{"id":1633,"date":"2013-05-11T14:38:51","date_gmt":"2013-05-11T18:38:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/dancebeat\/?p=1633"},"modified":"2013-05-11T18:44:47","modified_gmt":"2013-05-11T22:44:47","slug":"all-american","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/dancebeat\/2013\/05\/all-american\/","title":{"rendered":"All American"},"content":{"rendered":"

New York City Ballet, Lincoln Center, April 30 through June 9<\/i><\/p>\n

\"L<\/a>

Front, L to R: Brittany Pollack and Taylor Stanley, Sara Adams and Harrison Ball, Indiana Woodward and Peter Walker, Lauren Lovette and Chase Finlay, Kristen Segin and Ralph Ippolito of the New York City Ballet in Christopher Wheeldon’s Soir\u00e9e Musicale<\/em>. Photo: Paul Kolnik<\/p><\/div>\n

In the Spring of 1988, the New York City Ballet put on an American Music Festival. George Balanchine had been dead for five years, and the two Ballet Masters in Chief, Peter Martins and Jerome Robbins, commissioned enough new ballets to keep dancers, guest choreographers, and resident choreographers rushing in and out of the company\u2019s studios, gnawing on health bars. Was this Eliot Feld\u2019s rehearsal? No, it was Bart Cook\u2019s. Then when was Martins scheduled? Not too many memorable works emerged.<\/p>\n

For the 25th<\/sup> anniversary of this prolific venture, Martins wisely kept the plan modest in scale. Among the 25 ballets showcased as the American Music Festival during the first three weeks (April 30-May 19) of NYCB\u2019s Spring Season are revived treasures like George Balanchine\u2019s beautiful and mysterious Ivesiana<\/i>\u00a0 (1954) and Peter Martins\u2019 terrific first ballet for the company, the 1977 Calcium Light Night<\/i> (also set to music by the American maverick Charles Ives). And only two works are premieres.<\/p>\n

The excellently designed program for the season\u2019s gala on May 8 featured music by Samuel Barber, Andr\u00e9\u00a0 Previn, Leonard Bernstein, Philip Glass, George Gershwin, and John\u00a0 Philip Sousa, and choreography by Balanchine, Robbins, and Christopher Wheeldon, whose Soir\u00e9e Musicale<\/i> and new A Place for Us <\/i>were the only ballets performed in their entirety.<\/p>\n

Barber\u2019s Souvenirs Ballet Suite <\/i>isn\u2019t new to NYCB\u2019s repertory. The music was commissioned by Balanchine and Lincoln Kirstein for Todd Bolender\u2019s Souvenirs<\/i> (1955), a comedic romp set at a resort hotel circa 1914.\u00a0 The very young Christopher Wheeldon used the music for the very different ballet that he choreographed for the students at the School of American Ballet in 1998. Soir\u00e9e Musicale<\/i> is <\/i>that ballet. In reviving it for the NYCB, Wheeldon has added a new pas de deux.<\/p>\n

\"Indiana<\/a>

Harrison Ball and Indiana Woodward in the “Two-Step” of Wheeldon’s Soir\u00e9e Musicale<\/em>. Photo: Paul Kolnik<\/p><\/div>\n

The French title seems reasonable, given that Barber\u2019s music doesn\u2019t sound overtly American, and Holly Hynes\u2019s very pretty costumes, with their layered net gowns for the women and ballet\u2019s version of black-tie for the men, have a romantic aura. The bit of black drapery hanging at the rear of the stage isn\u2019t exactly festive, but the ballet is clearly a dance party, beginning with couples waltzing to the kind of music that demands swirling around in a decorous embrace.<\/p>\n

Wheeldon draws other ideas out of ballroom dancing, though. For a while during Barber\u2019s opening \u201cWaltz,\u201d three couples explore all the ways they can revolve without leaving the spot they\u2019re standing on. The men turn the women and circle them; holding each other\u2019s hands, partners weave and unweave in bewitching ways, as if warming up for the waltzing and running about that they\u2019re eager to get back to.<\/p>\n

The \u201cSchottische\u201d brings out the perkiness in Kristen Segin and Indiana Woodward. They flutter around each other and hold hands in skaters\u2019 position to sprint around the stage. The arrival of a man (Ralph Ippolito) incites a bit of vying for his attention. But, although polite, he has to go elsewhere. Same with Peter Walker (or was Walker the first and Ippolito the second?). Left to themselves, the women are best friends again.<\/p>\n

