{"id":834,"date":"2012-06-02T13:58:43","date_gmt":"2012-06-02T17:58:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/foot\/wp\/2012\/06\/rites_of_passage.html"},"modified":"2012-06-02T13:58:43","modified_gmt":"2012-06-02T17:58:43","slug":"rites_of_passage","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/foot\/2012\/06\/rites_of_passage.html","title":{"rendered":"Rites of passage"},"content":{"rendered":"

From my Financial Times review of Tchaikovsky Suite no. 3<\/i>, playing only until Sunday at New York City Ballet:
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\nBalanchine discovered in Tchaikovsky, his fellow Petersburger, romance and imperial elegance entwined – or at least following fast on one another. But in this odd, late ballet, the choreographer kept them apart.<\/font><\/big><\/p><\/blockquote>\n


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Tchaikovsky Suite No. 3<\/em> begins in a swoony state. Behind a foggy scrim, Ask la Cour kneeled in despair. The cause soon materialised: barefoot Venuses in long skirts of lilac tulle who did not do steps so much as drape themselves and their loose tresses around this forlorn dreamer.<\/font><\/big><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

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\nTeresa Reichlen splayed out as Ask la Cour meets the span of her legs. Photo by Paul Kolnik courtesy of the New York City Ballet<\/a>. <\/small><\/big><\/div>\n

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\nTo find out what happens next, click here<\/a>! Every click<\/a> is a click for dance<\/a>. And if you hit a registration wall, you only have to register once, ever after enjoying 30 articles a month free!<\/font><\/big><\/div>\n
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\nMore swooning Romanticism (notice the man’s collar!): Janie Taylor and Sebastian Marcovici in the backward-driving waltz. Photo by Paul Kolnik courtesy of the NYCB. <\/small><\/big><\/div>\n

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\nAt the end of this short review (click! click!)<\/a>, I mention how often Tchaikovsky travels between earth and air, small and large, soul and spirit. Because Tchaikovsky Suite No. 3 <\/em>is all about <\/em>such passages, transitions matter especially. And they extra especially matter in the final section, the theme and variations, which reiterates in dancing what the ballet as a whole lays out as drama. <\/big><\/font><\/div>\n

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 A “Theme and Variations” aficionado might well respond, “But how can you tell the transition from the step in choreography where everything is exhibited and exposed, nothing hidden?” <\/font><\/big><\/div>\n

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 Ahhhh, good question. I think the moments that need emphasis and are easily slid through are those just before a peak and just after. It can be the plie of takeoff, the switch from one leg supporting to the other, the moment the dancer changes direction but before she takes off. Paradoxically, accentuating these modest moments makes us feel the flow. <\/font><\/big><\/div>\n

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 Here for your delectation is Gelsey Kirkland (who premiered the theme and variations section when it first appeared in Suite No. 3)<\/i>  with Baryshnikov in American Ballet Theatre’s Theme and Variations<\/i> in 1978. So this is what became the last section of Suite No. 3. T<\/i>ape quality wretched, performance sublime. S<\/font><\/font><\/big>ometimes they seem to stop altogether, as in stop-motion photography, but there is always something moving–the arms, the head.<\/font><\/span><\/div>\n

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