American Ballet Theatre Mixed Repertory Review
October 29, 2022 | David H. Koch Theater – New York, NY, USA
The American Ballet Theatre mixed repertory fall season performance was a surprising line-up for Artistic Director Kevin McKenzie’s final week directing the company on the Lincoln Center stage.
While New York City Ballet is better known for taking the bolder reaches in the contemporary ballet realm and ABT triumphs in masterfully re-staging classics, this line-up proved to fall flat of ABT’s contemporary movement potential. The performances offered little coloring and didn’t showcase the company’s talent to its fullest.
It’s my (potentially) controversial opinion that ABT’s company as a whole hosts stronger dancers than those of City Ballet. Since ABT regularly provides classic programming representing America’s touring ballet company, I believe the dancers are often eager to jump into an opportunity to perform a new, original, and contemporary role – and undertake the task with more tenacity than those at City Ballet, who may be more jaded at times facing their daily task.
In the past, I have attended ABT’s contemporary mixed-bill lineup with lower expectations only to be blown away by the energy of the entire company. However, all three pieces on the bill for the Saturday matinee performance fell short of showcasing the dancers’ talents in their strongest light.
Instead of wondering what could have been a more impressionable lineup and rather facing what the performance was, the most interesting facet for a critic’s eye was the risky and irregular casting choices.
The bill opened with Jessica Lang’s "Children’s Songs Dance" making its Lincoln Center stage debut and featuring exclusively corps members of the company.
Overall, the ballet was melancholy yet playful. The dancers cleanly executed classical phrases of choreography with a tasteful neoclassical flair to a solo pianist playing short movements of Children’s Songs by Chick Corea.
It is rare for audiences to get to see the corps featured in soloist roles and it was interesting to get a different side of ABT’s powerful company. However, it was clear their movement had more academic rigor than professional ease. The phrases of advanced ballet steps were carried out cleanly, although the dancers’ focus was on the timing and technique rather than the actual performance of it. Nuanced moments of expression were lost.
However, ABT men corps dancers have never ceased to strike me with their abilities over the past five years or so: they dance well together and I have continued to be impressed with the pedagogy and training that’s reflected in their performances. The men didn’t disappoint here either.
The ladies shone in their own light but, overall, the performance lacked a certain sparkle for me that I’m sure will develop further into their careers.
Up next was the highly anticipated, first all-Black production at ABT, Lifted. The concept behind this production was long overdue and ABT’s Black artists bring an extraordinary amount of presence to the stage.
ABT’s Black dancers in the cast – Calvin Royal III, Erica Lall, Courtney Levine, Melvin Lawovi, and Jose Sebastian – in my opinion, have some of the most stunning limbs and radiance in the company. Especially with the rare casting combination of a principal and corps members, I was truly anticipating a unique experience with these talents. I was ready to be moved to either joy, tears, or both and witness those gorgeous limbs devour space on stage. However, I found myself disappointed and thought the choreography did little to showcase the dancers’ strengths.
The score by Carlos Simon and conducted by Roderick Cox was sweepingly cinematic although the choreography by Christopher Rudd did little to reflect the drama of the full-orchestra sound.
The movement phrases did not feel musical and, to me, felt as if someone choreographed counts of steps and then laid them over the score without the music informing the movement. And every time the movement began to build and transport me somewhere emotionally, the dancers would stop to stand in prolonged moments of stillness.
Rudd incorporated the use of a black backdrop and two large panels of mirrors on wheels that moved throughout the ballet. The mirrors created beautiful moments of stage light reflecting into the audience, but beyond that, did little to add to the piece.
In my opinion, the black backdrop and the mirrors sectioning off the stage into half or even smaller triangles limited the dancers’ potential for movement. I was waiting for a moment for the dancers to break free of this limited space and move freely about the massive David Koch stage, but that moment never arrived and the ballet ended rather abruptly.
While the concept of Lifted and the performers were delightful, if the idea was pursued in the future, I would wish for a more rounded and rehearsed production.
The program concluded with the strongest production, Sinfonietta by Jiří Kylián. However, it was not because of the choreography necessarily that made the ballet stand out.
It is a rare to treat to see all of ABT’s principal dancers onstage together, and it’s something I would love to see more often. ABT genuinely brags a powerhouse of principal performers.
I was surprised McKenzie chose Sinfonietta of all Kylián ballets to close the bill. Kylián has choreographed several iconic ballets that I would die to see all of the principal dancers in together, and unlike his other complex, layered, and mesmerizing, works, Sinfonietta is rather dry and repetitive.
However, the principal dancer-studded cast still managed to give the duets and solos that broke free of the herds of Paul Taylor-esque leaps and neutral-colored costumes depth and individuality.
The next time ABT returns to Lincoln Center for their Met spring season, Susan Jaffe will be the female at the helm of the company. Following her work and programming decisions with the Pittsburg Ballet Theatre since 2020, I am looking forward to where she will begin to shape the company in her lead in ABT’s next New York City season.
Featured Photo for this American Ballet Theatre mixed repertory review of a scene from Sinfonietta. Photo: Rosalie O’Connor.
