I saw these two ballets with my son Gideon and wife Susan on Saturday: the Schumann was sad and beautiful and Union Jack joyous and beautiful. And for those who complain about there not being enough about ballet in this blog I will simply say that when Alexei Ratmansky or Christopher Wheeldon come up with ballets anywhere near this quality I will write about them!
It mirrors the passion of Robert Schumann, his intransigent daemon, his lust for the unknown.
Arlene Croce on Robert Schumann's Davidsbundlertanze (Going to the Dance, Knopf, 1982).
The four couples in this ballet mirror aspects of Schumann and his wife Clara and this dance reminds one of Chaplin's Limelight: Balanchine and Chaplin foresee their own deaths (it was one of Balanchine's last major works, premiering in 1980, three years before his death). In Davidsbundlertanze (the title means David's Band and refers to Schumann's multiple selves battling the Philistines) the exquisite music is performed onstage (Saturday by Cameron Grant) and the women change from pumps to toe shoes (as in Liebeslieder Walzer), a change from the mundane to the ethereal and Schumann, pursued by Philistines with large black pens, eventually throws himself into the Rhine. A constant theme is the use of the tour jete, when the couples face each other, turn away and jump, turning 180 degrees and face each other again, symbolic of running away and returning and the feelings between Schuman and his wife Clara.
If I have any quibble it is with the unfortunate fact that Balanchine is not around to change the choreography for different dancers; one way he kept his dances alive and vibrant was his keen understanding of a particular dancer's strengths and weaknesses. One can see in the current performance of Robert Schumann's Davidsbundlertanze echoes of the original cast, particularly the off-center turns and prancing of the Suzanne Farrell role, but also reflected are the strengths of Jacques d'Amboise, Karin von Aroldingen, Adam Luders, Heather Watts, Peter Martins, Kay Mazzo and Ib Andersen.
Working with traditional folk and popular dance forms, Balanchine has this time exalted them through a process of scrutiny rather than of adaptation.
Arlene Croce on Union Jack (Afterimages, Vintage, 1979).
For the bicentennial Balanchine produced this great piece of theatre, combining ballet with traditional jigs and reels. Again, one regrets that Balanchine is not around to make changes (the costermonger pas de deux was never that funny, though Baryshnikov kept it alive for a while) and the WRENS sequence to the Colonel Bogey March is a bit dated (though Suzanne Farrell letting her hair down in 1976 was rather charming in its way) but it still is an astonishing piece and I remember how thrilled the audiences were in 1976, when one never knew what Balanchine would do next. The first part is mostly marching, complex and beautiful, highlighted by "Regimental Drum Variations", a series of astonishing wild leaps led by Sara Mearns, almost worthy of von Aroldingen's original, followed by the costermonger piece (the donkey who had been in it since 1976 recently died and his replacement is not yet fully trained) and male and female dancers doing hornpipes, and ending with semaphores signaling "God Save the Queen" while the orchestra plays "Rule, Britannia." It is an amazing spectacle that does not stint on exciting and complex choreography, with more than seventy dancers on stage.
Talking with Susan after the performance I felt like an old fuddy-duddy: why are current dancers not as vivid and distinctive as those who danced during Balanchine's lifetime? We came up with several possible reasons.
1 We don't go to the ballet as much as we did before we had children (only one of whom is old enough to go now) so we aren't as familiar with the dancers.
2. Our favorite ballets are Balanchine's and he is not around to tailor his works, old and new, to particular dancers, so we don't get as much of a sense of their individuality.
3. The choosing of dancers these days might be more conservative, i.e., dancers who stick out for their individuality -- in style, looks, personality -- might not be as encouraged as they once were.
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