American Ballet Theatre ABT Forward Review
March 29, 2022 | The Kennedy Center – Washington, DC , USA
Tuesday, March 29, 2022, marked an exciting anniversary for the American Ballet Theatre (ABT) at Washington, DC’s John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts with their first of two performances of ABT Forward.
Fifty years ago, the company was present for the Center’s opening season, and it has returned in residency every year since. For the Golden Anniversary, Center President Deborah Rutter welcomed the audience and also acknowledged the 30-year career of ABT Artistic Director Kevin McKenzie, who began his own training at The Washington School of Ballet. His return home to DC would punctuate the evening at the close of the third ballet.
The show began following Rutter’s call for the audience to stand as the orchestra, under ABT Principal Conductor Charles Barker, played the Ukrainian national anthem.
This night’s performance of the three ballets – Alexei Ratmansky’s Bernstein in a Bubble, Alonzo King’s Single Eye, and Jessica Lang’s ZigZag – was expertly executed, masterfully staged, and warmly received. It reminded the audience how the threads of American dance can be woven to create a unified experience through diversity, talent, and tradition.
Ratmansky’s au courant choreography had premiered virtually a year before (filmed at NY City Center) and was created during pandemic at a YMCA Center in New York. The athletic romp balanced well on the music of Leonard Bernstein’s Divertimento. The choreography featured seven dancers blazing through sennets and tuckets, waltz, mazurka, samba, turkey trot, sphinks, and blues before concluding to a march.
Costuming by Moritz Jung underscored scope and space, four male dancers donning deep shades of blue with different lengths in leg wear, from super short to ankle length. Chloe Misseldine and Betsy McBride worked angled skirts countered precisely by the shorts worn by Zimmi Coker. The colors of the female trilogy bounced actively across the stage under the lighting designs of Brad Fields.
Pas de deux pairings were warm and intimate, while group gatherings were active and positive and happy, building to the ballet’s charming conclusion – a group selfie. How divine to have these movements imagined alongside Bernstein’s 1980 score.
King’s Single Eye, which premiered March 16 at California’s Segerstrom Center, attentively exploited every potential ethos from the dynamic jazz piano score of much-sought-after composer and jazz pianist Jason Moran. With the music and movements working together and separately, on and off, over and over, the message of the body being one with nature drove the intricate, nurturing parings of the ballet.
Costuming from LINES Co-Founder, Executive Director, and Designer Robert Rosenwasser leveraged earth tones, yellows, and sheer curtains to convey the natural world. Against the stunning sets, dancers realized movement.
The closing fifth movement with Skyler Brandt and Corey Stearns was a breathtaking pas de deux – effortless as the wind, sky, and air of the natural world. Those moments remind us why ABT is the ballast for American ballet.
ZigZag opens with Lang’s full ensemble putting in movement what we all imagine when we listen to Tony Bennett. After discussing the project for years with Bennett, Lang selected eleven of his recorded songs, including his duet with Lady Gaga. Lang says she included the duet, “De’Lovely,” after hearing the two perform it live and witnessing that
“there wasn’t a dry eye in the house.”
Derek McLane’s inventive set design conveyed elegant New York and incorporated Bennett’s own artwork. For example, a black and white drawing of the city’s skyline was moved from the upper to the lower part of the backdrop. And one of Bennett’s black and white drawings of his own musicians was shared in the upper right of the stage for a time.
Carolina Herrera’s House Designer Wes Gordon completed the classic NYC image with costuming including black and white polka dots for femmes – a design element so often associated with that house. Thrilling! And the color of the yellow dress between the fuchsia and royal blue dresses… taxi-cab yellow, of course. The female dancers were cast against male partners in either all black or white.
Once again, Stearns was a face hard to miss, this time in all white with his perfect turns. His delivery made you believe he’s just out there in the world - moving about in perfect form, even if the audience isn’t there to watch.
The full cast concluded with “How Do You Keep the Music Playing.” The audience erupted to three curtain calls before Kevin McKenzie came to the stage, awarded with a grand collection of red roses to mark his active and prolific 30-year career as ABT’s Artistic Director. Watching the company smile and applaud McKenzie left everyone with a sense of belonging – of being one eye together, now outside the bubble again, following the Bennett mantra: When they Zig, we Zag.
ABT continues their 2022 residency at the Kennedy Center with Don Quixote which opens tonight and runs through April 3.
Featured Photo of Luciana Paris, Devon Teuscher, and Cassandra Trenary in Jessica Lang’s ZigZag. Photo by Rosalie O’Connor.
