{"id":575,"date":"2008-10-19T17:20:34","date_gmt":"2008-10-20T00:20:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/foot\/wp\/2008\/10\/how_to_watch_a_wheeldon_ballet\/"},"modified":"2008-10-19T17:20:34","modified_gmt":"2008-10-20T00:20:34","slug":"how_to_watch_a_wheeldon_ballet","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/foot\/2008\/10\/how_to_watch_a_wheeldon_ballet.html","title":{"rendered":"How to watch a Wheeldon ballet. Plus, his young company&#8217;s promise and peril"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><meta http-equiv=\"Content-Type\" content=\"text\/html; charset=utf-8\"><meta name=\"ProgId\" content=\"Word.Document\"><meta name=\"Generator\" content=\"Microsoft Word 11\"><meta name=\"Originator\" content=\"Microsoft Word 11\"><link rel=\"File-List\" href=\"file:\/\/\/C:%5CUsers%5CUser%5CAppData%5CLocal%5CTemp%5Cmsohtml1%5C01%5Cclip_filelist.xml\"><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>\n<w:WordDocument>\n<w:View>Normal<\/w:View>\n<w:Zoom>0<\/w:Zoom>\n<w:PunctuationKerning\/>\n<w:ValidateAgainstSchemas\/>\n<w:SaveIfXMLInvalid>false<\/w:SaveIfXMLInvalid>\n<w:IgnoreMixedContent>false<\/w:IgnoreMixedContent>\n<w:AlwaysShowPlaceholderText>false<\/w:AlwaysShowPlaceholderText>\n<w:Compatibility>\n<w:BreakWrappedTables\/>\n<w:SnapToGridInCell\/>\n<w:WrapTextWithPunct\/>\n<w:UseAsianBreakRules\/>\n<w:DontGrowAutofit\/>\n<\/w:Compatibility>\n<w:BrowserLevel>MicrosoftInternetExplorer4<\/w:BrowserLevel>\n<\/w:WordDocument>\n<\/xml><![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>\n<w:LatentStyles DefLockedState=\"false\" LatentStyleCount=\"156\">\n<\/w:LatentStyles>\n<\/xml><![endif]--><\/p>\n<style>\n<!--\n\/* Font Definitions *\/\n@font-face\n{font-family:\"Palatino Linotype\";\npanose-1:2 4 5 2 5 5 5 3 3 4;\nmso-font-charset:0;\nmso-generic-font-family:roman;\nmso-font-pitch:variable;\nmso-font-signature:-536870265 1073741843 0 0 415 0;}\n\/* Style Definitions *\/\np.MsoNormal, li.MsoNormal, div.MsoNormal\n{mso-style-parent:\"\";\nmargin:0in;\nmargin-bottom:.0001pt;\nmso-pagination:widow-orphan;\nfont-size:12.0pt;\nfont-family:\"Times New Roman\";\nmso-fareast-font-family:\"Times New Roman\";}\n@page Section1\n{size:8.5in 11.0in;\nmargin:1.0in 1.25in 1.0in 1.25in;\nmso-header-margin:.5in;\nmso-footer-margin:.5in;\nmso-paper-source:0;}\ndiv.Section1\n{page:Section1;}\n-->\n<\/style>\n<p><!--[if gte mso 10]>\n\n\n<style>\n\/* Style Definitions *\/\ntable.MsoNormalTable\n{mso-style-name:\"Table Normal\";\nmso-tstyle-rowband-size:0;\nmso-tstyle-colband-size:0;\nmso-style-noshow:yes;\nmso-style-parent:\"\";\nmso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt;\nmso-para-margin:0in;\nmso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt;\nmso-pagination:widow-orphan;\nfont-size:10.0pt;\nfont-family:\"Times New Roman\";\nmso-ansi-language:#0400;\nmso-fareast-language:#0400;\nmso-bidi-language:#0400;}\n<\/style>\n\n\n<![endif]--><meta http-equiv=\"Content-Type\" content=\"text\/html; charset=utf-8\"><meta name=\"ProgId\" content=\"Word.Document\"><meta name=\"Generator\" content=\"Microsoft Word 11\"><meta name=\"Originator\" content=\"Microsoft Word 11\"><link rel=\"File-List\" href=\"file:\/\/\/C:%5CUsers%5CUser%5CAppData%5CLocal%5CTemp%5Cmsohtml1%5C01%5Cclip_filelist.xml\"><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>\n<w:WordDocument>\n<w:View>Normal<\/w:View>\n<w:Zoom>0<\/w:Zoom>\n<w:PunctuationKerning\/>\n<w:ValidateAgainstSchemas\/>\n<w:SaveIfXMLInvalid>false<\/w:SaveIfXMLInvalid>\n<w:IgnoreMixedContent>false<\/w:IgnoreMixedContent>\n<w:AlwaysShowPlaceholderText>false<\/w:AlwaysShowPlaceholderText>\n<w:Compatibility>\n<w:BreakWrappedTables\/>\n<w:SnapToGridInCell\/>\n<w:WrapTextWithPunct\/>\n<w:UseAsianBreakRules\/>\n<w:DontGrowAutofit\/>\n<\/w:Compatibility>\n<w:BrowserLevel>MicrosoftInternetExplorer4<\/w:BrowserLevel>\n<\/w:WordDocument>\n<\/xml><![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>\n<w:LatentStyles DefLockedState=\"false\" LatentStyleCount=\"156\">\n<\/w:LatentStyles>\n<\/xml><![endif]--><\/p>\n<style>\n<!