Paquita has resurfaced at New York City Ballet after its February premiere. It doesn’t look like it’s at home yet, though. Alexei Ratmansky’s modern-day take on the Grand Pas paired with Balanchine’s 1951 Minkus Pas de Trois feels like a workshop designed to polish City Ballet’s classical chops. But given that the company possesses a unique signature style and one of the greatest reps in the world, it was rather like introducing the idea of summer to the tropics.
With the exception of Emily Kikta, who blazed through her variations with a dazzling smile and made brilliant irony of the pseudo-Spanish flourishes, and corps dancer Mia Williams, who made a lovely, assured solo debut in the Balanchine portion of the evening, no one seemed to be having a good time. Not even David Gabriel who delivered a lifetime supply of airy turning jumps and crisply beaten jumps in under seven minutes. You knew when someone was approaching a Herculean task set by choreographer Alexei Ratmansky: they looked spooked. This undermined the sassy vibe of the whole enterprise. The ensemble’s inconsistency as a classical corps – lines untidy, heads and shoulders variously angled, hips flaring in arabesque, hands flapping – also distracted from the sublime prismatic choreography that framed the principal female.
Mira Nadon, a vision of serenity, breezed in, inscribing her signature in the air with glorious hitch kicks. She pivoted to a deep forward tilt to show off her luxurious pointed foot in tendu. Soulful solo moves made much of the expansiveness with which she finished turns and balances, upper body lifted to the heavens. Her partnership with Joseph Gordon was fraught however: lifts were shaky and he could not seem to keep her securely on her balance in promenades and pirouettes. She assumed a remote look, still very beautiful, but possibly signaling that she would rather go it alone.
From the moment he entered to great orchestral fanfare in a loud sash and shiny boots, Gordon seemed undecided as to whether to play this for satire. His solo variation was a bit tentative but he rallied for a heroic manège of double assemblé turns. Not to be outdone, Nadon fired up some enormous sauts de basque and the corps came charging in with the speedy footwork that City Ballet is famous for.
On the same program, Jerome Robbins’ Brandenburg felt like a prodigal son. It was out of rep for ages – and how thrilled everyone looked to be dancing it. This was Robbins’ last work; he died 18 months after completing it. In an interview, original cast member Lourdes Lopez noted that Robbins “would get angry with the younger dancers… But it was really because he didn’t feel in control. I felt he was understanding he wasn’t going to be around much longer.” His final gift radiated optimism, kindness and joy. The jubilation in Bach’s Brandenburg Concertos had something to do with it, of course, irresistibly summoning the ensemble of 20 into kaleidoscopic patterns and ebullient games, childlike but not sentimental.
After an upbeat opening, a poetic Jules Mabie (in a debut) with Indiana Woodward waved off the ensemble and, to the gentle strains of harpsichord, violin, flute and oboe, appeared to ask each other, “Now that our guests have departed shall we…hold hands?” Tender and inventive lifts ensued.
Another unusual coupling took place between Unity Phelan and Peter Walker in the second section, who made rare physical contact but telegraphed a muted desire. The beating heart of the piece lies in the third section anchored magnificently on opening night by Dominika Afanasenkov who floated on air with co-pilot Charlie Klesa, and Meaghan Dutton-O’Hara who didn’t need Owen Flacke to support her in hops on pointe but adored him for it anyway.
In between, Robbins set the ensemble gamboling in patterns full of the unexpected, reminiscent in some ways of Dances at a Gathering but without the gathering storm clouds conjured by Chopin.
Yet another intimate take on male-female relations was offered up in the Christopher Wheeldon mega-hit After the Rain, one of two pieces sandwiched between Paquita and Brandenburg. Arvo Pärt’s chart-topping ‘Spiegel im Spiegel’ fueled the steamy, stretchy post-apocalyptic conclave of Miriam Miller and Preston Chamblee, a gorgeous, statuesque pair who between them owned one set of clothes, she a leotard and he a pair of sweatpants.
Robbins gets far too little play at City Ballet so it was a joy to witness Roman Mejia’s stellar debut in A Suite of Dances, set originally on Mikhail Baryshnikov in 1994 to selections from Bach’s cello suites. Abandoning his usual bravura, Mejia showed us a mercurial temperament – introspective, playful, occasionally frustrated and dark. In those moments he was buoyed by the sensitive and spirited playing of onstage cellist Hannah Holman – perhaps the most satisfying partnership in this program of exalted partnerships.
