Earlier this week McHaglund O’Heel wandered over to Carnegie Hall to hang with the famous Irish fiddler Martin Hayes and The Common Ground Ensemble to celebrate St. Patrick’s Day. Hayes and the Ensemble have a home-away-from-home at the Irish Arts Center in Hell’s Kitchen; so, it was with great pride that the H.K. Irish folks jigged & back-clicked our way en masse over to the great hall for their debut.

Hayes is a specialist in Traditional Irish music. He formed the Common Ground Ensemble “as a collaborative project to facilitate a musical dialogue between Irish traditional music and other traditions, genres, and artistic disciplines.” Their performances include percussive dancing, poetry, and music that utilizes a variety of instruments including the bouzouki, cello, piano, concertina, guitar, harmonium and harp. It’s a very lively group.

Hayes says that Traditional Irish music “is a living, breathing tradition that does not belong to any one era; it lives through renewal.”

It lives through renewal.

No nonsense talk about moving the art form forward to some unknown destination or over a cliff or forcing it to be relevant to whatever a particular generation deems relevant. It lives through renewal. 

So does ballet. Tradition is the future.

The ballerina wasn’t the only one praying during the Mozartiana Preghiera section on Friday the 13th. After what seemed her interminable absence due to a resentful tendon in the foot, we were gratified and relieved to see Devon Teuscher relevé to such a high level of grace in this Balanchine masterpiece. We’ll forgive if she did not have 100% confidence in that foot and was overthinking a little bit. It was a good start back, hopefully a comeback that will not be interrupted again. This was not the promised Theme and Variations that still lives in our dreams, but it was more than sufficient to keep us happy.

Joo Won Ahn also served this ballet and his ballerina well. His beats and turns were crisp and clean, and his eager elegance was just right for role. The steadiness of his partnering was especially important on this evening. He knows this ballerina well and was able to anticipate her needs perhaps even before she did. However, we wish we would see 90° arabesques from him again and more attention to stretching the leg lines in the air.

Jake Roxander’s dancing in the Gigue was superb in all respects. The tempo was sluggish and really did a disservice to the dancer by taking the urgency (and challenge) out of the steps. We’ve seen enough soloist work from this dancer. His choppers are ready for a big steak, and we are counting the hours until his Basilio debut this summer. 

The four women in the Menuet were fine, but not more. The overly long tutus were fussy and, along with the dreadfully slow tempo, diminished the dancing. 

Throughout the ballet the tempi almost made it sound like Tchaikovsky was mocking Mozart. It could have been the background music for a Geritol commercial. While the Preghiera speed was okay, the music never built during sequences where it needed to, such as in the horizontal bourrees. It was terribly lackluster, like it was being performed in a little room for ten people. Honestly, the audience usually cringes at how ABT nearly always constipates the music to Balanchine ballets.

The other complaint, an ongoing gripe, is the horrible black floor which ABT insists on importing into this theater that comes equipped with a beautiful floor cherished by some of the world’s greatest ballet dancers. The scuffed-up black floor under the black tutus and black tights worn by Roxander was unappealing and distracting. The dancers, all dressed in black, actually receded; when the curtain opened, the ballerina appeared to be standing six feet farther upstage than we are accustomed to seeing. Furthermore, this floor amplifies the shoe noise. How could ABT not recognize the disservice that this black floor does to its productions and dancers?

Jiří Kylián’s Nuages performed exquisitely by Hee Seo and Thomas Forster put us on Cloud Nine. Haglund doesn’t remember the ABT premiere of this pas de deux in 2014 by Diana Vishneva and Marcelo Gomes, but imagines that they melted the Marley in those days. Friday night Seo and Forster were beyond sublime. 

Nuages is early-Kylián. We see here the fresh beginnings of his style: the introduction of the dancers with their backs to us, the sudden falls to the knees followed by soaring lifts, the deep bends in the ballerina’s back, the V-shaped arms, the blessed dancing of the same steps by men and women. Kylián uses the floor with Graham accents perhaps more than any other ballet choreographer. His work is the perfect fusion of ballet and modern dance. The lighting design, backdrop and of course the title all depict clouds, but Debussy’s music (Trois Nocturnes) brings to mind La Mer which came some years later and Prélude à l’Après-midi d’un faune that came a few years before Nuages. It was beautifully interpreted by the ABT Orchestra.

Seo, dancing on the occasion of her 40th birthday, could not have been more lovely. She retains the gorgeous lines and pliable back that have been her calling card for her entire career. Here she launched into the hazardous swoons and knee pirouettes with total confidence, and engaged the music and her partner with a potent reserve that conveyed more than any overtly emotional response could. Forster deserved her confidence. His partnering was magnificent in its strength and ease. His naturally low-key demeanor (although not forgetting how his Stepsister ran those pearls through her teeth a decade ago) was the perfect expressive match with Seo. Both dancers still have much to give.

