I was happy that NYC Ballet finally started their (virtual) Fall season; the first week of performances was mostly excerpts, though it was mostly complete movements and at least it was all-Balanchine.
The first movement of Symphony in C (music by Bizet)was as beautiful as ever, though just showing the first movement left one feeling a bit cut-off, though Ashley Bouder and Joseph Gordon showed impressive attack throughout.
Ivesiana was represented by The Unanswered Question (music by Charles Ives), where Janie Taylor was held aloft and never touched the ground, though her long hair at times did touch the stage. She was partnered by Andrew Huxley, as men brought them closer and further apart. To me this represents, among other things, the importance of women dancers in Balanchine's choreography.
Episodes. the finale here to Webern's transcription of Bach is a powerful, ritualistic and soaring piece, with the corps, Teresa Reichlen and Adrian Danchig-Waring, though the power is somewhat diluted by not showing the movements preceding the finale.
Tschaikovsky Pas de Deux was danced with speed and intensity by Tiler Peck and Joaquin De Luz and is one of those ballets by Balanchine that show how powerful equals can dance separately but also enhance their relationship and trust in each other by dancing together.
Balanchine's Liebeslieder Walzer (music by Brahms), a long and complex ballet, was represented by two pas de deux, one with the woman in regular low-heeled shoes (Maria Kowroski, dancing with Jonathan Stafford) and the other with the woman on point (Lauren Lovett, with Jared Angle), representing the time period when the music was composed (1868) as well as a ballet fantasy of the time.
Stravinsky Violin Concerto was shown in its final movement. This very modern but also very classical ballet was premiered at the NYC Ballet's Stravinsky Festival in 1972, though Balanchine had used the same music for a completely different ballet thirty years earlier. The ballet is both playful and serious, one of quite a number of Stravinsky-Balanchine collaborations, here danced intensely by Sterling Hyltin, Ask la Cour, Sara Mearns, Taylor Stanley and the corps.
No comments:
Post a Comment