spring season, at least for me, was these two ballets. Episodes, because it is endlessly surprising and strange, and switches in tone from section to section. Couperin, because of its magnificent geometries, and the joy it brings out in the dancers.

11. José Manuel Carreño’s farewell from A.B.T., because it is a comfort to see a dancer taking his final bow with such grace, serenity, and generosity toward his audience. His smile at the end was priceless.

12. Tiler Peck’s dancing, in any role. Beause of her unforced virtuosity, her natural musicality, and the way she makes everything look so easy.

13. The Royal Danish Ballet’s La Sylphide, at the Koch Theatre in June. The company reminded us that balletic mime can be a highly engaging art, and that sky-high extensions and big, athletic dancing aren’t everything. Sometimes delicacy and detail can be even more interesting. And because of the incredible articulation of their feet, and the sensitivity of their hands.

14. Big Dance Theatre’s Supernatural Wife, for reminding us that dance and theatre can be brought together in an intelligent, engaging way, when there is good writing, and enough talent to go around.

* If you would like to receive an alert when new pieces are posted on the Dance page, please drop me a line at dancinginthefastertimes@gmail.com. You can also check my updates on Twitter: @MarinaHarss

An image from Merce Cunningham's "Roaratorio." Photo by Julieta Cervantes.

The past two weeks have put into sharp focus all that will be lost at the end of this year, when the Merce Cunningham Dance Company will close for good, as announced two-and-a-half years ago. At the time, it seemed like a far-off event, but when Cunningham died, in the late summer of 2009, the finality of the decision took on a new hue. Now, as the date approaches (quickly) and the milestones pass, it’s difficult to shake a sense of doom: what will happen to these dances, and to this marvelous technique on which they are built, carefully developed over years of studying the body and the different ways in which its parts can move, together and separately? Two weeks ago, the Merce Cunningham Repertory Understudy Group (or RUGs, as they’re affectionately called) danced their last dance, a series of four shows at the Cunningham studio in Westbeth (a lovely, workaday space with gorgeous views of the Empire State Building). The following week, it was the turn of the main company, putting on its final repertory season in New York, at the Brooklyn Academy of Music. Next week, they are off to Paris for eight performances at the Théâtre de la Ville. After that, all that stands between us and the end are six performances of a custom-made Event (a collage built from segments of other works) at the Park Avenue Armory, Dec. 29-31. The final night, New Year’s Eve, will be the company’s last night on this earth. Both the RUGs and the main company reminded us of what is so powerful about Cunningham’s choreography. The clarity, the complexity, the multi-dimensionality, the intelligence, the lack of artifice, the rhythmic diversity, the constant surprise. And also, of what can be challenging: the lack of conventional logic, the independence of movement and music, the avoidance of psychology, the sheer volume of images, phrases, movements, and coordinations of the body. I’ll admit to feeling exhausted at times, especially while watching the longer works created after 1990, when Cunningham began to work with a computer program called LifeForms (which helped him to come up new, ever more complicated ways of moving the body). But the more one watches, the more one sees; these works are mind-bendingly rich. And they are virtuosic as well; there are many times when one asks how, exactly, it is possible for the human body to sustain such speed, such stamina, such feats of balance, elevation, and strength. The choreography pushes the dancers, makes them become more than what they were before. The dances can also be intensely emotional, though not always—and of course, the question of whether dance need be emotional is a whole separate matter. Some works, like, say, “Pond Way,” from 1998, can be experienced more neutrally, observed from afar; they don’t necessarily tell us anything about who we are. But it would be misleading to say that this is true of all, or even most of Cunningham’s works. Quite to the contrary. They may be difficult to read, at times, but many of them pack quite an emotional impact and are indeed about something, at least in part. The emotions they elicit can be very varied. Take “Winterbranch,” from 1964, performed by the RUGs: it begins with a figure trapped in some sort of black sack, thrashing on the ground. Dancers with black stripes on their cheeks—Robert Rauschenberg’s idea—fold, tilt, and fall, one after the other, or drag each other across the floor, or pull each other down. There is nothing neutral about this piece. I’m not sure what it’s about, but whatever it is, it’s not good. Or, on the opposite end of the spectrum: “Roaratorio,” from 1983, one of the most joyful dances I’ve ever seen, in any style (it was performed at BAM on Dec. 7). Set to John Cage’s wild Irish romp (entitled “Roaratorio, and Irish Circus on Finnegans Wake”), it is a celebration of couples dancing, of the dance hall, of Irish step dance and hornpipes, of fleet-footedness, of light and color and jumping from one foot to the other in every way imaginable, and a million other things. The stage is lit, by Mark Lancaster, in warm,  golden tones, as if the events were taking place on a summer day. The costumes, also by Lancaster, are mix-and-match pairings of tights and t-shirts, skirtlets, leg warmers, shorts, and polos. A couple comes out and begins to rock side to side, the woman’s long pony-tail swaying happily. A man does a little soft-shoe, alone, for the fun of it. Another couple does a series of pas de chats and skips, side by side, their arms crossed above their heads and hands linked. A woman (Jennifer Goggans) leaps into a group of boys, who toss her up in the air and put her down; then they go on a walkabout. Two girls do a silly walk. A couple dances a serene, shy duet, their eyes looking down, to the side, up, and around, with quiet formality. Meanwhile, we hear bagpipes, cats mewing, babies crying, an Irish jig, a bit of “Figaro qua, Figaro la,” and John Cage’s mumbling voice uttering nearly incomprehensible mumbo-jumbo from “Finnegans Wake.” The whole thing is a wonderful lark from beginning to end, and, as the dancers walk off, stage left, carrying their stools with them, the last girl on her tippy toes and leaning against the man in front of her, one wishes it would all start over, from the beginning.

