New York City Ballet's spring gala evening started off magnificently.
What’s not to love about free champagne, free vodka, a stirring orchestral version of the National Anthem, and an array of starry walk-ons who in 1964 danced at the christening performance of the New York State Theater? She’s a half century old now – the theater, that is. We have so loved her beauty and charm these past 50 years. True – in recent years she entered into an unholy sham of a marriage with a scoundrel just so she could get her hands on $100 million, but that will eventually work itself out and she will return to her maiden name. We have to keep our hopes up that she will.
As Peter Martins announced the names of the great ones who danced in the theater's first performance – D’Amboise, Kent, Mitchell, McBride, Villella, Jillana, and several others – they walked onto the stage and faced the thunderous applause of thousands. It had been decades since they performed on stage with New York City Ballet, but the audience has never let them go – never forgotten them. Ask anyone, balletomanes have memories like elephants.
Kristen Bell and Aaron Lazar were there to sing If I Loved You from the musical Carousel as a tribute to the Music Theater of Lincoln Center, which was one of the center’s original residence companies and was directed by the musical’s composer, Richard Rodgers. Bell and Lazar were okay, but given the occasion, they should have been better. When they sang together, it sometimes sounded like one voice was slightly sharp while the other one was slightly flat.
The dancing part of the evening got started with Allegro Brilliante which was carefully led by Sara Mearns and Jared Angle. Articulate, powerful, and energetic, Sara is. Exceptionally musical, she is not. Hers was a very straight forward execution of the steps without much musical phrasing. Jared, as always, was a perfect partner – especially in that movement where they faced each other while holding hands and he rolled her over into a penche arabesque. Great partnering but mushy feet with no stretch in the front of his ankles. The demi-soloists were all in fine form. Ashley Laracey and Lauren King danced so hard and with such joy that you could almost feel their hearts pounding.
Justin Peck’s new work entitled Everywhere We Go and set to a commissioned score by Sufjan Stevens with costumes by Janie Taylor and scenery by Karl Jensen was the only thing left separating the hungry audience from its dinner. Jensen, a highly educated sculpture artist and practicing architect, seemed to have used his cut paper sculpture, Expansion Study, as a jumping off point for creating the backdrop projection of little boxes over which various white dashes and geometry forms sometimes appeared. Very interesting work:
Janie Taylor’s costumes were in the realm of dancer practicewear. The lower half of each women's white leotard looked like white trunks while the upper half was white with horizontal black stripes and a red stripe as a belt. The white trunks didn’t do anything positive for most of the women.
Sufjan Stevens’ music was even less appealing than the last piece that Peck used for choreography. Blaring high volume. At times it was the orchestral equivalent of banging pans in the kitchen. There seemed to be no sense to it, no organization, nothing that the listener could track or commit to memory.
Justin Peck’s choreography was along the same lines. He threw everything plus the kitchen sink at us – over and over again. Supposedly, there was no narrative but the Playbill notes identified the nine sections with pretentious titles derived from Longfellow (I Breathe the Air of Mountains and Their Unapproachable Heights [sic]) and who knows where else. The ballet seemed like a huge collection of vague grand ideas that were being shouted by flower children. There were masses of steps and frenetic entrances and exits – some very worthwhile and enjoyable. But there were too many ideas all thrown together – like a full color spectrum interior design gone wild. When Robert Fairchild and Amar Ramasar had very serious or pained looks on their faces, we had no clue why. Nor did we know the significance of the repeated first positions of the arms. The reason this stood out is that the clear first position of the arms is not something that we see very often at NYCB. So it must have had a special meaning, but there was no clue.
The pas de deux for Maria Kowroski & Robert Fairchild and Tiler Peck & Amar Ramasar sustained some interest. They are always watchable.
Did we understand that Peck was inspired by Alexei Ratmansky in the section where dancer after dancer would start to fall and another dancer would rush to cradle his head? Yeah, it was way too clear. Did we get that he was inspired by Robbins throughout? Yeah, it was way too clear. His choreography was the kind that dancers love to dance. It’s full of loose energy, and it makes them feel like they’re really ripping up the stage. Everyone’s having a good time up there, so it must be as much fun for the audience, right? Not so.
The choreographer has immense energy and should be encouraged to continue learning the craft. But all the hoopla is just unwarranted given the unedited product that has landed on stage. Pursuit of success isn’t the same as pursuit of artistry, and the former can and often does interfere with the latter. NYCB should stop trying to sell Peck as a success and let his work stand on its own legs. Peck hasn’t had a broad spectrum of experiences as a dancer from which to draw for his choreography. He has been exposed mostly to Balanchine, Robbins and their derivatives with a little bit of Ratmansky. It appears that he’s dancing less and less as he choreographs more. That’s not going to help him at all.
The Pump Bump Award with "travertine" base is bestowed upon the birthday girl, the New York State Theater, for 50 years of grace, harmony, and creativity.