NYCB’s Winter season was immensely entertaining, filled with high level dancing and innovative new and classic choreography. Highlights:
Individual Performances
As I noted in my Fall NYCB wrap-up, the women at NYCB are outstanding and would be great dancers at any company in the world. This season, I enjoyed Sara Mearns in Concerto Barocco as she displayed great energy and timing. In Wheeldon’s Mercurial Manoeuvres and Chaconne, she was paired with Russell Janzen; the two have substantial chemistry despite dancing together for a short period of time. Ashley Bouder was outstanding in Donizetti Variations. Noteworthy was her phrasing and precise footwork, with elongated pauses in arabesque, flowing arms, exaggerated shoulder and head movements, in synch and complementing the beautiful music. Tiler Peck was paired with husband Robert Fairchild in Wheeldon’s A Place for Us. The two will have an extended onstage separation as Robert will star in An American In Paris. Tiler and Robert dance the work with great clarity and energy, particularly in Bernstein’s more upbeat, whimsical part. Both have great technique and an effortless quality even in the most demanding steps. To demonstrate the great depth of the women, Megan Fairchild did not dance in the winter season, spending her time as Miss Turnstiles in the Broadway production of On the Town.
Joaquin De Luz is an ageless wonder and had a great season. He was an expressive Tybalt in Romeo+Juliet, showing dramatic intensity that he picked up from his days at ABT. Unlike other versions, Tybalt has an athletic solo in the Martins version, filled with turns in second and pirouettes to a Don Quixote-type double tour to the knee. He was also impressive in Donizette Variations with Ashley with a number of athletic sections consisting of rapid turns in second, multiple tours, and high leaps.
Daniel Ulbright was another male that stood out, with impressive performances as Mercutio in Romeo+Juliet and Hallelujah Junction. He had a fine ballroom solo in R+J filled with double rond de jams el l’air, sauté de basques, and interesting and innovative character turns from second position. He added a number of comedic touches as he flirted with many of the women in between his athletic steps. I’ve always been a fan of Daniel and hope that he can be given a chance to break out of the short-guy soloist mold into starring roles such as Romeo. He was quite effective in the dramatic Prodigal Son with Maria Kowroski in 2013.
Repertory
On repertory, my favorites were:
Alexei 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. The projections were of various aspects of Kandinsky’s Color Study work. 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.
I enjoyed Peter Martin’s Hallelujah Junction (2001); the piece is set to a score of the same name by John Adams. The music was written for two pianos and named after a small truck stop near the California-Nevada border. The score centers on delayed repetition between to the pianos, creating an effect of echoing sonorities, according to the program notes. “There is a constant shift of pulse and meter, but the main rhythms are based on the rhythms of the word ‘Hal-le-LU-jah.’”
Glass Pieces, by Jerome Robbins set to Philip Glass music, is also a great work. The piece opens with dancers walking briskly and randomly across the stage, much like everyday scenes from busy pedestrian crossings in New York. Keeping with Glass’s score, the scenery and costumes are minimalist in nature; dancers in unitards with a few women in skirts perform in front of a simple checkered background. Every now and then, three couples break up the frenetic, informal walking with slow duets consisting of basic dance steps. Some steps are constant throughout the piece, such as lunges with an exaggerated outstretched arm, exaggerated struts with clenched fists, all reinforcing themes from the repetitive music. The last section begins with loud drumbeats. Here Robbins creates a number of interesting patterns and geometric shapes with the dancers. I enjoyed Robbins’ innovative effort of creating visual images of Glass’s dramatic, frenetic, and exciting music.
Misses for me included Martin’s Romeo+Juliet with bright costumes and strange sets; great individual performances couldn’t overcome the deficiencies in this production. Justin Peck’s Rōdē,ō, set to the classic Aaron Copland score, also didn’t work for me. I enjoyed parts of the piece, but wonder why we need another work to the Agnes de Mille classic. The crowd gave the work a rousing ovation at the end, so I appear to be in the minority.
Active Dancers
Above is a list of dancers and the number of times they were listed in the NYCB weekly cast lists with five or more appearances. Sterling Hyltin and Gonzalo Garcia led all dancers with 25 appearances (out of approximately 120 performances) with Sara Mearns and Adrian Danchig-Waring close behind. Joseph Gordon led all Corps members with 17 appearances, followed by Daniel Applebaum (13) and Lydia Wellington (12).