“Second Hand” (1970), which the company performed the following day, moves the spirit (and the heart) in a different way. In this case, the dance was actually inspired by a piece of music—something that Cunningham would never do again. The piece, Satie’s “Socrate,” deals with the philosopher’s death, and the dance is suffused with sadness and a sense of withdrawal from life. Robert Swinston, who has directed the company since Cunningham’s death, danced the role of the aging philosopher. His opening solo, which takes place on a dark stage, in a single pool of light (shining from above), is a vivid portrait of an older man’s inner struggles. His feet are rooted to the ground; he reaches, grapples, twists his torso as far as it will go, looks behind him. Later, a nymph-like woman (Andrea Weber)–reminiscent of the figures at the Villa dei Misteri–comes to him. She lightens his mood. They dance together, arms about each other’s waists. There is an infinite tenderness between them. She may be a memory, of a lover, or a daughter. The rest of the company files in, one by one, moving slowly, sliding their feet across the floor. Each dancer has his own private series of gestures, his own message. Sometimes Swinston is able to communicate with them, sometimes not. At the end, he is alone again, reaching up toward the light. If this piece had been performed at the end of the week, I would have broken into tears. The second half of the program that night was “Biped,” a complex, sophisticated work from 1999. It is justly famous for its use of motion capture images of dancers, their ghostly figures projected at various sizes across a scrim at the front of the stage. The live dancers seem to dance with these ghosts, or through them, or among them, throughout the piece. This heavenly image is abetted by Gavin Bryar’s elegiac, glistening score, which maintains its soaring lyricism (cello, violin, electric guitar, all played live) throughout the forty-five minutes of the dance. The lighting scheme, by Aaron Copp, is no less sumptuous, creating a living checkerboard that seems to morph with the movement of the dancers, as well as colored lines, circles, shadows. The dancers eddy and flow through this extravagant landscape, sheathed in short metallic unitards, later layered with translucent, Asian-inspired tunics. The dancers look like godly creatures, glamorous and lithe, their arms outstretched heroically. It is the closest Cunningham comes to showiness; “Biped” is certainly dazzling, but I could not help thinking back to the stirring simplicity of “Second Hand.”

