There are certain ballet programs where you wonder who thought this was a good idea? Such was the case last night with NYCB’s Contemporary Choreography program. The four ballets were all extremely modern and one can say experimental. They were all interesting in their own way, but together as a program, was just too much of a not-so-good thing.
Alexei Ratmansky’s Voices was the best ballet of the evening. It was set to a stark piano score by Peter Ablinger and accompanied by, well, voices, spoken word by people like Setsuko Hara and Nina Simone. It is as close as Ratmansky gets to avante-garde, but I appreciated how he mixed the modern (five solos for women) with the classical: after each section, a male does an interlude of bravura ballet. Owen Flacke did the famous Bluebird diagonal backwards. McKenzie Bernadino Soares flew around the stage in a manège of coupé jetés. This added a much needed dose of cheeky fun into the ballet.
The two best solos were for the shorter women. Megan Fairchild rarely does modern works, but when she does, one always admires her effortless wit and humor. She avoids the common trap of glaring angrily at the audience just because the work is contemporary. Her solo (to the voiceover of Gjendine Slålien) was goofy and quirky, and ended with her being happily marched offstage by the men. Alexa Maxwell danced the intense, wiry ‘Setsuko Hara’ solo. Maxwell is also petite, but she has long legs and arched feet which elongate her line. She is always an intensely physical dance actress. On anyone else, the dramatic contortions of the solo would have looked overdone. On her, it looked natural. Maxwell is having a terrific season (she was absolutely adorable in Western Symphony). Promote her please!
The solos for the tall women (Emily Kikta, Isabella LaFreniere and Naomi Corti) were less inspiring. The spoken word didn't blend together and the finale was overlong and a bit pretentious, with everyone lined up at the lip of the stage. Do I want to see Voices on repeat? No. But it is a compelling work.
Gianna Reisen’s Composer’s Holiday is a ballet I’ve seen several times, yet each time I remember exactly nothing about it. I watched it again and the same non-impression was made: pleasant but oh-so-bland. There is some cutesy partnering and corps formations, but it’s a nothingburger of a ballet.
This was followed by William Forsythe’s Herman Schmerman Pas de Deux. Forsythe is a genuinely intelligent voice. Not everyone likes his super spiky, modern style, but it’s a first rate mind. Herman Schmerman resembles a competition of ‘anything you can do I can do better’. At one point they both fly across the stage with identical jumps and kicks. Peck and Mejia have by now perfected their act so that every note and every step is punctuated by an exclamation mark. It’s impressive, if somewhat slick and calculated.
The new piece of the evening was Jamar Roberts’ Foreseeable Future. It premiered at the Fall Fashion Gala, which means it’s saddled with flashy but undanceable costumes. This time, Iris van Herpen dressed much of the cast in large Victoria-Secret-like angel wings. This meant they could barely dance. The ballet was split into two groups: the ‘angel group’ consisted of Taylor Stanley, Sara Mearns, Isabella LaFreniere and Ryan Tomash. They flapped their arms dramatically. The ‘dancing group’ was led by Emily Kikta and they were in silver unitards. They danced rave-inspired moves.
The music by Arca is experimental electronica. There was no classical ballet in Foreseeable Future. The dancers were mostly anonymous. The lighting was so dark that I had trouble recognizing most of them.
But then, towards the end of the ballet, there was a long duet for Taylor Stanley and Sara Mearns that almost redeemed the whole thing. The two dancers mirrored each other. Stanley used his supernaturally flexible back and liquidy arms to envelope Mearns. Mearns was dark and mysterious. All of a sudden, the ballet had meaning.
But other than this duet, I didn’t see the structure behind Foreseeable Future. Much of it was aimless movement set to aimless music. The audience seemed to agree, as I saw people walking out in the middle of the ballet.
One sour note for the whole season: dancers at NYCB are currently working without a contract. The dancers boycotted the glitzy annual Fall Fashion Gala as a protest. The ones that performed pointedly exited the proceedings right after performances and did not mingle with guests and donors at the party. Over the past week, the high salaries of NYCB executives have been revealed, along with the dancers’ paltry salaries. Dancers of NYCB are expected to work insanely long hours in a huge variety of repertoire. They often suffer devastating injuries that take years to rehab. They are some of the best dancers in the world. Pay them what they are worth.
