American Ballet Theatre Review: Rhythm and Rapture (Pride Night)
October 27, 2021 | David H. Koch Theater – New York City, NY
While the entire evening was colorful, vibrant, and delightful, both in energy from the dancers and the audience, you can’t talk about American Ballet Theatre’s first ever Pride Night without first talking about the first public premiere of Christopher Rudd’s new homoerotic ballet Touché danced by the recently promoted principal Calvin Royal III and corps de ballet member João Menegussi.
The rest of the evening paled in comparison to the passion and vulnerability of Royal and Menegussi’s performance. The reaction from the crowd was something I had never witnessed before in the New York State Theater and was a testament to how desperately audiences were craving this representation on the stage.
A standing ovation in the middle of a multi-ballet evening is extremely rare. The roars from the crowd were impeccable and Royal and Menegussi appeared genuinely touched by the love.
Touché is representation in its genuine definition
A homosexual couple was dancing in a seriously explicit – not implied – romantic context, were an inter-racial pairing, and a principal dancer paired with a member of the corps de ballet, nonetheless.
Royal’s and Menegussi’s movements were transcendent; the partnering so flawless that you couldn’t tell one limb from another in a tangle of fluid and passionate movement.
I have long been wondering why Royal hasn’t been featured at the front of the stage sooner to this season (his debut as Albrecht in Giselle last week). He is a beautiful and humble performer who consumes the stage with his long limbs and radiant stage presence. Every time I have seen the artist take the stage with Ballet Theatre in the eight years that I have been religiously watching the company live, I am never able to take my eyes off of him.
Congratulations are also in order to Menegussi for his artistic accomplishment: it’s not every day a member of the corps is pulled from class to have an original ballet staged on him paired with a principal dancer. Even though I honestly could never tear my eyes from Royal, Menegussi never missed a beat and he looked as if he was living to the fullest in every moment of being on stage and dancing his truth.
The pair was perfectly balanced with one stunningly simple moment at the start of the pas where their heads rested on each other’s shoulders at the same level, their arms extending to the ceiling like blades, was somehow stunningly emotional. They seemed to even breath the same breath they were so connected.
Royal and Menegussi were pure, unbridled emotion. It takes great courage and artistry to allow oneself to be that vulnerable on stage that the emotions – anger, sorrow, joy, acceptance, passion – all together in this piece moved me to tears.
Some of the set decisions, however, distracted me from the very real world Royal and Menegussi created around them. At one point, the lights came up in the house, and for a moment I almost thought it was a mistake. In another moment, a black screen raised from mid-stage level up to the rafters and it made such a minimal difference that I wasn’t quite sure what its intention served.
In the thoughtful and intellectual panel at the end of the evening moderated by Tommy Dorfman, I was glad they discussed more important matters such as the decision to include Sarah Lozoff in the creation process, Ballet Theatre’s first time including an intimacy director in a staging.
However, I do wish they had talked a little bit about artistic decisions such as movement style and quality, some of the intentions behind the pauses, gestures, storylines, and set and costuming. It was so clear that these men were telling a very tangible, visceral story, but I was curious to hear more from choreographer Rudd as to what that story was that he was shaping.
After the panel, former ABT principal dancer Robert LaFosse took the stage. At this point in the evening, nearly seven eighths of the audience had already – quite rudely – exited the auditorium and they missed the most powerful moment of the evening.
LaFosse bravely shared that he has struggled with HIV aids for decades. He then read a list of names of LGBTQ+ artists whose talents had blessed the stage – whether they had been out or not – before they had been taken by the disease. LaFosse took a breath before staring, asking the audience to stand, and then said softly, “This is going to be hard.”
I’ll list their names here, as they deserve to take the space and recognition:
Alvin Ailey
Leopold Allen
Emile Ardolino
William Carter
Gary Cordial
Richard Cragun
David Cuevas
Ulysses Dove
Peter Fonseca
Ian Horvath
Carld Jonassaint
Woytek Lowski
Rudolph Nureyev
Gregory Osborne
Larry Ray
Jerry Rice
Choo San Goh
Lynn Stanford
Boyd Staplin
Clark Tippet
Charles Ward
In a poignantly vulnerable moment, LaFosse began to choke up while reading many of the names aloud that he had shared the stage he has standing on with.
Royal jumped forward, holding Rudd’s hand, but held himself back.