And so the week rolled on. The final program consisted of three works: “Pond Way” (1998), “RainForest” (1968), and “Split Sides” (2003). The first, a placid, even Zen observation of nature with a touch of humor (I especially enjoyed the frog jumps, accompanied by elaborate movements of the forearms and hands); the second, a study of frenetic, even violent animal (or human) behavior; the third, an almost didactic demonstration of Cunningham’s use of chance to play with order, contrast, and texture. Before this dance (“Split Sides”) began, the die was cast several times onstage to decide which section would be performed first, which music would be played with each section, which costumes would be used, which backdrop would be seen, and which lighting plot would illuminate the dancers. Of course, if one is only seeing the dance one time (as I was) it is difficult to compare the effects of all these chance pairings. I can say that both backdrops were beautiful—one was a frosty gray-and-white, the other, a kind of Impressionistic wash of color—and that the music (by Radiohead and Sigur Rós) felt contemporary, youthful, almost hip. (In the first section, which on this occasion was performed with the Radiohead score, it almost seemed at times as if the dancers were moving to the music, which felt, oddly, very strange.) It’s a busy, fast work, with ever-shifting patterns and intentionally illogical phrases for the arms. There is an exciting passage in which a woman keeps falling—with all of her weight—almost to the ground, and her partner keeps catching her and propping her up again. But the climax of “Split Sides” was an extraordinary solo, danced here by Silas Riener (it was originally made for another dancer, Jonah Bokaer). In it, Cunningham asked Riener (for whom he re-worked the choreography) to move in ways that look almost impossible: to divide his body so that each part (head, torso, arms, legs) seemed to be headed in a different direction; to move at different tempi and dynamics with his upper and lower body; to complete a series of manoeuvers, with jagged, sharp changes of speed, all on one leg, while his arms moved convulsively, apparently of their own accord. It was one of the strangest, most disturbing, most wonderful things I have ever witnessed, and I was not alone in feeling this. As the solo ended, the audience erupted in applause, in the middle of the piece, something I’ve never seen before. The moment passed, but its ghost lingered. It lingers still. This will be a great loss.

* If you would like to receive an alert when new pieces are posted on the Dance page, please drop me a line at dancinginthefastertimes@gmail.com. You can also check my updates on Twitter: @MarinaHarss

BalletNext is the brainchild of Michele Wiles (recently retired from American Ballet Theatre) and Charles Askegard (a veteran of New York City Ballet). It emerged from a series of conversations over the course of a year, as the two were contemplating their farewells. Wiles recently said to Gia Kourlas: “[it was] about something larger than just dancing. Something bigger than ourselves…. We really think that we can put this together in a unique, high level. And we want to stick to our classical fundamental roots. But then we also want to show that there’s another side with new works and choreography.” (You can read the whole interview in Time Out New York http://newyork.timeout.com/arts-culture/dance/2210859/michele-wiles). The sentiment is real, but is it enough?

On November 21^st, the new company had a trial run at the Joyce Theatre. Of course, it’s still a pick-up ensemble, composed mainly of former colleagues: Jennie Somogyi and Joaquin de Luz of City Ballet, and Misty Copeland and Jared Matthews of ABT. Maria Kochetkova, of San Francisco Ballet and the freelancer Drew Jacoby also performed, as did Wiles an Askegard. The program was a hodge-podge of ballet chestnuts (the wedding pas de deux from “Sleeping Beauty,” the lakeside pas de deux from “Swan Lake”) followed by new works by Jorma Elo, Mauro Bigonzetti, Margo Sappington, and Robert Sher-Machherndl. Wiles and Askegard certainly have the connections, and a large supportive community of donors and friends, to pull it off.

