by Balanchine, Wheeldon, and Robbins
February 17, 2011
Divertimento
The cast looked in good spirits February 12, when in a New York City Ballet afternoon program, the curtain opened with Divertimento No. 15. Seeing the Balanchine (to Mozart) a second time was an opportunity to admire the dancers idiosyncratic talents.
Sterling Hyltin, for example, is more fluid than Janie Taylor who has a more youthful and angular body type and very stretched extensions. Taylor looks as though she is reaching as far as possible. Charles Finlay is a promising dancer who not only has excellent ballon; he is developing an easygoing rubato, or syncopated timing, that helps bring us in to the flow of the music and the choreography. Maturity may bring nobility and seriousness to convince his critics. Ana Sophia Scheller shows this rubato in a series of pirouettes, in which she brings her knee into her center before each turn. Ashley Bouder brings needed spirituality to Divertimento by looking up. The violin solo accompanies a quiet passage where the cast slowly rearrange themselves, joining different groups of twos and threes as if socializing at a dance, reminding us of this and all ballet’s roots in social and court dances.
On the subject of quiet, Christopher Wheeldon's well-loved After the Rain is a response to the music of Arvo Pärt. The Czech composer had just celebrated a 70th birthday when in 2005, New York City Ballet commissioned the dance. Pärt’s music was enjoying a surge of interest among choreographers, with its calming quietude and moments of silence. He and Wheeldon show us that quiet does not mean boring.
After the Rain
Is it post-apocalyptic? At first, six in circular duets, to the circular Tabula Rasa. Part II is a duet for Craig Hall and Wendy Whelan to Spiegel im Spiegel, with Cameron Grant and Arturo Delmoni on stage at the piano and Delmoni playing violin. It is intimate (soulful and dreamlike). Whelan has let down her hair and both have changed from their gray costumes, she into pink leotard, tights, and slippers, and just pants for him. Her moves are very stretched and angular, but she is limp in his arms or limber when split on the floor. He parades her flexed body overhead. Only the finest ballerina can look so effortless in these xtreme positions. The end is a similarly acrobatic tableau— he crawls under the bridge of her backbend. Whelan and Hall make it a spiritual elegy to mother earth.
The Wheeldon is spare, modern, and elegant. The next offering is theatrical and with a touch of humor. Jerome Robbins made The Four Seasons in 1979 to the Verdi. It has modern elements and Balanchinian neoclassicism. At the time, and through Mr. B's last decade, Robbins was his Ballet Master in Chief.
The Four Seasons
It begins with Winter and a passel of shivering ballerinas in white (pretty silly looking) and snowflakes projected inside a painted lute (symbolizing music) on the cyclorama. The eclectic design by Santo Loquasto includes garlanded wing legs and seasonal costumes— swan-like classical tutus, then richly colored Grecian style wraps or dresses.
Spring is chartreuse; Tyler Angle is notable here. While the seasonal theme fades, we enjoy the pageantry. A princely Amar Ramasar and bouncy Rebecca Krohn dance the lyrical and releasing Summer section.
Daniel Ulbricht heralds Fall with an imaginative portrayal of a bounding faun. He plays it Puckishly and when he exits with his hands in a clawed position, they could be small antlers. Tiler Peck is memorable in Fall; Joaquin De Luz’s excitement is contagious, despite his over-the-top tours. They quickly do their fouettes and double turns, seeming to accelerate the fun. After treating us to a splendorous tableau, all twenty in their array of colors, the curtain falls.
It’s camp and joyous. Hopefully, the theme is still universal. How about someone trying a Four Seasons for the twenty-first century?