Ballo della Regina, ABT at City Center, Sunday matinée, November 2, 2008

Gillian Murphy in Ballo della Regina

Gene Schiavone photo

Ashley Bouder in Ballo della Regina

Paul Kolnik photo

Today's 1:30 performance (Nov. 2) began with Ballo and the slip of paper announcing Yuriko Kajiya and Eric Tamm in place of Gillian Murphy and David Hallberg. I knew Gillian wouldn't be dancing as planned, but I was so looking forward to David in this. But no worries -- it's always exciting to see a new'un in a new role and I thought Eric Tamm was very, very good. Kajiya, too, after her troubled "Theme" a week ago (last Sunday's afternoon performance) was confident, strong, and bursting with energy. I was happy I saw her in a better light. When she got to that special Merrill Ashley variation, I looked at her very closely, Ashley's dancing running through my head.

Merrill Ashley
Martha Swope photo

Allegra Kent was seated near me and I wondered what she was thinking, too. Kajiya tried her darndest, she really did, and without the knowledge of Merrill Ashley's precedent-setting performances, one could say Kajiya did very well indeed. Alas, we DO have knowledge of Miss Ashley's incomparable antecedent! It makes you treasure having seen Ashley do it all the more and place a higher value on her considerable ability with the special choreography of this piece.

Isabella Boylston and David Hallberg in Ballo della Regina
Gene Schiavone photo

It was the collaboration with George Balanchine , who simply incorporated things Merrill Ashley could do -- and she could do just about anything -- that made this ballet so special. The speed! The precision of those hops! That unique 3-part drawing in of the leg from grand battement à la seconde to high passé!


But this review is supposed to be about Kajiya. I was pleasantly surprised at how pleasantly and surprisingly she danced today.

With ease and showing beautiful lines, good elevation and a much better facial expression -- joyful! -- to replace that upper lip curl that looked almost like a sneer last week when she was dancing unsure, Kajiya won my heart. She is quite the sublime dancer. I'm glad that I can end my season of watching by saying so, that I was able to change my mind about her (even knowing she was thrown into "Theme" and had to make [really sour] lemonade). Yuriko, you were wonderful this afternoon and you have t-i-m-e to get better at things like Ballo. You certainly took the bull by the horns today. More power to you.

Yuriko Kajiya in Ballo della Regina
Gene Schiavone photo

Eric Tamm -- such a fine danseur noble. He's been given so many opportunities this fall season and he is using them so well. He stepped up today, too. Most of his turns were straight, fast, and beautiful-looking. His line is gorgeous. He was an attentive, strong partner. He covered the stage with his leaps and was right on the music throughout. I can still see him in my mind's eye, so that makes him memorable as well.

The corps was crisp, generous of movement, sprightly and long-limbed. My Isabella was there, so of course I watched her loveliness quite a lot of the time. Maria Bystrova stood out for me, too. It's a darn shame she grew so tall and big-boned for I think that's what's keeping her from being moved up. She was a darling, pixielike 15 year old who danced like a dream in all the cute little girl variations. I was so excited when she joined ABT. For years, I've been itching to scream at someone about her still being kept from showing us all she's got. The other females (Nicola, Zhong-Jing, Nicole, Melanie, Anne, Luciana, Jacquelyn, Christine, Leann, and Karen U.) each had their own personality as they danced and it was fun to identify them as they whizzed by.

All were in good form, some in sensational form. The four soloists -- Misty, Maria, Hee, and Marian -- were wonderful. I don't have a bone to pick with any of them. Sheer pleasure in beautiful costumes. Marian Butler is so pretty!

Preview: My new corps favorite is Roddy Doble (who knew?!) in “Company B”.
He was fantastic! And Carlos Lopez! Could he BE any better? WOW!

Isabella Boylston, Luciana Paris, Nicola Curry in Ballo della Regina
Gene Schiavone photo

Hee Seo in Ballo della Regina
Gene Schiavone photo

Company B -- ABT at Bard College, Friday October 17, 2008

Company B

Two words: Misty Copeland!