But the question is: do we really need another company to commission new ballets from the likes of Elo and Bigonzetti? Don’t we see enough of their work done by companies in New York and across the country? Last year, when the Royal Danish Ballet came to Lincoln Center, even they performed a piece by Elo. And more importantly: do these choreographers have something new to say? If so, it wasn’t on evidence here. The solo “One Overture,” set to a mashup of Mozart and Biber, was the usual exhibition of twitches and arch faux classicism (though Kochetkova danced well). Like the Bigonzetti, it began on a dark stage illuminated by a single overhead spotlight. Drama! Also like the Bigonzetti (“La Follia,” a duet for Michele Wiles and Drew Jacoby) it was essentially meaningless, a display of empty acrobacy and atmospherics.  Neither posited anything new. Margo Sappington’s “Entwined,” a pas de deux for the fantastic Jennie Somgyi and Askegard, at least had the virtue of taking on the unique qualities of the dancers—Somogyi’s strength and intensity, Askegard’s seamless partnering–and putting them to use. It was a fluid, quietly erotic movement study set to two Satie Gnossiennes (the same Ashton used for his “Monotones I”). Not earth-shattering, but well-crafted, and closely tailored to the dancers. (On a side note, only a man as laid-back as Askegard could comfortably pull off wearing a pink-and-purple body-stocking, reminiscent of certain ice-dancing ensembles.)

The most exciting aspect of the evening was the participation of an excellent chamber ensemble (a quartet plus a piano, or, in one case, a harpsichord). It was especially interesting in the first half of the program to hear these musicians perform reduced versions of Tchaikovsky’s scores (arranged by the young composer Conrad Winslow). How different, and free, these large orchestral works sound in this intimate format! Perhaps this is an idea that the company might build upon. How can one make something as grandiose as the wedding pas de deux from “Sleeping Beauty” feel as fresh, intimate, and spontaenous as these musical intepretations? Perhaps one could begin by eliminating the extranious touches, the tiaras, the bejewelled bodices, the heavy stage makeup and elongated eyelashes. Then, one could strip away at the theatrical flourishes and projection.  What if it were just two dancers, exploring the mechanics and emotional resonance of the steps? What would Petipa “unplugged” look like? For me, the most affecting moment of the evening was a tiny gesture in the White Swan pas de deux, when the ballerina (Wiles) brushes against her partner’s arm with her forearm to get his attention. After all, despite her feminine form, she’s not quite human, and this almost brusque contact evokes her other half: the wild swan, with its powerful wings. The strangeness of the gesture caught me by surprise. This is part of ballet’s allure; its transformative power.  These are interesting questions, questions which, perhaps, BalletNext could explore.

* If you would like to receive an alert when new pieces are posted on the Dance page, please drop me a line at dancinginthefastertimes@gmail.com. You can also check my updates on Twitter: @MarinaHarss

Ballet companies have been somewhat more recalcitrant, but are quickly catching up; there have been live broadcasts from the Royal Ballet and the Paris Opéra, and the Bolshoi seems to be especially gung-ho about the potential of the medium. (The main source of ballet in cinema in the US seems to be a company called Emerging Pictures.) The world of ballet is suddenly becoming globalized in a new way– audiences can get a sense of what is happening on stages far afield without waiting for companies to tour. And they can become familiar (up to a point) with a vast array of dancers, allowing for comparisons of style, ability, and interpretation. In this respect, it has never been a better time to be a balletomane.

It doesn’t hurt that the Bolshoi has been in the news of late because of its decision to invite the young danseur David Hallberg—a jewel in the crown of American ballet—to join the company, a first for this proud institution. (The brouhaha over the recent departure of two of its biggest stars, Natalia Osipova and Ivan Vasiliev, has brought the company notoriety of a different kind.)