--\n\/* Style Definitions *\/\np.MsoNormal, li.MsoNormal, div.MsoNormal\n{mso-style-parent:\"\";\nmargin:0in;\nmargin-bottom:.0001pt;\nmso-pagination:widow-orphan;\nfont-size:12.0pt;\nfont-family:\"Times New Roman\";\nmso-fareast-font-family:\"Times New Roman\";}\n@page Section1\n{size:8.5in 11.0in;\nmargin:1.0in 1.25in 1.0in 1.25in;\nmso-header-margin:.5in;\nmso-footer-margin:.5in;\nmso-paper-source:0;}\ndiv.Section1\n{page:Section1;}\n-->\n<\/style>\n<p><!--[if gte mso 10]>\n\n\n<style>\n\/* Style Definitions *\/\ntable.MsoNormalTable\n{mso-style-name:\"Table Normal\";\nmso-tstyle-rowband-size:0;\nmso-tstyle-colband-size:0;\nmso-style-noshow:yes;\nmso-style-parent:\"\";\nmso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt;\nmso-para-margin:0in;\nmso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt;\nmso-pagination:widow-orphan;\nfont-size:10.0pt;\nfont-family:\"Times New Roman\";\nmso-ansi-language:#0400;\nmso-fareast-language:#0400;\nmso-bidi-language:#0400;}\n<\/style>\n\n\n<![endif]--><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\"><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\"><font style=\"font-size: 1em;\">When my niece, Hannele, was an infant, she would light up<br \/>\nwhenever you turned on the light, staring at this facsimile of the sun with curiosity<br \/>\nand awe. For her little brother, Pascal, music had the mind-altering effect. Light<br \/>\ntook my niece out of herself; music pulled my nephew into itself. He&#8217;d close<br \/>\nhis eyes and let his head fall back in a swoon. <\/font><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\"><font style=\"font-size: 1em;\"><o:p>&nbsp;<\/o:p><\/font><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\"><font style=\"font-size: 1em;\">Dance often moves in fruitful counterpoint to music, with the<br \/>\none illuminating not so much the other as a third thing&#8211;the piece. But sometimes<br \/>\na choreographer fuses the two and you fall into a trance. You know the dance is<br \/>\nworking, but you are too far in to know how. <\/font><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\"><font style=\"font-size: 1em;\"><o:p>&nbsp;<\/o:p><\/font><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\"><font style=\"font-size: 1em;\">I didn&#8217;t like Christopher Wheeldon&#8217;s &#8220;Fools&#8217; Paradise&#8221; at<br \/>\nits New York City Center premiere last year, when his pick-up company, Morphoses,<br \/>\ndebuted. The ensemble work to Joby Talbot&#8217;s eerie neo-Romantic foreboding of violins<br \/>\ncame at the end of an evening with so much Wheeldon, you got tired of him and<br \/>\nbegan confusing means with ends&#8211;wishing the choreography weren&#8217;t so sculptural<br \/>\nand static, hoping for an occasional rush of movement where everyone stood on<br \/>\ntheir own two feet. <\/font><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\"><font style=\"font-size: 1em;\"><o:p>&nbsp;<\/o:p><\/font><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\"><font style=\"font-size: 1em;\">This year, Wheeldon curated Morphoses&#8217; pair of programs more<br \/>\ncarefully. Duets no longer dominated and the Frederick Ashton trio &#8220;Monotones II&#8221;<br \/>\nseemed like a perfect companion to Wheeldon in its sweetness and the equanimity<br \/>\nbetween dancers. &#8220;Fools&#8217; Paradise&#8221; now suited its name. It was the paradise of those who inject the dread of the inevitable<br \/>\nfall into the idyll before, so the bad part doesn&#8217;t seem so bad. It was a dance for those who have counted melancholy a joy. With the dancers in fleshtones and<br \/>\nbathed in a waning glow under a light rain of glitter, &#8220;Fools&#8217; Paradise&#8221; perfectly complemented the Indian summer outside&#8211;with its <\/font><font