10 more words: Misty Copeland! Misty Copeland! Misty Copeland! Misty Copeland! Misty Copeland!

Did anyone else dance? Oh yes, did they ever! There was an actual baker's dozen of dancers, hot pastries fresh from the oven: German apple strudel (Maria Ricetto and Tobin Eason), puffy popovers (Arron Scott), curvy croissants (Nicola Curry), steaming muffins (Craig Salstein with his gaggle of swooning women), bittersweet chocolate mousse (Simone Messmer and Grant DeLong), spicy hot cross buns (the Joseph! Joseph! cast), all-American brownies (Joseph Phillips) and a tangy tropical tart (Misty Copeland). Paul Taylor's rousing, lively portrayal of the devil-may-care side of World World II masking the underlayer of devastation saw its premiere in 1991, first by Houston Ballet, then by the Paul Taylor company. Like "Overgrown Path", the ballet deals with mortality, but its take on death and its inevitability is totally different. Its characters begin as innocents, knowing what war does, but in their blissful youth, refusing to believe any of it will touch them -- until it does. In their innocence, they laugh, love and flirt, play-act and have wild fun. Then bodies start dropping, creating a new reality for the revelers.

The ballet is American, the America of the Europeans who peopled its cities 75 years ago and whose sons were sent to fight for it. The jubilation begins in low light to the Yiddish "Bei Mir Bist du Schon". The entire cast of 13 make the stage sizzle with their energy. With choreography based on the swing dances of the 40s -- the lindy hop, jive, boogie-woogie -- we experience pure joy and the beauty and exuberance of the young. A spirited polka follows, a good ol' German polka. If there's anything I know something about, it's the polka, so I must say that, while very well executed by Ricetto and Eason, I can tell that neither has had extensive experience with it. Still, it was very nicely done.

"Tico-Tico", a solo for a male dancer, was performed this night by Arron Scott. An ingenious piece of choreography, the dancer isolates his upper body parts into small bits that jiggle and undulate, pop and quiver as if he were in the throes of St. Vitus Dance -- or, to be current, maybe post-traumatic stress syndrome. Scott was so good that I've got to name him as my second most memorable dancer of the evening. The second part of the solo had him doing more traditional ballet steps like jetes, but I hardly remember any of that. Daniil Simkin and, from the cast list it looks like Mikhail Ilyin, alternate the part with him at City Center.

Bespectacled Craig Salstein was such a hoot in "Oh Johnny....", so much so that I watched him instead of the girls, so cannot comment on any individual female dancer. The story line: a bunch of girls hopes the nerdy boy (who didn't have to go to war) chooses one of them, but he outruns, outjumps, and outsmarts them. Nicola Curry, a lovely adagio dancer, gives the heartache of "I Can Dream, Can't I" an aesthetic, wistfully sensuous interpretation. Just beautiful!

Joseph Phillips, replacing Herman Cornejo, tackled "Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy", a grueling athletic endeavor. Phillips is certainly up to the choreography and physical requirements, but he needs more time with the role to work on nuance and surprise. I wanted to see something special, at least once, but, aside from the whole dance making special demands on the dancer, Joseph was not able (yet) to give it a little more oomph here and there.

And then came Misty. If ever a role was made for a dancer, "Rum and Coca-Cola" was made for Misty Copeland. Exuding sass, magnetism, and intrigue with a calypso beat, she led her admiring soldier boys into a lustful frenzy. It helps that she, of all the women, looks best in the "Company B" costume, so sexy and fresh. Misty has a springy, high jump, an expansive way of moving, and sharp, precise technique. She performed this so utterly perfectly, that I wonder whether there is anyone at ABT who can touch her or even come close.

