La Source and Namouna: pastry ballet

New York City Ballet’s program of George Balanchine’s La Source paired with Alexei Ratmansky’s Namouna was like a meal of nothing but pastry. Charming, sweet, a bit light.

Namouna, A Grand Divertissement is Ratmansky’s reimagining of a long-forgotten 1882 ballet by Lucien Petipa (brother of the much more famous Marius Petipa). The story was apparently rather convoluted, but the ballet did have a lilting, melodic score by Edouard Lalo.

Ratmansky dispatched with the original storyline and created something that is not quite plotless, but not quite narrative either. There is a main male character (Roman Mejia) who is a sailor and three muses (shades of Balanchine’s Apollo). One is saucy (Mira Nadon), one is sultry (Sara Mearns), and the last one is sweet (Ashley Laracey). You can tell she’s sweet because she wears white. The sweet muse is the sailor’s final choice. But first there is a group of guards safekeeping the muses that the sailor must battle. That’s my interpretation of the story, anyway.

It's really just an excuse for a lot of dancing. The saucy muse dangles and puffs a cigarette while waltzing away. Mira Nadon is new to the role, but already captured the insouciance and humor of the steps. For such a tall dancer, the daintiness of her is footwork is quite a feat. The sultry muse does a slinky bolero. Sara Mearns returned to the role she originated over a decade ago and she’s still as over the top and impressive as ever. I loved the lush, extravagant backbends, the fast, off-center turns, the overall grandness of her dancing.

The sweet muse does a sad solo in which she repeatedly crumples to the ground. But wait! The fisherman will rescue her, and they have a big, romantic final pas de deux. Ashley Laracey was too contained as the sweet muse. Compared to Nadon and Mearns, she just didn’t project enough. However, her final pas de deux with Roman Mejia was heavenly. It was full of tricky lifts that seemed inspired by figure skating. The most wow-inducing was an upside down lift. Another, a long press lift. Mejia as the sailor was astounding. Not only did he master all the tricky partnering, he was tireless in his solos and exuded a winning, big-hearted romanticism.

The comic relief came from the guard and his two henchwomen. They are traditionally cast with the smallest dancers of the company.KJ Takahashi, Baily Jones and Claire von Enck were very amusing as the tiny trio who thought they were Amazons as they chased and threatened the fisherman.

Ratmansky’s work with the corps in this ballet is inventive and amusing. In one of the best sequences, they lie down on the stage floor and mimic the ebb and tide of ocean waves. At other times, they are a formidable army warriors in yellow dresses and severe black pagebob wigs. The male corps seem to be soldiers?

Namouna does go on too long (it runs about an hour), and not every joke lands, but it’s a fun ballet and the company clearly relishes dancing it. The costumes by Rustan Khamdamov are a huge part of the appeal. The strapless gowns and shower cap wigs are a homage to Coco Chanel’s Apollo costumes.

La Source is an odd Balanchine ballet. It was originally a pas de deux, but Balanchine later filled it out with some corps work and added an extra female soloist. You can tell the piecemeal nature of the work by how separated the corps and leads are. Usually with Balanchine, the corps is so seamlessly woven together with the soloists (think Four Temperaments or Concerto Barocco). Here, they might as well be dancing in separate ballets.

The two central pas de deux are very lovely, however, and the score by Delibes is a dessert for the ears. Indiana Woodward and Joseph Gordon were wonderful: fast, fleet, filigree. Gordon has the most elegant cabrioles in the business and Woodward some of the merriest, twinkliest entrechats. The corps work was, unfortunately, sloppy and Olivia MacKinnon in the soloist role was disappointingly earthbound.

The evening was not well sold. Maybe the dreary nonstop rain prevented a larger crowd. A shame, because it was a winner of a program.