{"id":196,"date":"2011-09-25T18:16:06","date_gmt":"2011-09-25T22:16:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/dancebeat\/?p=196"},"modified":"2011-09-26T09:35:41","modified_gmt":"2011-09-26T13:35:41","slug":"at-sea","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/dancebeat\/2011\/09\/at-sea\/","title":{"rendered":"At Sea"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Paul McCartney and Peter Martins applauded for their Ocean's Kingdom. Photo: Paul Kolnik<\/p><\/div>\n

Here\u2019s a fairy tale for 2011. Once upon a time, a very important knight\u2014one of the great musicians of the late 20th<\/sup>century\u2014joined forces with an adept ruler-choreographer (also a knight) who had inherited a powerful kingdom of dance. They set out together on a quest to find the true grail\u2014a beautiful ballet that would further ennoble them both and maybe even bring in money. As far as we know, they underwent no terrible ordeals, battled no giants, slew no dragons. Eventually they fell together into a nicely decorated pit and rode home bearing The Ballet. It is possible that someone or something had placed them under a spell.<\/p>\n

The work that the New York City Ballet premiered at its September 22 Gala is called Ocean\u2019s Kingdom<\/em>, but the title in ads, and on the program cover that evening, was \u201cPaul McCartney\u2019s Ocean\u2019s Kingdom<\/em>,\u201d and Sir Paul was present in the theater to receive the audience\u2019s cheers and the wave of affection and respect emanating from the company and its music director, Fay\u00e7al Karoui. Karoui, an engaging speaker, opened the evening by leading the orchestra in adroitly chosen passages from the score to demonstrate how aptly McCartney\u2019s music conveyed mood and character, and used rhythms and percussion to create a sense of urgency.<\/p>\n

Indeed the music is very attractive. Beginning in the 1990s, the former Beatle and master songwriter became interested in classical composition, and the score he wrote for Ocean\u2019s Kingdom<\/em> (arranged by John Wilson and the composer and orchestrated by Andrew Cottee) has the lushly atmospheric, melodic quality of late 19th<\/sup>-century ballet music, although development is not one of its strong points.<\/p>\n

A lack of development in terms of character and drama is also the ballet\u2019s major flaw. McCartney wrote the scenario, but he isn\u2019t entirely to blame for this. Peter Martins, bred in Denmark\u2019s Bournonville tradition, should know how to tell a story; his mentor, George Balanchine, certainly did, although he rarely wanted to. To carry my fairytale metaphor further: Something happened to that supposed grail on the journey home through the forest. The knights needed a dramaturge to ride with them.<\/p>\n

The tale is a simple one. There are two kingdoms: Ocean and Terra. They don\u2019t seem particularly rivalrous, and their inhabitants are apparently able to breathe in both atmospheres. King Terra comes in person, with his younger brother, Prince Stone, and a retinue of\u00a0 \u201cTerra Punks\u201d to invite King Ocean and his beautiful, virtuous daughter, Honorata, to a Terra ball. (Get ready to fade the blue lights and rippling projections and bring up the reds.)<\/p>\n

A Romeo and Juliet moment ensues. Prince Stone and Princess Honorata are soulmates. But it turns out that Honorata\u2019s principal lady-in-waiting, Scala, is profoundly, unaccountably evil. \u00a0So, once the water people are in the earthly palace, she connives with King Terra, who (the program says) wants Honorata for himself. Soon she is in a prison of light. But Scala\u2019s hard heart softens at the sight of true love. Luckily, she has magic powers. She not only melts the prison bars and guides the lovers to an escape route; she rushes back toward their pursuers and conjures up a whale of a fire-and-smoke deterent. Many Terrans are killed, but, alas, she is collateral damage.<\/p>\n

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King Terra (Amar Ramasar) and Scala (Georgina Pazcoguin) threaten the lovers (Sara Mearns and Robert Fairchild). Photo: Paul Kolnik<\/p><\/div>\n

Back under the sea, King Ocean (Christian Tworzyanski doing his best in an sketchily designed role) and his court are very glad to welcome the princess and her beloved (did all the sea folk just go quietly home without wondering where Honorata could have got to?). Scala\u2019s spirit even appears at the final curtain to bless the pair, but there\u2019s not much of a celebration. Those still alive will live happily ever after.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s as if Martins wanted to tell a story without really telling a story. The key villains, King Terra and Scala, are two-dimensional and their motivations aren\u2019t clear. How could someone as evil as Scala keep an important job in the drifty kingdom? If she were simply a bit flawed, King Terra could bribe her, and we might have a sneaky little pas deux by those vivid and expressive performers Amar Ramasar and Georgina Pazcoguin, instead of just seeing them skulk in the shadows at the back. And, speaking of duets, it\u2019s strange that Martins chose not to depict choreographically (or really in any other potent way) this stated lust of King Terra\u2019s for Honorata. Or even to make it evident that Terra and Stone are rivals. How hard would it have been to do that? Would the ballet have been deemed too long? Did Sir Paul not write enough music?<\/p>\n

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King Terra (Amar Ramasar) and his Punks, wearing their party jackets. Photo: Paul Kolnik<\/p><\/div>\n

