American Ballet Theatre Review of The Dream and The Seasons
October 29, 2022 | David H. Koch Theater – New York, NY, USA
The elusive double feature seemed to be daunting dance companies right and left throughout New York City’s fall season, a period jam-packed with shows. Whether the question was what two pieces to show together or what order to show them in, successes varied.
Amongst New York City Ballet’s flat All Balanchine II program (Episodes and Vienna Waltzes), American Ballet Theater’s puzzling Gala (Sinfonietta and the premiere of Lifted), and Twyla Tharp’s In the Upper Room and Nine Sinatra Songs (which might have benefited from flip flopping the two pieces), ABT’s program of The Dream and The Seasons was on the more accomplished end, at least in the way the two pieces complemented one another.
Frederick Ashton’s The Dream is a shortened, balletic interpretation of Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream in which two couples bounce between requited and unrequited love, all while a fairy couple bicker over a changeling child. Unlike his more dramatic plays, this is easy to digest and has a happy ending – everyone ends up with the right person – after a bit of Three Stooges type fighting.
The humor lends itself well to physical comedy and the audience reacts, whether to the ironic transformation of Bottom into an ass (literally a donkey) or the over-characterized hen-pecking between Helena and Hermia (playfully danced by Betsy McBride and Alexandra Basmagy). It’s all just so delightfully silly yet so easily slips from the sublime to the hilarious.
And the sublime element on Saturday evening? Cassandra Trenary – the full embodiment of Titania, Queen of the Fairies.
David Walker’s off-the-shoulder forest green tutu drapes down her shoulders like liquid emerald and when she melts out of a balance, it appears as if she might just wash away, a victim of her own beauty. The sharpness is there too. Titania is a character with bite and Trenary shows it in blender-fast pencil turns and abrasive fairy flicks. She even bowed as Titania after a regal pas de deux with her King, Daniel Camargo, lifting her right arm high above her head and dipping into the earth, sensual and majestic.
Camargo is a multi-faceted Oberon: reserved, calculating, and romantic.
For both Puck and Oberon, the culmination is the scherzo section of Felix Mendelsohn’s score. Hummingbird fast at times, the dancers move briskly but certainly not small. Camargo is up to the task, using the ground to his advantage in the fast footwork.
Puck, Oberon’s foolish side kick, is danced by Elwince Magbitang, a young corps de ballet dancer who met the challenge of Puck with spirit, an impressive hovering jump, and multiple turns. A debut role for him as well as Trenary, and I believe Camargo, I look forward to seeing them grow in roles so well-suited for them.
We can’t talk about The Dream without talking about the donkey. Adorably clumsy, Blaine Hoven balances on “hooves” (black pointe shoes) while wearing a giant donkey head and partnering Titania. Pointe shoes aren’t traditionally part of a male dancer’s repertoire, but Hoven was able to strike harmony between defined and blundering.
Ashton’s work has an Art Deco feel to it, absolutely something from the past but with lines of modernity. You see it in Titania’s shimmying shoulders, Oberon’s wicked jumps, the fairy corps’ zig zagging patterns. A lovely mini story ballet, I hope to see more of it from ABT and perhaps next time with a longer run and opportunity for more debuts.
I imagine a double feature program becomes limited in options due to finding two pieces that will either fit together well or contrast enough to somehow work.
Alexei Ratmansky’s The Seasons is the former, seeming as though it exists in a world alongside The Dream. A translation of the four seasons, flora and fauna abound in this otherworldly characterization of the compasses of our year.
Winter starts chillingly bare on a breezy stage, five dancers huddled on center for warmth. Zimmi Coker, a sharp little creature from the corps is piercing as Frost. Ice (Ingrid Thoms), Hail (Sunmi Park), and Snow (Zhong-Jing Fang) are each crisp in their roles but the synchronized à la seconde turns on pointe amongst the four of them is the blow away moment.
Ratmansky knows when to bring in a trick, and a wintry blizzard of twirling snowstorms is it. His signature brand of humor comes out in slow slides to floor splits, whimsical head rolls, and huffy hops on pointe for the corps showing off a much friendlier Snowflake than in his Nutcracker.
As in life, Spring follows Winter and just when you think you’ve grasped the ballet, another element is introduced; the message never solidifies.
Spring, a pas de trois for Joo Won Ahn, McBride, and Fangqi Li, is spritely and sweet.
But then Summer, represented by the airy Hee Seo as The Spirit of the Corn, shows up, runs from a Faun, and dances with Spring’s Zephyr (Ahn).
Then Autumn shows up for a short parade before dancing with the other seasons.
It was hard to decipher the meaning behind the characters’ interactions, one of the main issues being the costuming.
While a lot of the costumes are stunning – the belted winter dresses with bursts of blue frost, the stained-glass tutu for The Swallow, and the chartreuse Romanesque dresses for Autumn – others flounder.
Why are the Snowflakes’ dresses detailed and literal while the Roses are dull and monotone? It makes me wonder if the costuming could be trimmed down like Balanchine famously did for some of his work. Would simplicity let the steps shine?
A highlight of The Seasons was the children dancing as Poppies in the Summer section. Looking a bit like ladybugs with black tights and pointe shoes, the pint-sized ballerinas are adorable and precise. Particularly fun is a section where the Poppies are each seated on the shoulder of a Water Man who simultaneously partners a corps de ballet Cornflower.
In another challenging partnering moment, the Faun, Michael De La Nuez, blindly passes Seo in a lift behind him to another dancer.
These demanding Ratmansky punctuations are not just located on center stage either; the corps work is just as interesting as the principals’. I often found my eyes drifting to the sides of the stage to absorb a new formation or sweet shape I’d missed the first time I saw the work – which is always a lovely discovery.
Commingling seasons and mismatched costumes, but a pleasurable work from wing to wing.
Featured Photo for this American Ballet Theatre review of The Dream and The Seasons of Cassandra Trenary and Daniel Camargo in The Dream. Photo: Rosalie O’Connor.