Simone Messmer and Grant DeLong were given the tail-end duet "There Will Never Be Another You". The story behind the dance is that of a couple who must part because of the call of war, ending with the soldier joining his unit and leaving his girlfriend in an emotional heap to suffer the torment of (perhaps permanent) separation. It was extremely well danced. The maturity that Messner gives us everytime she takes the stage graced this duet in smooth synchrony with DeLong's expressive partnering. Bravo! Poignantly danced and well-acted.

The return of "Bei Mir Bist du Schon" provides a summarizing coda for the piece and returns us to the festive atmosphere which took us into the ballet. The dancers all return with their vigorous energy and we are again allowed to forget.

The whole cast wore white jazz shoes for the ballet and the women wore either long skirts or trousers. The unifying accessory was a thin red belt for everyone, males and females. It is completely possible that this is a symbol of more than the blood of war. The ballet came out during the years when the AIDS crisis was on the front burner of the news constantly. Paul Taylor was deeply affected by the loss of friends and dancers and used that raw emotion as inspiration for some of his choreography. "Company B" could well be one of those works that reflected the senseless destruction wrought by the disease. There are more layers to this prickly rose of a dance than meet the eye.

Overgrown Path -- ABT at Bard College, Friday October 17, 2008

Overgrown Path

We arrived at Bard two hours before curtain. It was a gorgeous fall day, the colors of the Hudson Valley in full array as we approached our destination, the Frank Gehry-designed Fisher Center. Winding around the well-groomed lawns toward the theater, we saw two deer grazing by the roadside. The road dipped down and around to the parking lots, and, since we were early, we got a choice spot. The bigger lot further downhill requires an uphill trek from its users and Bard thoughtfully provides chauffered golf carts as taxis for its health-compromised theatergoers.

The campus's bucolic autumn atmosphere lent itself to the first ballet after intermission, Jiří Kylián's Overgrown Path.It is in this 10-part non-storied story ballet that the ABT principals and soloists are found mingling as one entity, separated abstractly into solos and duos and more. Five principals, five soloists, two corps members, dressed in fall colors -- red, orange, yellow -- and black, all in ballet slippers, and often in a simultaneously moving mass like leaves blown in the wind, convey an atmosphere of foreboding as they seem to be inexorably rushing toward something against their wills.This can be viewed as a "story" ballet if one is aware of its reason for being.

From ABT's site we read:

"The ballet is inspired by Leoš Janáček's autobiographical piano pieces, the path is the composer's life, imbued with rich memories of his small Czech village to the untimely demise of his beloved daughter." (from the program notes)

Seen without any background info, it's a ballet of movement, shapes, modern-dance angst and turmoil, and the experimental choreography of the next generation of modern dancemakers after Graham, Cunningham, and Taylor. Kylián dedicated the ballet to Antony Tudor and based it on Leoš Janáček's "intimate piano cycle, which gradually evolved over a number of years spanning the time before and after 1902, in the saddest period of Janáček's life.

It is the sequential deaths of his two children that informed Leoš Janáček's composing ever after. The overgrown path symbolizes the memories we all have, which become a jumble of events losing or gaining impact, depending on how our experiences through the years reorder our lives. What was once monumentally important may fade alongside other, more trivial at the time, incidents which now carry greater emotional influence for us. And so, to the performance.

David LaMarche strode to his piano in the orchestra pit, with a round of applause accompanying him. His giftedness with the 88s was apparent at the first musical passage. This is ABT's master pianist and we were so privileged to hear him. I felt a confidence with LaMarche that I did not feel with Barbara Bilach's opening notes for "Baker's Dozen", although she had to play twice as many notes, twice as fast (why does that sound like a familiar cliche in the context of her being a woman.....hmmm ).

LaMarche's overture led us into an ensemble dance where, first off, the costumes were noticed. Shapeless long dresses for the ladies, covering their balletic assets, reducing them to vehicles for molding, assembly and disassembly. The men fared no better with indistinct drab garb, homogenizing them all into, what? ... tree trunks? gnarly old branches? dried-up, blackened leaves? "Overgrown Path" doesn't allow identity by personality or technique to anyone. All are the same, the same but different. While there are some solo parts, some small groups, some couples, the roles could be danced interchangeably by anyone on stage, even given the natural physical and stylistic differences from one dancer to another.