style=\"font-size: 1em;\">steady warmth shadowed by the presentiment of winter <\/font><font style=\"font-size: 1em;\">chill. <\/font><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\"><font style=\"font-size: 1em;\"><o:p>&nbsp;<\/o:p><\/font><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\"><font style=\"font-size: 1.25em;\"><br \/><\/font><font style=\"font-size: 1em;\"><o:p><\/o:p><\/font><\/p>\n<p><span class=\"mt-enclosure mt-enclosure-image\" style=\"display: inline;\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/foot\/jr_fools_company_finale_500_105-thumb-500x405.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" alt=\"Thumbnail image for jr_fools_company_finale_500_105.jpg\" src=\"http:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/foot\/assets_c\/2008\/10\/jr_fools_company_finale_500_105-thumb-500x405-thumb-500x405.jpg\" class=\"mt-image-none\" style=\"\" width=\"500\" height=\"405\" \/><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\"><font style=\"font-size: 0.64em;\">&#8220;Fool&#8217;s Paradise.&#8221; Last year, static; this year as warm and ephemeral as an Indian summer<\/font><font style=\"font-size: 1.25em;\"><br \/><\/font><font style=\"font-size: 1em;\"><o:p><\/o:p><\/font><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\"><font style=\"font-size: 1.25em;\"><br \/><\/font><font style=\"font-size: 1em;\"><o:p><\/o:p><\/font><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\"><font style=\"font-size: 1em;\"><o:p><br \/><\/o:p><\/font><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\"><font style=\"font-size: 1em;\">Normally I&#8217;d offer you an emblematic moment to illustrate the delicious and fragile atmosphere the dance enveloped us in, but I&#8217;d left<br \/>\nmy reviewer&#8217;s mind behind, because after last year&#8217;s experience I wasn&#8217;t expecting<br \/>\nmuch. I&#8217;d settled for the default setting when nothing much is being asked of me<br \/>\nand I&#8217;m just happy to sit in the dark and take in a show. My attention became recessive<br \/>\nand my gaze panoramic. I was more wordless (unlike many&#8211;better&#8211;writers, I don&#8217;t<br \/>\nfeel in words, I only think in them) and receptive.<\/font><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\"><font style=\"font-size: 1em;\"><span style=\"\">&nbsp;<\/span><\/font><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\"><font style=\"font-size: 1em;\">The result was a keen sense of the ballet but few details to<br \/>\nhang it on&#8211;and a hunch that my accidental approach was just right for Wheeldon.<br \/>\nAfter testing this hypothesis on a second viewing of his &#8220;Commedia&#8221; (for Morphoses) and<br \/>\nthe New York premiere of &#8220;Within the Golden Hour&#8221; for the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.sfballet.org\/performancestickets\/touring.asp\">San Francisco<br \/>\nBallet&#8217;s 75<sup>th<\/sup> anniversary celebration<\/a> at City Center, I was convinced. <span style=\"\">&nbsp;<\/span><\/font><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\"><font style=\"font-size: 1em;\"><o:p>&nbsp;<\/o:p><\/font><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\"><font style=\"font-size: 1em;\">Trained on Balanchine, most New York ballet critics absorb meaning<br \/>\nand sense syntactically, because with Balanchine it&#8217;s the action between the notes&#8211;the syncopated rhythms&#8211;that shape the steps and their portent. With Wheeldon, the<br \/>\nballet&#8217;s color and emotion may be rooted in the score, but the organizing<br \/>\nprinciple is visual. In his &#8220;Commedia,&#8221; for example, he transfers<br \/>\nthe sharp angles of the jester&#8217;s iconic shrug to legs, hips, and the surface<br \/>\ninsouciance of secretly tender pas de deux. But if you scrutinize any one of these<br \/>\ngestures, it&#8217;s like standing with your nose pressed against an Impressionist<br \/>\npainting. The dots will make you dizzy&#8211;and you&#8217;ll lose the picture. Better to back up and let the motifs gradually seep in like a rising tide seeps in to sand.