© Paul Kolnik 'Grazioso' reviews NYCB 'Liturgy' reviews 'Liturgy' reviews NYCB 'Western Symphony' reviews 'Western Symphony' reviews Whelan in reviews Bouder in reviews recent NYCB reviews more Eric Taub reviews Discuss this review (Open for at least 6 months)

After recent City Ballet galas in which George Balanchine's representation has been light or non-existant, his Garland Dance was a sight for sore eyes, and surely Lincoln Kirstein, the prodigious patron of the arts who was instrumental in bringing Balanchine and New York together, would've welcomed it in this program marking the end of City Ballet's commemoration, which began in Spring Season, of his 100th-birthday year. I always love seeing how Balanchine builds his grand design out of that simplest of waltz-time steps, the balancé, repeated over and over in kaleidoscopic infinities. Oh, and the canny way he weaves the tiny pink rose-buds of the youngest children from the School of American Ballet into his bouquet. After all, children are the future, and today their parents buy tickets. This waltz was a particularly welcome sight for me, as it began to eradicate the painful memory of the hideousness from last spring that was ABT's Sleeping Beauty.

Then even more welcome was Megan Fairchild's Rose Adagio. Pink, dewy and effervescent, had she at last put behind her familiar aggressive competence behind her? Or was I just thrilled to see a ballerina who looked happy to be onstage after the discomfited trio of ABT's sad Ballo della Regina? Whatever the reason, Fairchild breezed through the adagio looking like she was having the time of her life. She held her balances just long enough to show us she could, and on a night like this, that was plenty. I wasn't just happy to see Fairchild's dancing my eyes lingered, as if I were seeing long-lost relatives, over the glorious radiance of Dena Abergel's beaming Queen, or Jared Angle's calm authority as he promenaded Fairchild and effortlessly set her up for her final, longest balance. When do we see principal dancers among Aurora's suitors, if not at galas?

Soloists Sean Suozzi and Ellen Bar came out to introduce an excerpt from their work-in-progress, a version of Jerome Robbins' New York Export: Opus Jazz videotaped in street clothes at various outdoor locations in New York. This bit had Rachel Rutherford and Craig Hall, in cut-offs and jeans, respectively, swiveling their hips through the introverted clinches of that ballet's pas de deux, in the midst of the wild, overgrown tracks of The High Line, the abandoned, elevated freight railway on New York's West Side. I found myself liking the idea of the piece more than its actualization. Unlike other parts of the ballet, this duet, on the stage, at least, takes place in a kind of surrealistic mind-space rather than a specific location. The High Line's colorful weeds and sunny vistas of the Hudson and New Jersey often overwhelmed with insistent, beautiful specificity the dancers' introspection. Overwhelming, too, was the artsy camerawork, zooming in and out at seeming whims, or floating so high above the pair I wondered how they managed to schlep the necessary hardware onto the High Line. I did love the ending, as the camera zoomed in on the affectless face of the kneeling (and quite beautiful) Rutherford while Hall stepped off, almost literally, into the sunset.

Although I'm fond of warm puppies, for me more often Happiness will be Wendy Whelan dancing a long, long adagio, as she did in Christopher Wheeldon's Liturgy, partnered ably by Albert Evans onstage, and even more so by City Ballet's gifted violinist, Kurt Nikkanen, in the orchestra pit, playing Arvo Part's Fratres for Violin, Strings and Percussion. I'm never quite sure what the odd rituals of Liturgy are supposed to be about, but even if it were really nothing more than a celebration of Whelan's uncanny way of turning the simple act of achieving a position, be it a familiar arabesque or some novel, gravity-defying contortion, into a spellbinding journey, it would be meaning, and gift, enough for me.

While Fayçal Karoui's tempi for the last movement and finale of Balanchine's Western Symphony seemed, surprisingly enough, a bit staid, the dancing of Maria Kowroski and Damian Woetzal was anything but, as the veteran pair played serve-and-volley with one bit of bravura after another. Even as he starts his final year with the company, Woetzel was still a marvel of nonchalant speed and elevation in this romp of cowboys and dance-hall girls. The leggy Kowroski showed again her technical strengths and comic genius, saucily blowing Woetzel a kiss before tossing off single and double fouettes, or, best of all, swinging her leg over his head as if she were truly aiming to kick his block off.

