When I entered NYC from Penn Station on my way to Don Quixote last Friday, entrances were closed off because of the mega-wedding of Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce. Bystanders were snaked around Madison Square Garden, hoping to catch a glimpse of the VIP guests. At the Met, the line to enter was also a long, winding queue that reached the streetcorners. Balletomanes were breathless in anticipation of the OTHER big event of the evening, which was the debut of Skylar Brandt (new this season) and Jake Roxander (first performance) in Don Quixote with American Ballet Theatre.
There are certain dancers where you see them once in the corps and think: well, they won’t stay there. In 2023, I saw Jake Roxander in the Giselle peasant pas de deux. I often mentally fast-forward this number. But Roxander demanded attention. Despite being fairly small for a male dancer, he danced not just huge, but supernova bright. Someone told me he was brand new to the company. I was shocked.
Since then, he’s been getting a steady stream of solo roles, but perhaps none was as highly anticipated as his debut last Friday night. If ever a dancer seemed born to dance a role, it is Roxander as Basilio. He is one of the best jumpers and turners I’ve ever seen. From far away, he could be mistaken for Mikhail Baryshikov. It was fitting that for Susan Jaffe’s refurbished Don Quixote (sets and costumes are the same as the old production, but some choreography is different), she brought back Baryshikov’s famous ‘cups’ variation.
From his very first entrance, the energy in the crowd was electric. Both Brandt and Roxander are showy dancers in the best way. They know to hold a balance that extra second longer, or to fly just a little higher, or turn another few revolutions. They have a good partnership: both tiny, both sweet, both with that sort of bravura technique that feeds audience frenzy.
Brandt met my expectations of Kitri. She has a girlish disposition and impeccable par terre technique. She’s a fast, clean dancer. In Act 1, her diagonal pirouettes accelerated in a way that you worried she might fall over. But of course she didn’t. As Dulcinea, the diagonal hops on pointe traveled all the way across stage. No effort or strain. My only quibble is that her Plisetskaya kick jumps were not as head-grazing as some of the other ballerinas I’ve seen in this role. In the third act wedding solo, Brandt did the passé version rather than the grand jeté version. But what fast, crisp passés! As expected, her fouettés were incredible: quick, centered, with multiples thrown in.
As for Roxander? Oh my. It’s not just that he has springs in his legs, or the speed of his turns. It’s also his control. His trademark move is to start a series of pirouettes, speed up and then slow down deliberately. His turnout and fifth position are clean and tight. His saut de basques never look wild or sloppy. His cabrioles have wide scissors but his feet remain pointed. The best way to describe his dancing is it combines the power and tricks of Angel Corella with the grace of David Hallberg.
His partnering was also impressive. In the big overhead tambourine lifts, he did them one-handed and then on one leg, the other in arabesque. The lift to the fish dive drop in the wedding pas de deux was flawless. Other than mechanics, he seemed to feed off the energy of Brandt well.
Roxander has inborn charisma. He knows how to excite the crowd. In the coda of the wedding pas de deux, he accelerated his turns so much that the crowd was screaming like a rock concert. In the ‘cups’ variation, he ended by throwing the cups back with a flourish and coy shrug. He’s clearly studied old films of Nureyev and figured out ways to toss his hair or stretch his arms just so.
The performance got the A-team supporting cast too. Betsy McBride and Calvin Royal III were sensuous and smooth as Street Dancer and Espada. Takumi Miyake almost stole the show in the Roma solo. The solo has been reimagined as a bravura piece meant for jumpers. Miyake did the 540 (revoltade), and also has springs in his legs. Elisabeth Beyer as Queen of the Dryads certainly did the Italian fouettés well. If I have one observation, it’s that as of now, she’s all technique. Zimmi Coker was an adorable Amour. Bubbly and fleet.
At the end of the evening, Susan Jaffe quietly entered the stage and stood in the back for a minute before grabbing the microphone. The audience knew what was about to happen. But hearing her promote Jake to principal was still cathartic. It was the kind of communal joy that so rarely happens in live theater. I would say the evening was a classic ‘a star is born’ moment, except Jake Roxander was born a star.