&nbsp; <br \/><\/font><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\"><font style=\"font-size: 1em;\"><o:p>&nbsp;<\/o:p><\/font><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\"><font style=\"font-size: 1em;\">In his six years as New York City Ballet&#8217;s resident<br \/>\nchoreographer, Wheeldon set himself all sorts of genre challenges. He tried his<br \/>\nhand at the family-friendly ballet (&#8220;Carnival of the Animals&#8221;); the movie-musical<br \/>\nballet ( &#8220;An American in Paris&#8221;); the tutu ballet (&#8220;Evenfall&#8221;); the modernist<br \/>\nballet (&#8220;Polyphonia&#8221; and &#8220;Morphoses&#8221;). But whatever the genre, he eventually<br \/>\ngravitated to the same rich emotional terrain: the sadness of being too happy<br \/>\nin one&#8217;s happiness, where even requited feelings are in excess of their object.<br \/>\nThe emotions Wheeldon favors aren&#8217;t operatic but subtly ambivalent, which is part of why he feels contemporary and people have faith that he can<br \/>\ncarry ballet into the future. <br \/><\/font><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\"><font style=\"font-size: 1em;\"><br \/><\/font><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\"><font style=\"font-size: 1em;\">Still, melancholy saturated in contentment is not an easy<br \/>\nmood to sustain&#8211;for us, anyway. While it was always a thrill to see Wheeldon beside<br \/>\nBalanchine and Robbins on a City Ballet program, presented in close succession on<br \/>\na single night his ballets tend to cancel one another out.<span style=\"\"> <\/span><o:p><\/o:p>When motifs repeat&#8211;the glorious circle patterns, the women<br \/>\nskimming across the stage on point, the men manipulating their partner&#8217;s planklike<br \/>\nlegs around a planklike torso, like a ballerina on a spit&#8211;the ballet you <i>just<br \/>\nfinished<\/i> watching sticks to the moves and reduces them to gimmicks. <br \/><\/font><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\"><font style=\"font-size: 1em;\"><br \/><\/font><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\"><font style=\"font-size: 1em;\">The problem<br \/>\nis not unique to Wheeldon&#8211;NYCB&#8217;s all-Robbins programs this spring suffered the<br \/>\nsame fate&#8211;and he minimized it this time by using his own works as program bookends,<br \/>\nas far apart as possible. But the<br \/>\npromise of his company depends on him finding other exciting<br \/>\nchoreographers with whom to share the stage. He had better luck last year, with Michael Clarke, Liv Lorent, and William Forsythe. This time, except for Ashton, he was the only one up to his level. <\/font><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\"><font style=\"font-size: 1em;\"><o:p>&nbsp;<\/o:p><\/font><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\"><font style=\"font-size: 1em;\">A bigger problem for Morphoses is the collapse of the economy.<br \/>\nEven in the best of times, a fledgling ballet troupe is an exorbitant and<br \/>\nrisky venture: Balanchine emigrated to America on the expectation that he&#8217;d have<br \/>\nhis own company soon; he waited 15 years. Of course, he did show up in the<br \/>\ndepths of the Depression&#8230;. Hmmmmm&#8230;this is all beginning to sound very familiar.<\/font><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\"><font style=\"font-size: 1em;\"><o:p>&nbsp;<\/o:p><\/font><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\"><font style=\"font-size: 1em;\">There would be no shame in Wheeldon returning to the NYCB<br \/>\nfold until our economic troubles blew over (in&#8211;what?