Kyle Abraham conceived his latest piece for New York City Ballet in a pandemic winter residency in upstate New York. When We Fell was born first as a black and white film, framed by images of falling snow and a turbulent sea, reflecting the enforced isolation of the time and a fortitude embodied by a handful of dancers in Abraham’s coolly minimalist choreography. It has now premiered on stage, with the thrilling immediacy of four pianos played live and eight dancers heroically charting a path across barren terrain, their bodies sheathed in barely-there, silvery-coppery unitards, as if they’d been dipped in molten alloys.
Indiana Woodward kicked off a pensive adagio. She looked both vulnerable and regal, her back to us on a cavernous stage, unadorned save for a faintly glowing canvas backdrop across which ran a sliver of mirror. The others joined her in a dance form that was serene and austere, the formality of the academic steps tempered by casual gestures, like a swirl of the arm around the waist suggesting plumage or a cape. Movement impulses often came from a head roll, or a rippling torso or shoulders. The end of a sequence featured a delicate flutter of the hands, like birds signaling to one another, “let’s perch on this fence for a bit”.
An absence of ostentation permeated the piece even when more obviously virtuosic steps were introduced: by Jules Mabie who bounded into the air in attitude; by Taylor Stanley whose leg inscribed a dramatic arc in a sideways tilt; by David Gabriel who spun turns like he was spinning sugar; by KJ Takahashi who hurtled through a series of turning jumps like a glowing ball of fire and ended quietly on one knee; and by India Bradley and Sebastián Villarini-Vélez who steered a steep arabesque penché through revolutions with nerves of steel. Dispassionate yet tender partnering maneuvers marked a work steeped in solitude. Stanley and Woodward alternately melted into each other’s arms, taking turns to provide a steadying force, before Stanley whirled her offstage at the close, her pointes tracing large circles on the floor.
In contrast to When We Fell, Balanchine’s Divertimento from ‘Le Baiser de la Fée’ and Lynne Taylor-Corbett’s Chiaroscuro conjured swells of emotion. Roman Mejia made his debut as the tortured artist in Baiser, his petit allegro work elegant and buoyant. Opposite him, Tiler Peck gave a compelling dramatic reading as she evolved from carefree village maiden to a woman possessed. But there was little sense of doom in Mejia’s solo, the mysterious bending and scooping movements more athletic than ominous, his descent into despair unconvincing. This made for an uneven tragic arc as the couple were wrenched apart by the invisible forces of a feudal system that denied peasants agency (clue: everyone is dressed as peasants.)