The ballet\u2019s other surprise is that Martins isn\u2019t working at the top of his form. The most compelling sequences in terms of movement belong to the Terra Punks\u2014a squad of men who excel at twisty leaps. They also have the best of the costumes that fashion designer Stella McCartney came up with: nude body suits decorated with killer tattoos that look like fancy crocheting. The ocean people\u2019s dancing is pretty and bland\u2014lots of bourr\u00e9es, walks, and runs, and all but a few dancers are burdened with blousy blue tunics and, for women, skirts that are short in front and long in back.<\/p>\n

Martins has made a number of splendid pas de deux in the past, but those for Ocean\u2019s Kingdom<\/em>\u2019s two wonderful leading dancers, Sara Mearns and Robert Fairchild, often look as if they\u2019ve been cut from a bolt of duets-by-the-yard in some ballet warehouse. One lovely moment: Fairchild takes Mearns\u2019s hand and, using her straight arm as a lever, propels her into a turn; then she returns the favor. Spinning alternately, they advance toward us, as fascinated by each other as children with a new toy. Possibly Martins didn\u2019t want dances to stop the forward motion of the drama by calling attention to themselves. But we don\u2019t really get to know or care much about his fairly helpless hero and heroine and the nuances of their emotions. Mearns seems to be in a perpetual backbend, undone by love.<\/p>\n

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Princess Honorata (Sara Mearns) and Prince Stone (Robert Fairchild). Photo: Paul Kolnik<\/p><\/div>\n

There are some entertainers at the party: an \u201cExotic Couple\u201d (Megan LeCrone and Craig Hall) who don\u2019t behave very exotically, two \u201cAmazon Women\u201d (Savannah Lowery and Emily Kikta), almost invisible under a storm of vividly colored fabric and headdresses, and the leader of the revels (Daniel Ulbricht\u2014in a handsomely gaudy, formfitting costume and a yellow wig\u2014doing some of the marvelous jumping he\u2019s known for).<\/p>\n

In addition to the costumes by S. McCartney, the look of the ballet is credited to S. Katy Davis for the video and slide projections, Perry Silvey for the minimal set, and Mark Stanley for the ingenious lighting. The audience at the Gala accorded the ballet a standing ovation. It will be given more performances this season and in the seasons to come. Ocean\u2019s Kingdom<\/em> seems to me to be less the hoped-for grail than a damsel in some distress, in need of a bit of rescuing.<\/p>\n

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Apollo (Robert Fairchild) dazzling the Muses (l. to r.: Ana Sophia Scheller, Sterling Hyltin, Tyler Peck). Photo: Paul Kolnik<\/p><\/div>\n

It\u2019s unusual to see Robert Fairchild as a cipher. He brings so much to every role. His Apollo was the highlight of NYCB\u2019s brilliant \u201cBalanchine Black & White\u201d program on Tuesday, September 20th. An evening spent drinking in Episodes<\/em>, Apollo<\/em>, and The Four Temperaments<\/em> doesn\u2019t send me reeling into the streets; it reminds me that dancing molded by a master\u2019s hand is one of the things I love best in the world.<\/p>\n

Fairchild\u2019s Apollo isn\u2019t the bold, yet imperturbable blond god that Peter Martins once played; nor is he the quicksilver youth portrayed by Chase Finlay, who made his debut in the role last spring. On the other hand, he\u2019s not as much an everyman as Jacques d\u2019Amboise some years ago or the boisterous boy that Baryshnikov brought to life. Fairchild makes you see Apollo\u2019s struggle between classical serenity and impetuousness, which gradually resolves over the course of the ballet in both Balanchine\u2019s 1928 choreography and Igor Stravinsky\u2019s music. There\u2019s time to play with these frisky muses and see if the godling can harness them together, but decisions must be made and authority exerted.<\/p>\n

In addition to his technical accomplishments, Fairchild seems to have a natural aptitude for acting. He regards the lute in his hands with interest and slight bafflement, as if not sure of his talent but willing to believe in it. His gaze and quality of attentiveness almost always anticipate what he will do next. His grasp of dynamics molds and enlivens his dancing. On Tuesday, he had some gifted muses vying to be the most favored: Sterling Hyltin as the winner, Terpsichore; Tyler Peck as Polyhymnia; and Ana Sophia Scheller as Calliope.\u00a0 At one robustly jazzy moment, Peck and Scheller were so perfectly matched that they looked like best friends who\u2019d practiced together every day after school.<\/p>\n

There were other standouts that night, along with others still working their way into the choreography. Teresa Reichlen and Ask la Cour gave a fine reading of the haunted duet in Episodes<\/em>, with Anton von Webern\u2019s music whining delicately around them. Wendy Whelan and Craig Hall work beautifully together in the ballet\u2019s third movement, and Ashley Bouder is\u00a0 sensationally vibrant in the \u201cCholeric\u201d variation in Paul Hindemith\u2019s Four Temperaments. <\/em>No wonder she scares the men away; watch out for those flashing legs! Now there\u2019s a story for you!<\/p>\n

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

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