Be that as it may, ballet broadcasts in cinema offer a rare opportunity to transport viewers to a kind of virtual seat thousands of miles away. It’s not the same as being there, of course, and yet I can say that there was a palpable excitement last Sunday morning at the Big Cinemas on 59^th Street between 2^nd and 3^rd Avenues (in Manhattan) as the lights went down for the live screening of the Bolshoi’s “Sleeping Beauty.” The new production, by Yuri Grigorovich (after Petipa), was danced by the beautiful Svetlana Zakharova, a seasoned prima ballerina, and David Hallberg, the lanky Nordic prince from South Dakota. The pressure on Hallberg must have been immense; he is the first foreigner to be taken into the company in modern times. Zakharova is a national treasure. To say nothing of “Sleeping Beauty” itself.

Hallberg needn’t have worried. As he blazed onstage, it was immediately clear that this would be a transformative performance. His jumps were airy, expansive, seemingly effortless, the landings elastic and soft. He showed a new assurance, an open-heartedness that dovetailed with his usual elegance.  The shapes he created with his torso, shoulders, and arms, were exquisite; the line of his long legs and feet, even more so. He used every inch of the stage; in fact, one might say, he almost made the enormous stage of the Bolshoi look small (as he routinely does at the Metropolitan Opera House), sometimes ending a series of jumps halfway into the wings. Most of all, he was completely alive, moving through and with the music, engaged with the people around him.

Zakharova, who trained at the Mariinsky before moving to the Bolshoi, is a great beauty, and her dancing—especially the way she uses her arms and shoulders– is infinitely refined, but she expresses almost nothing. She started off well, with a burst of little jumps across the stage in her first entrance as the young princess, but quickly settled into an affectless, strangely disconnected account of the role of Aurora. There was no sense of wonder in the famous Rose Adagio (in which she is presented to four suitors), nor of surprise in the scene in which she accidentally pricks her finger with the poisoned spindle, nor of longing for rescue in a dreamy vision scene that follows. She went through the motions, never less than impeccably, but without ever losing herself in the role. The pivotal, spell-breaking kiss became essentially a non-event; Zakharova jumped up from her century-long slumber and never looked back at the prince who had traveled so far to save her. It goes without saying that there was little chemistry between the two, though Hallberg did his best to engage her.

Zakharova and Hallberg were not helped by Grigorovich’s production, which leaves out many of the details (of mime and atmosphere) which would normally help them to build their characters. In the vision scene, in which the Lilac Fairy normally explains  (in mime) to the prince that there is a princess in need of his love and rescue, this mimed explanation was omitted. The elegant, detailed set (by Ezio Frigerio), depicted handsome vistas of architectural follies and ships, but made no attempt to illustrate the evil forces that befall Aurora’s kingdom through the dark magic of the malevolent fairy Carabosse. There were no vines, no thorns, no imminent danger of death. Fairy tales are all about contrast: without darkness, there is no light. Carabosse herself, played by the character dancer Denis Savin, was an almost camp figure, a grande dame en travesti, hardly to be taken seriously. And yet, for the danger to Aurora’s life to register—and for the ballet to have any tension at all—Carabosse’s rage must be incandescent and larger than life. Just watch Frederick Ashton’s interpretation of the role here. Savin was funny and wry—he would be fantastic with the Trocks—but his take on the role has draws no blood.(The powdered wigs int he final act, too, should go.)

Another problem was the glacial, steady tempi taken by the conductor, Vassily Sinaisky. The entire ballet seemed to proceed at exactly the same, slow pace. It’s a sumptuous production, but not really a convincing one. On the other hand, there doesn’t seem to be a weak dancer in the whole company. Even so, it’s safe to say that Hallberg was, hands down, the most affecting thing on that stage. His new company will learn as much from him as he will from them. And luckily, American audiences will be able to see him in the flesh, back with American Ballet Theatre, in its run of Alexei Ratmansky’s Nutcracker at BAM (Dec. 14-31), and again during that company’s spring Season at the Met (May 14-July 7).