After an intermission allowing the beautiful people to see and be seen, the gala's second act was all-Glinka, apparently a favorite of Kirstein's. And what's not to love? Karoui led the orchestra through that familiar shot of musical adrenaline, the overture from Ruslan and Ludmilla, and then the curtain rose on a brief, but charming, video dedicated to Kirstein, from the sybaritic youth of George Platte Lynes stunning portrait, to the weathered granite pillar bracing Suzanne Farrell's cheek on his shoulder at her final bow, with films of Balanchine praising him at the State Theater's opening night, and, speaking of the Eighties, then-Mayor Ed Koch praising Kirstein with his familiar borscht-belt wit. Kirstein may not have been born sneering, but the photographic record does trace the development of his magnificent scowl (and also suggest he was, in fact, born wearing a double-breasted suit). Kirstein's cool relations with Balanchine, and his growing unhappiness in his later superfluous years at NYCB are, of course, well-known, but for a few moments it was pleasing to honor the indisputable greatness of his dreams.

In such a setting, the world premiere of Peter Martins' Grazioso seemed as much a belated gift for Kirstein as a bon-bon for the monied set, and yet, perhaps because I'm already looking ahead to Nutcracker, the image it brings to mind is Martins' inner child, surrounded by the wreckage of wrapping paper beneath some magical Norse Christmas tree, putting his shiny new toys through their paces. (Or, hmm. Martins as Drosselmeyer? There's a nightmare before Christmas!) While I have a good idea what to expect when Martins winds up his Daniel Ulbricht and Andrew Veyette dolls, this was my first look at Martins' handiwork with City Ballet's newest principal dancer, Gonzalo Garcia, late of San Francisco Ballet. Not surprisingly, Martins makes of him, as the others, a flashy, sloppy trickster. Of Ashley Bouder, suddenly City Ballet's star ballerina, Martins tries something similar, and fails. Or, rather, he's defeated by an artist who's made a career out of superlatives.
 

Grazioso begins with the three men skipping onstage together to one of Glinka's sprightliest mazurkas, which is quite sprightly indeed. But, rather than bring to mind the Imperial Russian court or spur-clattering hussars, Holly Hynes' costumes for the trio bring to mind the Eighties again. All in black, with black tights and pointy, red-trimmed, open-necked collars to their long-sleeved shirts, the caffeinated trio looked like they'd just arrived for a night at Studio 54 but had tragically forgotten the pants of their leisure suits. Wait, would I be showing my age too badly to recall that Saturday Night Live's Wild and Crazy Guys were, in fact, Eastern European? It's all beginning to fit together....

In the mazurka and subsequent sections, Martins puts his men through their paces, together and separately. While Martins happily tosses in the familiar mazurka skipping-step and little hopping sideways cabrioles, he loves to embellish, taking hard steps and making them even harder. Soon, not only are the guys flying about in all manner of impossible-to-describe leaps (I only learned last year what the heck a five-forty is; c'mon already!), but adding ornamentation which requires almost impossibly fast footwork. Why have a man simply leap about in a big bunch of jeté coupés, when you can make him land and stop on a dime and immediately fire off a sharp little sisonne backwards, showing off a carefully raised and pointed front foot? Well, perhaps because after awhile such embellishments look, not just tricky but fussy. And, while I'm in awe of the technique these three have to display such sleight-of-feet, the problem is, good as they are, they can't quite deliver Martins spiffy little puzzle-boxes without getting sloppy, and sometimes really sloppy.

