Digital Ballet in the Plague Year (continued)

The New York City Ballet continues its twice-weekly digital presentation with ballets filmed with one or two cameras that gives one the chance to closely study these ballets. Recently I saw Balanchine's Rubies, to Stravinsky's Capriccio for Piano and Orchestra, a ballet that was beautifully danced by Gonzalo Garcia, Megan Fairchild, Mira Nadon and a sprightly and energized corps.  Of course Rubies is better seen as the middle of the full-length Jewels (see my posts of Sept. 23 2019, Sept. 24 2018,  Feb. 4 2014) but it works on its own fairly well, a jazzy and snazzy piece of classicism combined with modern techniques such as turned in legs and flexed feet.  These past couple of weeks have also included (to Stravinsky music) Balanchine's Apollo, with Taylor  Stanley, Tiler Peck, Brittany Pollack, and Indiana Woodward, a ballet that is one of Balanchine's earliest surviving ballets, made in 1928 when he was twenty-four years old.  The NYC Ballet recording included a second camera in the wings that showed a point of view not available to the audience, enhancing the artificial quality of the ballet that emphasized its brilliant classical creativity.

Also this week was Balanchine's Ballo della Regina, one of Balanchine's late works (1978) that originally was a showcase for Merrill Ashley and was beautifully danced in the recent recording by Megan Fairchild and Gonzalo Garcia.  An even faster and more precise version of this ballet is available on YouTube with Merrill Ashley and Robert Weiss, on whom Balanchine did the ballet originally.

We also saw last week the Wendy Whelan and Craig Hall pas de deux from Christopher Wheeldon's After the Rain, an intensive piece with Whelan in ballet slippers instead of pointe shoes.  I do appreciate the opportunity to see the Wheeldons and the Pecks that with our limited time and budget I don't usually get to see.  Starting tonight I will have the chance to "see" Alexei Ratmansky's Concerto DSCH.