* If you would like to receive an alert when new pieces are posted on the Dance page, please drop me a line at dancinginthefastertimes@gmail.com. You can also check my updates on Twitter: @MarinaHarss

Over the past few days, I’ve seen several dancers in a new light. The soloist Sascha Radetsky, for example, who never quite seems to ascend from supporting roles  the sexy Von Rothbart character in ABT’s “Swan Lake,” for example, or Hilarion in “Giselle”), came out of his shell as the Bugle Boy in Paul Taylor’s “Company B.” He was masculine, playful, and full of bluster (and excellent timing), but with a layer of innocence and a crooked smile. There was actually whooping in the theatre during his solo, something I’ve never seen. (Aaron Scott, in “Tico Tico,” was pretty swell too; with his frank, unfussy delivery,t he comes closest to the Paul Taylor style.) Or Christine Shevchenko, in Alexei Ratmansky’s “Seven Sonatas”: seemingly overnight, this dancer has turned into a luminous presence onstage with lush lines that radiate throughout the theatre. And her technique! She’s becoming one of those dancers who give the feeling that nothing could ever go wrong (like Teresa Reichlen of N.Y.C.B.).  Another dancer that opened my eyes this week: Misty Copeland in the “Boulevard of Broken Dreams” number in Paul Taylor’s “Black Tuesday.” She’s always been a strong dancer, and a beautiful woman, but I’ve never seen her really take ownership of her beauty and sensuality onstage, or fully lose herself in a character. Here, as a sultry femme fatale chewed up by life, she went for broke, unfurling her lovely legs voluptuously, only to reveal a burning vulnerability in her gut, or running her hands down her body in a gesture of sensuality and desperation, crumpling into a heap on the floor only to pick herself up again with dignity and hope. Best of all, none of this was overplayed. And Gemma Bond, usually a delicate, precise dancer, was unrecognizable as a mean little whippersnapper (a street urchin) in the same ballet. Surprise!

Not to speak of Veronika Part and Paloma Herrera in Merce Cunningham’s “Duets,” their first foray into this wholly alien style. Both gave themselves fully to the choreography, offering a keen, lucid readings of Cunningham’s steps, resisting the urge to interpret or editorialize. They shone all the more brightly. They may not look like Cunningham dancers—or convince the purists—but they certainly made a convincing case for the power of his torqued, architectural coordinations of the body. Herrera was all clean lines (highlighted by a blinding fuchsia unitard) and rapt concentration in her duet with Eric Tamm; Part exuded otherworldly calm and stretchy legato in her more elastic duet with Vitaly Krauchenka.

Besides the dancers, there is, of course, the choreography itself. The season has an American theme, with a few variations. The Paul Taylor works (“Black Tuesday” and “Company B”) are period pieces built around relevant topics: the Depression, war. At his best, Taylor has a way of capturing aspects of American culture that are not easy to look at, or accept. The optimism born of denial, the willful blindness, the violence and capacity for meanness. But he doesn’t preach. In “Company B,” social dance and the catchy tunes of the Andrews Sisters mask the omnipresence of death (a woman dances with the ghost of her lover, the Bugle Boy is cut down in a volley of bullets). In “Black Tuesday,” the jollity of the jazz steps is paired with bitter words about financial ruin (“when the moon is up above, nobody’s unemployed”). Dancing is a way of forgetting the poverty all around. In “Sitting on a Rubbish Can,” Nicola Curry dances with a huge pregnant belly, full of rage, kicking at the cute couples gazing at the moon. Created in 2001 for the company, “Black Tuesday” doesn’t pack the same punch as “Company B,” but still, it works. The dancers look wonderful in both.