Of the three, Veyette seems to be Martins' favorite, and gets the most extended solos. Despite his flaws, Veyette approaches his airborne duties with a firmness of purpose (and jaw) which is in stark contrast to Ulbricht's shameless pandering has there ever been a dancer with greater promise more utterly ruined by terrible artistic "direction?" Of Garcia, he seems handsome and personable, and all-too-eager to contribute to Martins' jiggery-pokery. Getting back to the severely clean-limbed Veyette, perhaps only tonight would I notice the similarity in profile between Veyette and Kirstein. No, Veyette doesn't have the regal nose, but he does, alas, lead with his chin and hunch his shoulders when the going gets tough. Indeed, when Veyette would have crank it up a notch to, say, soar through an arch of jeté coupés interspersed with soaring fouéttes in arabesque, he'd slam his head forward like he was downshifting a stick shift, with correspondingly zoomy results.

Holly Hynes saved her greatest fashion tragedy for Ashley Bouder, whose costume brought to mind, not an Eighties disco, but something Clara Barton might've worn in one of her racier dreams. Bouder's pink, ruffly and flowery little dress is fine, but Hynes has wrapped it in a blinding white surcoat inelegantly sectioned with rough, black trim, which has the unfortunate effect of breaking up Bouder's silhouette. With her cocky grin and happy insouciance, she made short work of all the technical challenges Martins threw at her, as the bits of music went from mazurkas to waltzes (quite perky ones) and back again. A particular hit came as she accented some fast batterie with a showy, long balance: entrechat quatre, entrechat quatre, quick releve to passé and hold forever, then repeat.

Martins played with permutations of the three-guys-one-gal equation, looking at times like he was channeling the charmingly similar bit from Balanchine's Donizetti Variations, and, at others, the just-seen Rose Adagio. One man would hold Bouder's hand and turn her around in a quick promenade in arabesque then run off, as the next swept in, took her hand and promenaded her back in the opposite direction, and then the third, well, you get the idea. Bouder looked perfectly capable of holding her arabesques forever in her brief instants between cavaliers, and I thought if any ballerina ever figures out how to promenade herself on pointe without benefit of a partner, it'd be her. So I wasn't surprised when Martins had Bouder become a guy, joining them in a circling line of jetés and big, showy renversés. She jumped as high as any, and so much more cleanly, that I wondered how far into the acrobatic realm of male bravura she could propel herself, given the chance. Certainly when she was doing the same steps as Veyette et. al. she wasn't just one of the guys; she was the best guy.

I'm afraid I've made Graziosa sound better than it actually is. Sure, its great fun watching supremely talented and conditioned dancers toss off lickety-split, fiendishly hard allegro without, it seems, breaking a sweat, but the bravura fussilade was so relentless my head was aching by the time the curtain fell. Is this what Martins feels he must put on to energize City Ballet's donors? With Halloween just past I'm perhaps still in a ghoulish mood, but I can't help seeing Graziosa as a trailer for that upcoming George A. Romero/ Peter Martins horror flick, Night of the Living Jesters! in which a virus compels once-promising young dancers to devote their every waking moment to mastering the art of performing a double revoltade while leering at the audience. However gruesome Graziosa might be I'll probably go see it again, if for no reason other than it's another jewel in the tiara of La Bouder, but then I'll have to pay someone to dress up in leather and whip me.
 

Kirstein would've despised a box of pop rocks like Graziosa, but he would've loved Martins' A Life for the Tsar, which followed. In fact, he did, as the work's first, and, until now, only, presentation was at the birthday celebration the company threw for him at the beginning of the Balanchine Celebration in 1993. And, here, what's not to love? For a truly thunderous rendition of the famous Polonoise from A Life for the Tsar, the New York City Opera chorus joined City Ballet's orchestra, as Martins presented a sort of grande defile of students from the School of American Ballet and the entire company of the New York City Ballet, entering, at first, in ranked columns with that beautiful polonaise march where one leg dips while the other sweeps forward on every third step. Of course I whipped out my binoculars to scan for familiar faces among the throngs dressed in proper Balanchinian black-and-white, and faced the sad realization I don't have a clue who half the corps dancers are anymore. A huge picture of Kirstein was lowered from the wings, and the band played "Happy Birthday," which seemed a bit odd, as his birthday was in May. True, they probably played this after the original performance of A Life for the Tsar which was on his birthday, but here it just seemed strange. Strange, too, that Martins didn't speak, as he usually does at galas not that I'm complaining.