Balanchine and Robbins: Superhuman and Human

 

New York City Ballet
December 9, 2009
Kennedy Center Opera House
By Lisa Traiger 

© 2009 Lisa Traiger 

I’ve fallen in love with Jerome Robbins. Again. Tuesday’s New York City Ballet opening night justly, and exquisitely, put Robbins’ “Dances at a Gathering” in the spotlight. The company, at its brightest in this, his subtlest of works, was a shining example of what ballet can be.  

Bookended by two Balanchine warhorses, “Mozartiana,” starring a refreshed Wendy Whelan, and “Stravinsky Violin Concerto,” featuring a playful cast of principals, the Robbins work rang the most true. The dancers took readily to its gestures, to its charm and to the humanity of choreography for a group of people, a community that happens to dance.

 “Mozartiana,” first on the program, should take viewers to another world. It is a place in which the other worldly heroine – the Suzanne Farrell character – leads a group of young acolytes in ballet’s own form of ablution – porte de bras: Arms are carried gracefully, their line shaped to elegant perfection. There are four diminutive Farrells and as they deliver a Prayer, we are reminded of ballet’s ceaseless need for fresh, young coltish bodies to replace women who themselves have barely waxed and waned for a few seasons. From Whelan there emanated a courtly sensibility, but not the ballerina’s right of divinity that is a must for such a role. In the wake of Whelan and the girls, Daniel Ulbricht followed. His spritely, sharply etched Gigue was puckish – something he’s prone to. Then a quartet of women from the corps presented a respectable if unremarkable Minuet before Whelan returned with her partner, gallant Jared Angle, to dance a long set of Theme et VariatMuch of “Mozartiana” was re-choreographed shortly before Balanchine's death and the piece is often considered a swan song of sorts. 

Depending on the dancers, it can carry freighted meaning – particularly in the part Farrell stamped so decisively. It should climb, starting nun-like, then spread its wings in angelic yearning to finally soar as eager spirit. This performance I found to be a simple, unaffected rendering of technique, of the lexicon that was Balanchine’s bible. It was spoken with grace but devoid of the higher meaning which haunts not only Balanchine’s choreography but also the music, Tchaikovsky’s Suite 4, Opus 6, an homage to Mozart.

It took the straightforward, unaffected performances by some of the company’s current crop of principals (escaping the company’s annual “Nutcracker” grind up in New York) to give the evening its most deeply danced moments. “Dances at a Gathering” is deceptively simple, both structurally and choreographically. On the face of it, this 1969 work shows just 10 dancers being together and being themselves. They enter alone, in pairs or in trios, dancing singly or jointly, at most in small groups, for an hour. “Dances” eschews scenery, orchestra and fancy costumes. Joe Eula dressed the women in simple colors and cuts, and the men in shirts, tights and boots. The couples, trios and clusters separate, play and perhaps congregate again. Movement comes in easy sweeps, playful runs and skitters. Without the theatricality Robbins had grown so used when working for the Broadway stage, the understated simplicity of “Dances” makes the case for Robbins as one of 20^th century America’s essential choreographers.

Often overshadowed by Balanchine’s opus during their lifetimes, Robbins’ best works, with their uncommon humanity writ effortlessly on the canvas of the ballet body, may prove to have the longer shelf-life. Many of the Ur-Balanchine works can look frazzled and affected with Balanchinisms that in under-rehearsed and poorly directed situations seem more parody than holy high art. But Robbins, with his essential gestures, freighted looks, conscious attention to weightedness, and serious but naturalistic approach, seems somehow not just easier to swallow but also more lasting.

In purple, Tyler Angle flicked and stomped with the zest of a Russian peasant. Yvonne Borree, pretty in pink, had her own luscious, swooning moments with Benjamin Millepied (the Villella role) in brown, while in green Maria Kowroski’s presence was far too fleeting. Dark-haired Jenifer Ringer in mauve, Megan Fairchild in apricot and Abi Stafford in blue provided added spirit and playfulness. The other men – Antonio Carmena in brick, Adrian Danchig-Waring in green and Christian Tworzyanski in blue – ably eased the women in lifts over shoulders, and in supports and effortless balances. Cameron Grant provided heart-felt interpretations of the Chopin piano pieces. Meandering between play and seriousness, the ballet’s path felt just right as did the dancing’s breathless, outdoorsy runs and skips – forward, to the side and, more unusually, back. It recalled a gang of attractive children let loose on a glorious spring day. While the 60-minute run time of “Dances” made some in the audience fidget, to me it felt just right in its emotional and physical arcs.

The evening closed on a high note, too, with the verve-filled “Stravinsky Violin Concerto.” It featured petit Rebecca Krohn and stalwart Amar Ramasar in its Aria I, and Sterling Hyltin and Robert Fairchild in Aria II. The latter pair has that memorable moment in which her knees knock together and he stills them with a touch of his hand. The ballet’s attenuated limbs – emphatic with elbows and wrists or heels, knees and hips that flare out only to turn in – are displayed in parallel prances and hyper- and hypo-extension. It is all emblematic of echt Balanchine. That this cast was able to maneuver through the complexities vividly and energetically, with finesse and finish (save for some wobbly corps moments) speaks to the possibility of a rise in the consistency of the Balanchine canon, which has sometimes flagged even at its home company, City Ballet.

But for all the attention paid to Balanchine on this program, I came away most taken by – and enamored of – Robbins. And it made me return to both choreographers balletic roots: Balanchine’s at the end of the Maryinsky era in pre-Soviet Russia where he was weaned on the art form’s courtly traditions. Robbins, though, grew up in this country and was equally adept at the free-form art of Isadora Duncan, the jazzy turn of phrase and the Broadway showstopper, as he was at a full-length ballet. Robbins’ roots, American and democratic – of, by and for the people – were, on this program, at least, the polar opposite of Balanchine’s, whose efforts were to ennoble the super-human feats of his ballerinas and attentive but modest men. Robbins, on the other hand, showed his dancers as real people, breathing, living, loving, playing and dancing together and apart. It is as if with just a bit of energy, a skip, brush, or hand to a shoulder, we too could all dance, freely, effortlessly in a Robbins ballet. In Balanchine we marvel at the shapes, specificity, form and sculpted bodies in space. In Robbins we marvel at the simplicity, ease, flow and deeply essential humaneness and humanity of it all. Balanchine viewed his dancers’ grace and ability as God given; Robbins’ dancers were human-made.

 

© 2009 by Lisa Traiger
Published December 12, 2009

Above: Sterling Hyltin and Robert Fairchild in Balanchine's "Stravinsky Violin Concerto," courtesy New York City Ballet