“Duets,” by Merce Cunningham, is the biggest stretch. Essentially a sequence of six duets, with a busy finale for the whole group, the choreography is playful and complicated, and filled with odd, surprising juxtapositions. The partnering is egalitarian and clean but also convoluted, like a series of equations with elegant solutions. A woman curves her leg around her partner, revolves around him, and then leans on his back and is lifted up off of the ground. She does it again. Another man flips his partner around and around by the leg, like a roulette wheel. A man and a woman kneel and face each other, hollow their stomachs and bow, then tilt away. Meanwhile the music, “Improvisations III,” by John Cage, rattles on, thumping and clattering, irrelevantly. The eye is constantly engaged; one is almost afraid to blink. There is too much to see. The dancers, too, watch each other intently, for cues—they are timed to each others movements, not the music (which, in any case, they never hear during rehearsals). At the end, they all d run around doing bits of the material they did before, all at once. It’s a miracle they don’t crash into each other. The brightly-colored costumes—all unitards, sometimes with little skirts for the women—are bracingly bright. Some of the dancers (at least on Nov. 9) were a bit too smiley, and at least one (Gillian Murphy) was too intent on “interpreting” the steps and telling a story. But it’s a great piece and I hope they will do it often, and perhaps other Cunningham works as well.

Then there’s the Tharp contingent: “Sinatra Suite,” “Known by Heart (Junk) Duet,” and “In the Upper Room.” None of these are new to the company. Marcelo Gomes dances “Sinatra” with more suaveté than is really decent. On Nov. 9, Paloma Herrera, dancing the female role for only the second or third time (and for the first time in New York) was tense at first, but then relaxed into it by the end. The “Junk” pas de deux is a trifle, filled with mugging and coy jokes. “In the Upper Room” has seen tighter performances than it had on Nov. 8, but still packs a punch.

And finally, we come to Ratmansky’s “Seven Sonatas,” last seen in 2009 (it was created for the company’s abbreviated season at Avery Fisher). It is one of this choreographer’s most beautiful, most abstract ballets. The sextet, set to Scarlatti’s limpid keyboard pieces, proceeds from a quiet, reflective beginning, through a series of  virtuosic solos and contrasting duets, to a section of trios, and a meditative, somber finale. It grows with each viewing. Little leitmotifs are carried through from one section to the next, and blossom in the final section, passed from one dancer to another and then picked up by the whole ensemble. Each of these isolated gestures seems to signify something, but its quality can also change from one moment to the next: In a light, happy duet, a man sticks out his arm and blocks his partner’s passage. It looks like a game. But in the last movement, when all the men stick out their arms, the gesture feels urgent, like a warning: danger! There is an edge of darkness throughout: in the very first section, the men kneel on the floor and look down, but then rise up again. The cloud passes. In one of the pas de deux, both the man and woman kneel and bow their heads, but then grind their fists into the ground and push themselves up. And in the final moments of the ballet, all of the men slowly ease their partners to the ground and then lower their heads to rest them on their partners’ sides. Ashes to ashes. As usual, Ratmansky doesn’t shy away from virtuosity: the solo originally created for Herman Cornejo (and danced by Cornejo on Nov. 9 and by Joseph Phillips on Nov. 10) is full of fast cabrioles and brisés, but they fold so neatly into the fast patter of the music that they feel tossed off, not showy. The arms are free, the footwork fast  and constantly changing direction; the possibility of messiness is always just over the horizon. Ratmansky likes to play with speed, to push it right to the edge of what the dancers can pull off. There’s no space for faking. But he also knows when to pull back and let something resonate, as when the central female figure stands and does a choppy, portentous port de bras: up, down, down, down, and out, as if flicking away an enormous weight. Everyone stops to watch her. This gesture, too, becomes a theme, done in reverse, and in different combinations. Nothing is left unused and everything returns, just as it does in Scarlatti’s keyboard sonatas: the theme is  repeated, developed, and returns again. Ratmansky has created a real gem of a ballet, one that will serve the company for many a season.

Performances continue through Nov. 13.

* If you would like to receive an alert when new pieces are posted on the Dance page, please drop me a line at dancinginthefastertimes@gmail.com. You can also check my updates on Twitter: @MarinaHarss