The program concluded with Ratmansky’s Firebird which seems more a novelty take-off than an interpretation. The choreographer has remade the story into a Buster Keaton comedy where masses of dancers raced around, suddenly paused, raced some more. The cluttering clattering steps didn’t serve Stravinsky’s incredible music at all. It used the music, but it didn’t serve it on this night when it was so gloriously played by the ABT Orchestra.

There was no question that the Firebird came out like a house a’fire hurling lethal battements, nifty slides on pointe, and more nifty slides on pointe. Catherine Hurlin most likely did exactly what Ratmansky wanted at his preferred frenetic pace. She was powerful, aggressive, a veritable fighting Peregrin Falcon in red feathers. Sunmi Park was the long-suffering Maiden. Like Hurlin, she brought major theatrical vitality to her performance along with lovely executed steps. Daniel Camargo as Ivan was a very good sport in all of this. He looked great in the white Elvis suit and was able to pull off the comedy with style and without committing serious exaggeration. The highlight of Firebird, however, was Kaschei performed by Cory Stearns. How many times in this dancer’s career have we seen him in a role that requires him to move with such speed? We’ve spent years watching him mostly decelerate through allegro, and now Ratmansky has him moving like Quicksilver of the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants. He was the star of this show — the one who created the most interesting, off-the-wall, unpredictable character and actually used physicality to tell the story.

Our H.H. Pump Bump Award, a Moschino floating-cloud stiletto, is bestowed upon Hee Seo and Thomas Forster for their beautiful interpretation of Kylián’s Nuages, a pas de deux which is the perfect gift for these two ABT veterans.

That’s one of the advertising tags for the current run of Arthur Miller’s masterpiece Death of a Salesman, first performed in 1949, which opened in previews on Friday night at the Winter Garden Theater. It stars Nathan Lane, Laurie Metcalf, Christopher Abbott and Ben Ahlers. It is deeply moving theater and devastating even when one knows well the lines that are coming. There’s no way to steel oneself to be numb to great art. It’ll get to you no matter what. Most everyone in the audience knew that the confrontation between Biff and Willy Loman was coming; it had simmered and sparked throughout the play. But when the moment finally arrived, the audience lost its grip on what little collective composure it still had. Miller’s play is a classic. It is the classic. It’s what we need now.

There is no glitz in Death of a Salesman. Just words. Just words so well-crafted and so well-delivered that it makes one wonder why some of the other productions on Broadway that boast themselves as contemporary even bother to turn on their lights. Attention must be paid  to what is good and what is not.

Up the way at Lincoln Center, American Ballet Theatre opened its season over the weekend in performances of  Othello by Lar Lubovitch with a score by Elliot Goldenthal. First performed in 1997, it offers sterile George Tsypin scenery of plexiglass and an ultra shiny and reflective black floor. The costumes by Ann Hould-Ward are more traditional and Shakespearean than the scenery.  But how does this contemporary dance stack up against the classic treatment of Othello by José Limón in The Moor’s Pavane to Henry Purcell’s music, which like Arthur Miller’s masterpiece, was first performed in 1949? As in Miller’s play, one knows the outcome of this story regardless of the storyteller. It is just as hard to watch the violent strangling of Desdemona that is portrayed downstage in Lubovitch’s dance as it is to watch Limón’s murder of her when it is partially eclipsed by Emilia’s dress held wide by both hands to cover the crime. We see Othello’s arms raise and descend with force but we never see him actually strike Desdemona. 

Like Willy Loman’s Studebaker that didn’t measure up to his previously-owned classic Chevy, Lubovitch’s treatment of Othello doesn’t measure up to Limón’s. Nothing could make that more clear than the choice of music. Let’s face it: Elliot Goldenthal simply is not on the same level as Henry Purcell. Goldenthal’s bombastic alerts to something serious coming up were relentless and exhausting cinema background music. On the other hand, Purcell’s stringed arrangements were the tidy, beautiful coverup for the rage and violence of an honor killing.

The two choreographers’ styles have similarities which is understandable considering they crossed paths when Lubovitch was a student at Juilliard while Limón was there as a teacher. However, Limón’s ideas are sometimes too re-worked in Lubovitch’s dance and look like they were used as a template. When Iago looms over Othello from behind in the pas de deux in Lubovitch’s dance, it looks strangely similar to Limón’s. 

The afternoon cast was comprised of superb dancers and actors. Isaac Hernandez as Othello, Skylar Brandt as Desdemona, James Whiteside as Iago, and Devon Teuscher as Emilia performed the steps exceptionally well, but they could not overcome the deficiencies of the staging. It was physical enough; it just wasn’t interesting enough. And unfortunately, the music hampered the production from start to finish.

It certainly is worth asking why this full length dance was scheduled to take up nearly half of all performance dates of ABT’s inaugural spring season at the Koch Theater. Haglund truly wishes he could muster up more enthusiasm for Lubovitch’s Othello.

