Hard to fathom that a triple bill of female choreographers is a first for a world-class ballet company in these modern times but New York City Ballet has been chipping away at that glass ceiling ever so delicately that we never thought this day would come. Their closest brush with a female monopoly may have been 2021’s Fall Fashion Gala for which heavy-hitters Sidra Bell and Andrea Miller made two pieces that were never seen again. That program was bolstered by a Balanchine golden oldie – just in case two women choreographers on one program proved too avant-garde.
So here we are three Fall Fashion Galas later, in a brave new world where only women make dances for City Ballet, and the most anarchic thing that happened was that a cell phone announced itself at Saturday’s matinee as the curtain went up on Caili Quan’s richly evocative new work, with Tiler Peck rotating wistfully in bourrée to the dramatic filigree of Stephen Perkyns’ cello in Saint-Saëns. Sara Mearns, who often embodies a tragic figure, or at least a deeply melancholic one, was here suspended aloft by Gilbert Bolden III, her arms and legs stiffly extended in a tilted cross.
A billowing silver curtain hinted at a ballroom, as did the bejewelled corsets worn by both men and women. Designer Gilles Mendel wrapped the women in diaphanous skirts and elegantly gathered tops while the men remained splendidly bare-chested above high-waisted corset and tights. The colour-coded charcoal for the soloists, silvery white for the corps, and the way the ensemble materialised and dematerialised suggested that they may have been ghosts. Beneath the Tides is the name of the piece and I wondered if this was a ballroom on a shipwreck deep under the sea.
Of the three choreographers, Quan, an alumnus of Philadelphia’s BalletX, was the least acquainted with City Ballet and her work was the lone world premiere on the program. Yet it’s the one that looked the most polished. Her choreography captured the interplay between the intimacy of the cello and the grander, more formal intrusions of the orchestra in Saint-Saëns’ quicksilver Cello Concerto No. 1. In one of many poignant though fleeting interactions between dancers, Mearns runs a hand down Bolden’s leg – less erotically, more like asking “are you real?” – before she winds and unwinds in the central minuet, Bolden at the ready to whisk her eloquently out of a piqué turn. Dashing on and off, the taut, finely matched Jules Mabie and Aarón Sanz could’ve been two anguished lovers or revolutionaries plotting insurrection. Peck reigned over the proceedings, consortless, whirling as only Tiler Peck can whirl.
She was having a big afternoon as her Concerto for Two Pianos wrapped the program. Warmly received last winter, this was her first large ensemble creation. Twists and turns in the exuberant, big-tent Poulenc score fueled her lush and airy yet meticulous musical invention. While the imposing Mira Nadon, tossed about with abandon by Chun Wai Chan, may have been the beating heart of the operation, the spirited partnership between Emma Von Enck and India Bradley was its nerve centre.
The thrill-seeking Roman Mejia dashed on at frequent intervals, an apparent fugitive from those piratical, opium-pipe-smoking, princess-abducting, Hindu-temple-dancer-assassinating, slave-girl-trading ballets that can no longer be presented in polite society but that used to harbour feats of male bravura of which Mejia has a seemingly inexhaustible inventory. In my favourite episode, Poulenc invoked the gamelan and Mejia sat still for nearly a minute, gazing pensively out past the audience; the lighting got very blue as the ensemble women made lovely mysterious gestures behind him. Zac Posen’s understated floaty dresses for the women struck the perfect note of chic, though the men in mock turtlenecks under unitards resembled the crew from the starship Enterprise.
The program opened with Signs by Gianna Reisen, a striking contrast to the other works. Created originally for City Ballet’s feeder school, it’s marked by a youthful impetuousness that surfaces in outbreaks of hugging, flatfooted walking punctuated by melodramatic poses, and impulsive jumps to straddle a kneeling partner’s shoulder. Gently comical at times, Signs nods to Robbins’ Glass Pieces and The Concert, Balanchine’s Serenade and also to the famed Rockettes of Radio City Music Hall. When the lights came up on the piece, Olivia Bell, a corps member since 2023, was leaning against the piano, as if she'd just emerged from its depths, born from the minimalist Philip Glass piano score. She danced an eloquent jittery solo of frustration before stepping up to lead the ensemble. Apart from Bell and Victor Abreu, whose attack combined power and lyricism in equal measure, the cast seemed to still be settling into Signs. Minimal encouragement from the piano where Michael Scales' Glass renditions lacked essential dynamics.
All three works undoubtedly deserve many revivals.