The star of the ballet is the music, expressionistic in that it lets you imagine your own running scenario for it, even while you are being offered a visual framework by the ballet, much like seeing the movie version of a beloved book where they've portrayed it so differently than what was pictured in your mind's eye as you read it. At first, it suggests hope and promise, with only a hint of the tragedy to come. Extremely beautiful, and perfectly fitting the season, it pulls on your soul, when it's lilting as well as when it's surreal. As it progresses from part to part, the music starts to chill as it grabs you. As listener, you are whorled in with the same insistence as it captures the dancers onstage.

By the time we arrive at "The barn owl has not flown away", after "Unutterable anguish" and being "In tears" (the sections with the death, symbolized by the removal of the black-clad Gillian Murphy (playing the daughter who died) by Marcelo Gomes-- playing the role of death? -- from the midst of the other dancers) into an upstage abyss, the music is bold, urgent, unrelenting. In the stages of grief, this is somewhere in the anger, bargaining, depression and loneliness area. It is danced by Gillian Murphy and Marcelo Gomes, who, though known as ballet stars, deliver understated fluidity and supremely gifted movement in servitude to the music.

The eleventh, unnamed, part was danced to silence. Well, not really. It was taught to music in order to establish the phrasing and counts for the dancers, who then had the music pulled out from under them to be performed without it. But it wasn't done in silence. Finally, the dance was the star and the dancers, en masse, the star vehicles (like well-rehearsed corps members who must align themselves to each other by rote, using only the mobility of the eyes to check distances and positions). The piano stilled. What we heard, especially those who had close-to-the-stage perches, was the shuffling of a stageful of feet, vividly emphasizing the undercurrent of lives that continue for others even when life has ended for some.

The rustle also reminded us of the falling leaves outside, which reminded me of the curious deer who watched the cars arriving for the ballet. There is always life. The dancers continued agitatedly soft-shoeing it -- making me think also of the frenzied action of baby birds stretching their little heads up, mouths agape, for the worm brought by the mother bird -- or, more to the point, like this was the only thing that mattered to do in life, until the curtain softly fell.

Veronika Part and David Hallberg in Overgrown Path, NYT photo

Veronika Part -- how wonderful to see her! had some phrases to dance which allowed her beautiful penche to be admired. She partnered with David Hallberg for a pas de deux before blending back into the group. Julie Kent, in vivid red, did mostly ensemble work. She and Misty Copeland, also in red, were the female halves of "A blown-away leaf" with Jared Matthews and Gennadi Saveliev their male counterparts. It was pretty much a group dance which linked into a trio of staunchly stepping males. More group work, in various combinations of dancers, and then Alexandre Hammoudi was introduced to the piece as partner to Kristi Boone in "Good night". As they melted into the group, ensemble work returned, with smaller groups falling away to form new coalitions of movement.

There was forward marching, withdrawal, zombie-like, molasses-slow exiting steps, fluttering, and quiet. There was lifting, turning of dancers into sideways positions, picking up and moving of unmoving dancers, lunges, and retreats. The fact that the choreography was performed by some of the best dancers in the world did not escape my notice, but it was such a piece that would have looked good on any fine company anywhere, major or regional. Perhaps the high level of competence at ABT permitted the dancers to suppress their personas to serve the music and choreography better than dancers of less accomplishment could manage, I don't know.

Are ABT dancers so good that they can belie their training and experience while letting it intrinsically do the talking for them? Maybe they are. And it was fun to see Marcelo in the last line of the group -- in the shadows -- for a change! Or maybe I've thought too much about this ballet and what it means. When I asked my friend who saw it with me what she remembered from it, her reply was "I remember that it was my least favorite." And that remark came from a veteran balletgoer!

Second intermission