A moment later, the principal dancer broke free and walked up to LaFosse, standing slightly behind him and placing his hand on his shoulder. Gradually, the entire panel came to stand behind LaFosse, giving him strength to make it through the list. Through very genuine tears, LaFosse passionately shouted that these are the artists who have given him the
“courage and resilience to stand here with pride.”
The curtain closed and the lights rose to reveal a disappointingly empty house.
These artists, in the words of Rudd, had “found the courage to lean into the insecurities of the stage” to find and give a desperately needed voice to the very real issues of diversity and sexuality representation in our classical arts community and the problem isn’t the space.
I was almost angered. Why is no one listening?
Other bills of the program included new works developed through “ballet bubbles” and virtual spaces over the pandemic, including Bernstein in a Bubble by resident choreographer Alexi Ratmansky and Indestructible Light by Darrell Grand Moultrie.
Bernstein in a Bubble was a vibrant opener: the dancer’s lively and incessant cascade of movement cleverly matching the zany sounds from Bernstein’s imagination.
It is always a joy to see Cassandra Trenary in her athletically fierce and effortlessly casual movement quality, performing an insanely controlled diagonal of balances, energetic kicks out of turns, and lifts.
Skylar Brandt also stood out from the cast, wowing audiences with her light-as-air hops, cheekily sustained balance à la seconde, and an unreal number of consistent turn sequences.
The piece bubbled (pun intended) over with personality, and in any other context would be exquisite; however, I failed to understand how it directly represented the Pride Night theme, especially as it featured a standard jazzy and sexual male/female duet with Aran Bell and Chloe Misseldine right in the center of the piece.
Although having to stretch it slightly, I could somewhat understand how Indestructible Light tied into the evening’s theme as the emphasis of the piece was more about the energy of the cast as a whole rather than on the breakaway vignettes.
However, it still included a majority of stereotypical gender sexuality representation and classical male/female partnering. Michael de la Nuez stood out from the ensemble demonstrating his extensions and range of different movement qualities in his abstract yet powerful solo, and so did Melvin Lawovi for his buoyant leaps that seemingly defied gravity a second longer than other dancers.
Some Assembly Required by Clark Tippet featured superhuman dancers Skylar Brandt and Gabe Stone Shayer.
The pairing is electric together: petite in frame, but always full of life and consistently execute their steps immaculately. As nice as it is to be given a duet on the Met stage, I think the curation of the program did the two dancers a little dirty: the choreography did not feature Brandt and Shayer in their strongest elements.
While it was a joy to watch, I was distracted the entire time trying to understand why ABT had chosen a very stereotypically heterosexual pas de deux with slightly outdated choreography from the 80’s to be on the Pride Night bill.
Although it was a testament to Shayer’s artistry and how he can adapt any character onstage convincingly, I was a bit disappointed to see him play a suave boyfriend in white washed jeans and a white tank top. The pas de deux, although nothing wrong with it in itself, felt very out of place between all new works on the bill and also featuring a heterosexual “first date night” themed pas in the middle of the Pride Night evening.
After the dancing, Ballet Theatre shared the stage with the drag queen Lypsinka, which the New York Times ate up.
The persona of the off-and-on ABT pianist John Epperson was delightfully crowd-pleasing, and it was ground breaking and kind for Ballet Theatre to share the stage, however her appearance felt a bit random.
I additionally found it a little upsetting that the New York Times placed the emphasis of their headline on something which felt a tad trivial in comparison to the complete masterpiece, Touché, which was so deserving of all of the accolades in the world.
I am enthralled that ABT put a Pride Night on their fall programming, especially emerging from a year of radical change amid the pandemic and Black Lives Matter movement.
However, I did find it slightly perturbing as an audience member that they decided to headline one explicitly homosexual ballet, put a drag artist on stage, send a dancer out on stage waving a pride flag, and call it a day.
The fight for true equality and recognition is to have sexual representation consistently represented in programming.
There has been an ongoing debate on how heterosexual representation can fit into an organization whose mission is to primarily preserve traditional classical ballets, but I think Royal, Menegussi, and Rudd have proved that there is space, it is needed, and it works.
Audiences have one more chance to witness ABT’s Pride Night on Saturday, October 30th and the company will perform their closing mixed bill of their fall season on Sunday, October 31st.
Featured Photo for this American Ballet Theatre review of Calvin Royal III and João Menegussi in Christopher Rudd’s Touché. Photo: Rosalie O’Connor.
Very proud of my dear friend, Chris Rudd. His dedicated, hard work has resulted in this monumental accomplishment.