\"Lauren<\/a>

Lauren Lovette and Chase Finlay in the new pas deux of Soir\u00e9e Musicale<\/em>. Photo: Paul Kolnik<\/p><\/div>\n

Here\u2019s what happened to the men. They heard about lovely Brittany Pollack, and heard the orchestra strike up Barber\u2019s unmistakably slinky \u201cTango.\u201d Pollack starts out with three suitors. Two more arrive shortly. Now she has a partner and four guys in waiting. She plays fair\u2014falling into each one\u2019s arms in turn. That becomes impractical, as more men arrive. Twelve cavaliers expressing interest display themselves neatly. But just before the end of the music, most of this dapper army departs, leaving Pollack again with a trio of men. How could Wheeldon resist giving a nod to Balanchine\u2019s Apollo<\/i>?\u00a0 The three grab her hands and urge her on: three godlings, one saucy muse leading them astray.<\/p>\n

Woodward and Segin team up with Sara Adams and two men (Harrison Ball and Taylor Stanley) for the \u201cTwo-Step.\u201d But the principal two-step of the ballet is Wheeldon\u2019s new pas de deux for recently minted principal Chase Finley and Lauren Lovette (a lovely dancer, who has just been promoted to the rank of soloist). Wheeldon has always shown a gift for pas de deux. He adds a warmth to classicism without mangling it. This duet is fresh and full of small inventions\u2014much more than an amuse-bouche <\/i>on the way to the ballet\u2019s \u201cFinale.\u201d The evening\u2019s pairings and flirtations have spawned some sweet-natured intimacy.<\/p>\n

Wheeldon attached a note to his world premiere, A Place for Us. <\/i>It reads: \u201cFor Jerome Robbins. A thank you,\u201d and the title is drawn from West Side Story<\/i>, the musical that made Robbins famous around the world. This duet for Tiler Peck and Robert Fairchild has the quietness that Robbins prized in ballets of this kind. No visible effort, he believed, should mar a behavior as close to natural as ballet choreography (and ballet dancers) could come.<\/p>\n

\"Tiler<\/a>

Tiler Peck and Robert Fairchild in Christopher Wheeldon’s A Place for Us<\/em>. Photo: Paul Kolnik<\/p><\/div>\n

Peck and Fairchild\u2014marvelous dancers and expressive performers\u2014 are perfectly cast. On the night of the gala, they had the pleasure of dancing to wonderfully performed music. As played onstage by NYCB\u2019s excellent and versatile pianist Nancy McDill and a great guest clarinetist, Richard Stoltzman, the \u201cInterlude\u201d from Previn\u2019s Clarinet and Piano Sonata<\/i> elided fluently into Bernstein\u2019s Sonata for Clarinet and Piano.<\/i><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/i>The duet begins as the two dancers walk slowly into a rectangle of light that designer Penny Jacobus has laid on the floor. Stoltzman and McDill move into a spare, soft-voiced instrumental dialogue as the pace picks up. New windows of light appear for Peck and Fairchild to step into. There are some lovely images. When she walks backward, holding his hand as he advances toward her, he looks down for a moment at their clasped hands and then up at her, as if acknowledging that this relationship is growing on him. Three times, she runs toward him, and he dips just enough so that she\u2019s caught mid-air on his shoulder\u2014no grasping hands visible. Yet, difficult as this maneuver may be, it\u2019s anything but bravura. The dancers act as if this were simply a delightful step into intimacy that they want to savor.<\/p>\n

\"Tiler<\/a>

Tiler Peck and Robert Fairchild in A Place for Us<\/em>. Photo: Paul Kolnik<\/p><\/div>\n

When Previn\u2019s \u201cInterlude\u201d ends and Bernstein\u2019s Sonata <\/i>begins, the atmosphere becomes more playful and the dancers perkier. Peck pushes Fairchild offstage, but seconds later he rushes back. He sits and watches her dance (a very Robbins touch) and claps his hands when she finishes. Stolztman\u2019s clarinet winds her up, and she\u2019s spinning like a top as the curtain descends. (Stoltzman, too, was wound up; he bounced from his stool to join McDill and the cast for a curtain call with an exhuberant little \u201ctour en l\u2019air.\u201d)<\/p>\n

Robbins\u2019s own choreography was represented on the gala evening by \u201cCool\u201d from West Side Story Suite <\/i>(1995) and an excerpt from Glass Pieces <\/i>(1983).\u00a0 It\u2019s always fun to see the NYCB men crouching and running and looking tough in the choreography drawn from the musical. They also yell and sing. Andrew Veyette as their leader manages the song very well, although the miking made him sound hollow in a strange way, and his enunciation isn\u2019t spic-and-span. At this performance, without the earlier scenes in the ballet to get them on edge, the Jets didn\u2019t all have the nervy, electric energy that \u201cCool\u201d needs. The gang has to be simmering toward a boil for the song to convey its message fully.<\/p>\n

