When planning for the 2012/13 season, Artistic Director Mikko Nissinen could not have known how incredibly well-timed Chroma would seem for the Boston community. Following last month’s tragic events, the three selections comprising Chroma appear poised to lift the collective Bostonian spirit – it is a program that reflects on the past, reassuring the audience that traditions remain strong but that the future too is bright and brings with it a fresh new outlook.
There was a collective intake of breath as the curtain rose on George Balanchine’s Serenade with the heart-wrenching opening notes of Tchaikovsky’s score – seventeen dancers in long tulle skirts, scattered about the stage, standing with one arm extended, palms flexed, gazing over their fingertips into a bathing blue light. This poignant yet simple scene evokes an incredible reaction from the viewer, and in this piece, Balanchine continuously and effortlessly arouses a range of emotions that leave the audience breathlessly yearning for more.
It is perhaps because of its humble beginnings as a piece choreographed on the students of the School of American Ballet that Serenade maintains an endearing level of innocence that charms and conjures an incredibly strong sense of nostalgia. It is built on the strength of the corps de ballet with sweeping formation changes, synchronized movements and occasional entwining limbs that emphasize the solidarity of the dancers. However, Rie Ichikawa leaves a lasting impression as a solo dancer – her sprightly and spirited movements contrast beautifully with the sweeping and collaborative arrangements of the corps. In the final scene, when Ichikawa is lifted by three male dancers and carried off with outstretched arms and head tilted back once again into the bathing blue light, she is seemingly leaving behind the youthful enthusiasm from earlier in the piece and a calm melancholy pervades the theater as the curtain closes.
Chroma, choreographed by Wayne McGregor, is the second ballet in the program and creates an incredible contrast with Serenade. This work, which was originally premièred by The Royal Ballet in 2006, is an exhilarating, energetic, and athletic piece that thrusts the audience into the future of contemporary ballet and showcases the remarkable range of the company. The stage is encased in a sterile white with a wide rectangular opening at the rear against which dancers are silhouetted as they enter through the space. The start of the ballet is signaled by the building of a faint tinkling triangle, a dancer sinuously snaking her torso repeatedly towards the ground, and then the blaring notes of the opening of a dazzling and percussion-heavy score (so heavy indeed that percussionists were distributed to loge boxes in the theater) by Joby Talbot and Jack White. McGregor’s award-winning choreography features dramatic extensions, imaginative partnering, and enough quirks to keep the audience on its toes. McGregor challenges the gender roles of traditional ballet by setting distinctly feminine movements on male dancers, featuring same-gendered partnering, and emphasizing the androgyny of the piece by clothing the dancers, male and female alike, in the same sparse outfits.