This might sound very random, but one of the shows I binge-watched this summer was Skins. It was an excellent British young-adult series popular from around 2007-2013. Anyway, one of the lines in the series was a sister talking about her brother. “He’s not nice, he’s amazing,” she says.
For whatever reason, that line “he’s not nice, he’s amazing” came to mind when I saw Jake Roxander blow the ceiling off ABT’s Fall Season opener. So many ballet dancers are “nice”. They have decent technique, a sweet stage disposition, and are pleasant to watch. However, the truly great dancers are not merely nice. They’re explosive. Dangerous. Awe-inspiring.
Jake Roxander was double-billed in ABT’s program: he danced both Ratmansky’s Piano Concerto No.1 and Harold Lander’s Études. And words cannot really describe the visceral excitement he brought every time he stepped onstage. The closest comparison I can think of was the first time I saw Natalia Osipova. Both dancers follow the Olympic motto of Citius, altius, fortius. They jump sky-high, they move lightning-fast, and their diminutive appearance masks a ferocious strength.
In Ratmansky’s Piano Concerto No.1 (originally part of his Shostakovich Trilogy), the soloist work is actually not all that interesting. The corps work has unusual formations and intriguing use of the dual-colored body-suits. The corps wear red on the front, gray in the back. The gray perhaps represents the dreary industrialism of the USSR, with the red representing the cheery propaganda? The solo work involves two couples. They have a long pas de quatre set to the middle section of the concerto in which the couples mirror each other. But… the steps are not that interesting. A lot of lifts seemingly inspired by pairs skating.
Christine Shevchenko and Calvin Royal were regal and beautiful, but it was Skylar Brandt and Jake Roxander who provided the excitement. Roxander’s double tours were a thing of beauty. So high, so light, so pure! The piano concerto is an earworm and the audience went away happy.
Harold Lander’s Études is an odd work. It’s extremely long (about 50 minutes), and starts as a classroom exercise with dancers at the barre. The faces are in the shadow, and all we can see are their legs and feet as they repeat basic tendus and passés. As the ballet progresses, the choreography becomes less like a ballet class, and more virtuosic. By the end, everyone onstage is doing simultaneous fouettés and one of the males is doing YAGP-gala like tricks.
Devon Teuscher as the main ballerina was how she always is. She’s reliable, very strong technique, but a bland stage presence. The same could be said for Joo Won Ahn. Lovely lines, clean technique, but doesn’t project much personality. But Roxander was a different story. The audience started roaring at the sight of him. He has a way of decelerating his turns, scissoring his cabrioles, and launching himself into the air like a rocket. At the same time, he never sacrifices his fifth position. His only flub was with partnering. A fishdive catch of Devon Teuscher went very south.
Jiří Kylián’s Petit Mort was intriguing. It is split into two parts. The first part was more pretentious. It involved men brandishing swords, a blanket being pulled over the entire stage, more sword-play.The second movement starts with ballerinas standing behind some black movable gowns. But then there are a series of pas de deux between dancers that are genuinely original and tender. The best was the one between Cassandra Trenary and Herman Cornejo. Both are extremely expressive dancers who are well-matched physically and temperamentally.
It was a strong opening to ABT’s fall season. The company often seemed stagnant in the last years of Kevin McKenzie’s directorship. It is now more exciting. New leadership, new faces. A great time to be a balletomane.