The excerpt from Glass Pieces<\/i> rides and digs into the powerful pulse and deep, braying horns of the \u201cMarch\u201d taken from Philip Glass\u2019s opera Akhnaten. <\/i>Conducted by Daniel Capps\u00a0 (Clotilde Otranto led the orchestra in West Side Story Suite<\/i>), the score takes no prisoners. You imagine that if one dancer stumbled and fell, the others would just have to trample a comrade. The twenty-four men and women are always on the move\u2014coming and going in squads, working their way into lines and circles and multiple curves. Sometimes they stride out in almost two-dimensional positions\u2014perhaps Robbins was alluding to the \u201cEgyptian\u201d aspect of the music\u2014and balletic maneuvers are avoided. They\u2019re like athletes warming up for some game we don\u2019t get to see. Or maybe this is<\/i> the game, and we just don\u2019t know the rules. Like Glass, Robbins blew minimalism into fascinating complexity.<\/p>\n

Additional pas de deux showed two of Balanchine\u2019s many sides. On this special night, \u201cThe Man I Love\u201d from Who Cares<\/i> received a new look. Andrews Sill led the orchestra through Hershy Kay\u2019s orchestration of Gershwin\u2019s song, with Cameron Grant as the solo pianist. But guest performer Queen Latifah strolled onstage to sing it for us. Shimmering in a silver-sequined gown, she delivered the words warmly and caressingly\u2014avoiding personal tempo changes that might endanger the choreography, yet with some individual touches. Amar Ramasar partnered Sterling Hyltin, who seems more radiantly alive each time I see her dance.<\/p>\n

\"Ashley<\/a>

Ashley Bouder and Andrew Veyette in the Fourth Campaign of Balanchine’s Stars and Stripes<\/em>. Photo: Paul Kolnik<\/p><\/div>\n

The night-under-the-stars ambiance of that music was succeeded by the full sun of the duet that makes up the \u201cFourth Campaign\u201d of Stars and Stripes<\/i>, with Ashley Bouder as saucy \u201cLiberty Bell\u201d (\u201cbelle\u201d is more like it) and Veyette as her strutting partner, \u201cEl Capitan.\u201d\u00a0 They make a charming pair, and Balanchine obviously relished the happy bombast of Kay\u2019s adaptation and orchestration of Sousa marches. This is a duet for jumpers who can flash their legs in the air at top speed, and Bouder and Veyette fill the bill. Their flirtation isn\u2019t easy, nor is she demure; the man has to duck every time he turns his partner, since her arabesque could easily smack him in the gut (or worse).<\/p>\n

When two squads of women and one of men (that we normally see earlier when Stars and Stripes <\/i>is performed in its entirety) march onto the stage, their advent comes as a big, happy surprise.\u00a0 Balanchine\u2019s forays into Americana always balance a tongue-in-cheek approach to stereotypes with genuine affection for the customs and foibles of the choreographer\u2019s adopted country. As the huge flag is pulled up to end the ballet, let us this time\u00a0 salute America\u2019s contributions to music history and to the repertory of our cherished native ballet company.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

New York City Ballet, Lincoln Center, April 30 through June 9 In the Spring of 1988, the New York City Ballet put on an American Music Festival. George Balanchine had been dead for five years, and the two Ballet Masters in Chief, Peter Martins and Jerome Robbins, commissioned enough new ballets to keep dancers, guest […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1637,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[773,145,593,251,354,770,774,137,139,142,771,772,253],"class_list":{"0":"post-1633","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-ballet","8":"tag-andrew-veyette","9":"tag-ashley-bouder","10":"tag-chase-finlay","11":"tag-christopher-wheeldon","12":"tag-george-balanchine","13":"tag-jerome-robbins","14":"tag-lauren-lovette","15":"tag-new-york-city-ballet","16":"tag-peter-martins","17":"tag-robert-fairchild","18":"tag-soiree-musicale","19":"tag-sterling-hyltin","20":"tag-tyler-peck","21":"entry"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/dancebeat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1633","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/dancebeat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/dancebeat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/dancebeat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/dancebeat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1633"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/dancebeat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1633\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/dancebeat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1637"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/dancebeat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1633"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/dancebeat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1633"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/dancebeat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1633"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}