Saran Mearns, Slaughter on Tenth Avenue
NYCB presented a celebration of dance set to American composers in Americana X Five Friday evening. My favorite of the evening was the comical Slaughter on Tenth Avenue, created for the 1936 Rodgers and Hart musical On Your Toes. This was the first of four Rogers and Hart musicals Balanchine choreographed in the 1930s.
Slaughter is a parody of Broadway, Russian ballet, and the mob. It is a performance within a performance as it opens with a jealous Russian dancer (David Prottas) who hires a mobster to kill a rival during a new ballet. The new ballet is Slaughter on Tenth Avenue, about patrons of a sleazy strip joint near the waterfront in a rough area in New York City. The Hoofer (Tyler Angle) falls in love with the Stripper (Sara Mearns). The Stripper is discovered with the Hoofer and the Big Boss (Preston Chamblee) accidentally shoots her. The actress Stripper somehow sends a note to the Hoofer to reveal the real murder plot. The Hoofer, aware that the thug (sitting in the real theatre balcony) will shoot him when he stops dancing, keeps repeating his last line until the police arrive.
Sara Mearns was outstanding as the stripper. In a short black dress with string skirt, fishnet stockings, high heals, and blond hair flowing down to her shoulders, she paraded around the pink stage, hand on hip, strutting her stuff. Not typical fare at the ballet, but audience members (particularly the men) didn’t seem to mind. Tyler as the Hoofer demonstrated his proficient tap dance abilities in several high-energy solos. I thought I had a long walk back home from Times Square-until I realized that I was at Lincoln Center.
Another highlight was Justin Peck’s ‘Rōdē,ō. Agnes De Mille’s 1942 Rodeo classic with the same music centers on an American cowgirl competing against other girls to win the attention of the Champion Roper. Peck’s work has an athletic theme with 15 men and one woman, with Amar Ramasar and Tiler Peck as leads. Some of the men are in brown loose-fitting trousers while others are in long sleeve dark shirts, shorts, and strange-looking stripped socks, resembling rugby attire. Daniel Ulbricht provided much of the action with powerful double assembles and nice turns in second position, performed rapidly at first, slowing down to almost a stop to a slow double pirouette. Amar was impressive, dancing with speed and clarity accentuated by his long thin limbs and nice line. Tiler worked well Amar in the slow, tender pas de deux.
The work has a number of comedic, informal touches to remind us that it doesn’t take itself too seriously. In one section, the men walk to the edge of the stage and sit with their feet dangling into the orchestra pit. Amar also looks into the pit in one section, and revs up the segment by doing a lawnmower pull motion. I liked the non-symmetric movements and shapes the men make in several sections. In one part, three men do their thing while two others on the other side complete different steps.
Although I like the original classic more than Peck’s work, the new version is great fun. The crowd gave the work a rousing ovation at the end.
A photo posted by Megan Fairchild (@mfairchild17) on
At age 39, Joaquin De Luz still has it with dramatic and boundless energy on display in Balanchine’s 1964 Tarantella. Hurricane Joaquin hit New York City with rapid jumps and turns with a rapid-fire coupè jeté en manége section, set to the score by Louis Moreau Gottschalk (1829-1869), a New Orleans–born composer. It was also nice to see Megan Fairchild back on the Koch Theatre stage after an On the Town Broadway run.
Sonatas and Interludes (1982), choreographed by Richard Tanner, featured unique music by John Cage on the prepared piano. According to the program notes, prepared piano “…refers to a concept developed by Cage around 1938, in which the composer experimented with changing the piano’s sound by inserting bits of wood, paper, screws, or other objects between the strings at various points to produce a more percussive sound.” Peter Martin’s Ash, set to music by Michael Torke opened the program.