Sarah-Mearns and Gonzalo Garcia, Mercurial Manoeuvres. Click for more photos.
NYCB’s New Combinations program is a highly innovative, thought provoking evening with works from three of the biggest names in choreography today: Alexei Ratmansky, Justin Peck, and Christopher Wheeldon.
Ratmansky’s Pictures at an Exhibition, which debuted in October 2014, combines music from Modest Mussorgsky with changing projections on a screen behind the dancers of Wassily Kandinsky’s 1913 work Color Studies with Concentric Circles (Kandinsky: “I applied streaks and blobs of colours onto the canvas with a palette knife and I made them sing with all the intensity I could….”) by production designer Wendall K. Harrington. The projections were of various aspects of Kandinsky’s Color Study work. Mussorgsky created musical portraits inspired the of artwork of his friend Viktor Hartmann.
Ratmansky’s work consists of five couples in 16 segments. A number of dancers made their debut in the work: Zachary Catazaro, Craig Hall, Georgina Pazcoguin, and Taylor Stanley. None of the individual performances were particularly memorable or stood out. Instead, my focus was on the choreography set to changing Kandinsky projections with piano music beautifully performed by Cameron Grant. The 16 components display a range of moods with playful, slow, dramatic, frenetic, and energetic segments. In some segments the theme seemed to be friendship and community, while others revealed conflict.
I wondered what meaning the abstract painting conveyed and Ratmansky’s interpretation of the painting through dance, a unique experience for me. I was constantly asking the question: Is Ratmansky trying to link the choreography to the painting and what is the link? If, so what is the connection and what message is he trying to convey? This is a highly innovative, complicated, and multifaceted work. It was my first viewing and felt happily overwhelmed as I tried to take it all in. I look forward to seeing it again to attempt to absorb the abstract work in conjunction with the choreography and music.
Agnes De Mille’s Rodeo is one of my favorite ballets, set to the Aaron Copland score. Given the iconic ballet, I was surprised to see Justin Peck add a new perspective to the work, titled ‘Rōdē,ō:. De Mille’s classic centers on an American cowgirl competing against other girls to win the attention of the Champion Roper. Peck’s work seems to have 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. Daniel Ulbricht provides 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 single pirouette. Amar was very impressive, dancing with speed and clarity accentuated by his long thin limbs and nice line. Tiler made her debut in this work and 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.
I enjoyed parts of the piece, but still wonder why we need another work to the classic Copland score. Do we need another piece to the classic Symphony in C? The crowd gave the work a rousing ovation at the end, so I appear to be in the minority.
The evening concluded with Wheeldon’s Mercurial Manoeuvres. The work was his last while he was still a dancer at NYCB in 2000. The work featured Sara Mearns and Russell Janzen. Sara and Russell make a strong pair; I enjoyed their partnership last season in Chaconne. Noteworthy were nice one-handed supported turns in the slow pas de deux. Russell was confident in partnering work, but seemed less sure in his solos, even tentative at times. Gonzalo Garcia was the lead male soloist, dressed in a bright red unitard. His solo work filled with double sauté de basques was fine but lacked some energy.