&#8211; 2018?). And perhaps now<br \/>\nthat City Ballet has lost the Bolshoi director and choreographer Alexei<br \/>\nRatmansky to ABT, who found no objection to the busy schedule that made City<br \/>\nBallet balk, they will be extra generous with Wheeldon, letting him choreograph<br \/>\nwhatever he wants, with first dibs on dancers, longer rehearsal periods, access<br \/>\nto the set and costume designers of his choice (his choices so far have been<br \/>\nwonderful), catered lunches! <br \/><\/font><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\"><font style=\"font-size: 1em;\"><o:p>&nbsp;<\/o:p><\/font><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\"><font style=\"font-size: 1em;\">New York City Ballet would be lucky to have him, and so<br \/>\nwould we. <\/font><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\"><font style=\"font-size: 1em;\"><o:p>&nbsp;<\/o:p><\/font><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\"><font style=\"font-size: 1em;\"><br \/><\/font><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\"><font style=\"font-size: 1.25em;\"><i><font style=\"font-size: 0.8em;\"><o:p>Here&#8217;s&nbsp; a <a href=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=_nuWfYYSa6c\">two-minute clip <\/a>of &#8220;Fools&#8217; Paradise.&#8221;<\/o:p><\/font><\/i><\/font><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\"><font style=\"font-size: 1em;\"><o:p><br \/><\/o:p><\/font><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\"><font style=\"font-size: 1em;\"><o:p>&nbsp;<\/o:p><\/font><\/p>\n<p><font style=\"font-size: 0.512em;\"><i style=\"\"><span style=\"font-size: 12pt; font-family: &quot;Times New Roman&quot;;\"><font style=\"font-size: 1em;\"><b>Next ballet stop:<\/b> <a href=\"http:\/\/www.nycitycenter.org\/tickets\/productionNew.aspx?performanceNumber=3727\">American<br \/>\nBallet Theatre, at City Center<\/a> for two weeks beginning this week. Their focus: Antony Tudor. Have you noticed how much more dance programming City Center has<br \/>\noffered this year? Besides the usual Fall for Dance, ABT, and Alvin Ailey,<br \/>\nthere has been<\/font><font style=\"font-size: 1.25em;\"> <\/font><font style=\"font-size: 0.8em;\"><font style=\"font-size: 1.25em;\">San Francisco Ballet and will be Lar Lubovitch next month. And<br \/>\nthat&#8217;s just the Fall. Yay for City Center executive director (and former<br \/>\nJoffrey dancer) Arlene Shuler!<br \/><\/font><\/p>\n<p> <\/font><\/span><\/i><\/font><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>When my niece, Hannele, was an infant, she would light up whenever you turned on the light, staring at this facsimile of the sun with curiosity and awe. For her little brother, Pascal, music had the mind-altering effect. Light took my niece out of herself; music pulled my nephew into itself. He&#8217;d close his eyes [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"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":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-575","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-main","7":"entry"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/foot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/575","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/foot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/foot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/foot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/foot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=575"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/foot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/575\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/foot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=575"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/foot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=575"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/foot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=575"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}