New York City Ballet 21st Century Choreography II Review
May 13, 2023 | David H. Koch Theater – New York, NY, USA
Curating an evening of new work is always a bit of a gamble. Artistic staff choose choreographers based on past work and knowledge of their style and taste, but the final product can often be a mere idea, a distant spark even. How the pieces balance each other out, either in opposition or complementary fashion, might be unknown through most of the creative process.
For the works included in New York City Ballet’s 21st Century Choreography II program, the similarities overshadowed the differences.
Each piece starts with a clump of dancers: the first a group of twelve dancers huddled in a pulsing mass, the second a tight square of fifteen, and the last a band of twenty curved into a multi-colored mound.
It makes one wonder if the shape was a thread of cohesiveness or an odd coincidence.
How did we get three group numbers with very similar beginnings on the same evening’s program?
But perhaps the best option is to accept it as a moment of fortuity and rather examine where the choreographers decide to take us.
New York City Ballet 21st Century Choreography II Review
Opening the program was veteran choreographer Christopher Wheeldon’s new ballet From You Within Me set to Arnold Schoenberg’s Verklärte Nacht.
At times gloomy and despondent and then romantically wistful in the next measure, Schoenberg’s score is a great catalyst for dance.
Equally dynamic, Kylie Manning’s sprawling visual landscapes were breathtaking. Used both as a drop at the front and back of the stage, the foreground colors looked akin to a wild, misty seascape while the back was full of warm apricot and rich teal hues, enhanced by Mary Louise Geiger’s lighting.
Each is exposed gradually, like the peeling of an onion. The front drop reveals the huddle of dancers behind a scrim. When the scrim rises, we see the inkling of the backdrop but it, too, is obscured by a dark scrim until it rises to reveal Manning’s rich color tones.
The effect delivers an attitude of secrecy, of superficial layers one must swim through to see the truth.
Layers seem to be a theme, also represented in the red and black ombre gathered fabric unitards, designed by Manning and Marc Happel.
The dancing is also a bit secretive, hidden in layers of Wheeldon vocabulary: arms and legs that enveloppé (reach straight out and then bend inward as the limbs adduct), lovely sculptural partnering work for multiple dancers, and garnishes like minuscule twitches or nuzzling necks between dancers.
The result is a bit of a run on sentence but the essence of the piece has the feel of that too, yet more like a tide continuously rushing up the shore, soaking and resoaking the sand with its salted waters.
We see this undulating theme repeated the most through dancers moving forward only to backtrack or dancers reaching out only to have a colleague pull them back.
Indiana Woodward, Megan Fairchild, and Roman Mejia had fleeting passages; even Sara Mearns as the (sort of) lead wasn’t clearly a main character until a costume change from red to purple.
Yet, the height of the piece was a brief, affectionate pas de deux for Aaron Sanz and Peter Walker.
In the end, the twelve dancers magnetize back toward each other, replicating the opening scene but this time, a lone dancer (Mearns) breaks from the pack, walking toward the warmth of the backdrop.
A bit of an ambiguous piece, but Wheeldon’s shapes are nice and the partnering moments are intricately interesting.
Second on the program was the expansion of Alysa Pires’ 10-minute piece created at the New York Choreographic Institute in 2019. The process for the piece took nearly four years – not unusual for choreographers whose opportunities were abruptly halted by covid – finally receiving its premiere at the NYCB Gala on May 4th of this year.
Standard Deviation is an angular, geometric, and playful piece. The title is shared with the math concept which measures the dispersion of data in relation to its mean.
Imagine a line with a bell curve, higher deviation would make the data more spread out (a flatter bell) whereas low deviation would mean more data clustered around the mean (a slimmer, vertical bell).
Pires revisits a line of dancers throughout the piece, their arms crossed behind their backs and making a square out of elbows, where the dancers replace each other down the line. Perhaps the line of a graph, perhaps not, but regardless, it makes for alluring architecture.
Choreographing mostly for the contemporary world prior to 2018, Pires’ work does not look like contemporary dance on ballet dancers but there are sort of “anti-ballet” steps: a pristine fifth melts into parallel as the front foot rotates inward, a thigh raises allowing a foot to dangle in the air, over crossed fourth positions with slightly sickled ankles.
Perhaps these moments are data sets deviated from the mean?
On the flip side, there were some very in-your-face balletic steps like fouettés and revoltades.
Like Wheeldon, the sections morphed into one another without one scene ever sticking around that long.
There was a particularly captivating solo for David Gabriel, although too short.
Leading the group were Mira Nadon and Gilbert Bolden III as the principal couple and Emma Von Enck as a principal figure.
Nadon and Bolden both have a wonderful riskiness in their dancing, Nadon takes risks with elegance while Bolden is mischievous.
Von Enck is pure electricity. The score seemed to live both within her and emanate from her; every accent punctuated with precise arrivals and sharp cuts.
The score, a commission by Jack Frerer, brought fresh melodies and abrupt tympany (I may have been startled by the drum once or twice) but was piloted by the saxophone, deliciously played by Chris Hemingway.
The end is dramatic: a cacophonic moment of music and dancers with Von Enck moving at hyper speed while the curtain lowers at a snail’s pace. It doesn’t end with punctuation, instead with even more tension than when it started which makes me eager to see more from Pires.
Justin Peck’s sneaker ballet The Times Are Racing was the closing number. Emphatic and insistent, Dan Deacon’s score (“USA I–IV” from the album America) is a magnificent stimulant.
I’ve seen this one a few times and the speakers at the David H. Koch Theater get dialed up when it is on the program.
Similarly, the costumes by Humberto Leon (the creative mind behind Opening Ceremony) are also loud, emblazoned with words like “SHOUT”, “OBEY”, “CHANGE”.
Peck’s work is clever, mathematical, and vibrant.
He makes an intriguing shape or combination and repeats it. In this case it’s a partnered, one-handed handstand, twisty kick to the floor. It’s as impressive looking as it is difficult to describe on paper and the repetition is welcome.
Famously androgenous for the lead dancers, two tap dancers and one lead couple, any combination of dancers might appear together.
Brittany Pollack returns to her role of the wanderer, a bright-eyed optimistic character moving with speed and fury amongst a crowd of youthful angst. Her approach is fresh and free, especially noticeable in the culmination of her solo where she flies with abandon.
Newly promoted soloist KJ Takahashi is her tap-dancing opposite. When the two sync up, they are sharp and electrifying.
A tender pas de deux, danced by Victor Abreu and Daniel Applebaum, is the breath in the middle of the chaotic piece. Although this one was a little less smooth than others I’ve seen, there was a lovely, delicate chemistry between the two.
The Times Are Racing ends with a drawn-out electronic chord, and our huddled group from the opening which quickly crumbles. The dancers drop to the floor, exhausted.
Pollack is the last one to fall. It usually brings out a little chuckle amongst the audience. Yes, of course they are tired. The dancers just burned rubber with their feet across the Koch stage. But that chuckle usually turns into a slow release of air. We realize they are tired for other reasons too.
I noted the opposite theme in last year’s NYCB gala program, where all the pieces ended alike (quiet, introspective). Perhaps yet another coincidence. Either way, the program made for easy viewing and appreciation.
Featured Photo for this New York City Ballet 21st Century Choreography II review of Mira Nadon and NYCB in Alysa Pires’Standard Deviation. Photo by Erin Baiano.