Arthur Miller said, “The past is holy.” It is, and attention must be paid to it.

A crime has been committed. New York City Ballet has gone full-frontal Trump with its gaudy, hideous re-design of Madame Karinska’s revered costumes for Balanchine’s Diamonds. What a way to destroy a tradition of elegance. Maybe the costume department was inspired by Trump’s decision to re-do the Kennedy Center in his own brand & image in order to put his own ugly mark and name on a treasure.  So now instead of Madame Karinska’s beautiful tutus that are embellished with crystals, we have what seriously look like battery lighted baubles and coins embellished with some tulle along with circus pony headgear. The constant flashing is enough to trigger epileptic seizures. Do you want to know how to give an entire audience a headache? Put a stage full of this vulgar glitz in front of them. Even the women’s gloves, which had been white, now looked like beige bandages. WTF, NYCB?!

And the dancing wasn’t what it should have been either. This corps de ballet was woefully under-rehearsed or maybe their signals just got crossed from all the flash. For most of the season, we’ve been watching Gabriella Domini mess up counts, often when she’s in the front. Nieve Corrigan, after a long stretch of attentive musicality, was back to her disorganized solo-izing self last night. This is Balanchine’s Diamonds — where’s the respect? Why wasn’t Mary Elizabeth Sell anchoring the demis in this corps? 

Mira Nadon and Peter Walker in the leads were superb in spite of the atrocious costumes. But it was hard to watch them. The flash kept obscuring Balanchine’s glorious choreography. Every time Walker turned upstage, we were blinded by the flashing across the back of his shoulders. Here were two extraordinary artists giving a very unique and particularly captivating interpretation of a masterpiece, and it was almost impossible to watch. While mesmerized by Nadon’s sparrow-like limbs and freedom of flight, we soon found ourselves deeply invested in Walker’s psyche as he pursued her. That, and the gorgeous assembly of his long legs in his double tours and his courageous manège.

Guest conductor and former NYCB Orchestra violinist Andrew Grams got it exactly right. We can trust him.

Robbin’s Dances at a Gathering received an average performance. An average performance of this ballet inevitably makes it feel ninety minutes long. The saving graces were Indiana Woodward (in pink), Olivia MacKinnon (in apricot), Anthony Huxley (in brown), and Hanna Hyunjung Kim whose hour long piano solo was as crisp and melodic as we could possibly want. Robbins famously maintained that there was no subtext to his choreography. It was simply people dancing and that whatever they made of it was what it was at the moment. These three artists possessed the imagination and quality of interiority that pulled us into their solitude. Their solos were polished as expected, and their interactions seemed genuine and spontaneous, not choreographed.

Our H.H. Pump Bump Award, from Badgley Mischka, is bestowed upon Indiana Woodward, again, who continues to deepen her artistry in ways we could not have imagined.  

After having our hearts broken three years ago when then-soloist Emma Von Enck was inexplicably passed over for casting as Aurora in New York City Ballet’s The Sleeping Beauty, we finally emerged from the Ballet Trauma Unit on Thursday evening with our hearts beating anew. Thump-thump, thump-thump. There was a bit of extra excitement in the ever-excitable Craig Salstein’s Catalabutte as he mimed the arrival of Princess Aurora. He knew she was about to slay the day. And slay she did.

Emma Von Enck’s Aurora rushed into the center of her birthday party and into the center of our hearts with an exuberance of one who had waited three years to dance the role she was placed on this earth to dance. We were under her spell from the first step. Her sequence of piqués attitude devant followed by the most delicate little pas de chat were performed with pointes as sharp as the spindle that would befall her. Aurora’s manège of piqué and chaîné turns were so fast that it almost seemed like the music was chasing her until she stopped instantly to regain a regal pose after an episode of cat zoomies. 

Breathless speed was her casual mode; she never rushed or needed to blur steps to meet the tempi. She found height and great length in her jumps. Her Rose Adagio balances were beautifully squared even if they did show the type of nerves that can come up in any speed-dating situation. 

In the Vision Scene, Von Enck captured the ethereal nature of the backward spin in arabesque and pulled length from every phrase. The elegance in the elbows and the delicate shapes of her upper torso and port de bras conveyed a beautiful spirituality. We won’t utter that G-word, but anyone who saw this Vision Scene has to be thinking the same thing: Put her in a Romantic tutu tout de suite.

This wasn’t just an astonishing first crack at a role; it was astonishing, period. And it wasn’t the only thrill of the evening. David Gabriel’s debut as Prince Désiré revealed big dramatic chops and high level partnering skills to go with his stellar solo dancing in a surprisingly mature performance. His style included a modesty for which we are grateful; he danced brilliantly without looking like he was trying to impress. Again, as with Aurora, so much about Désiré’s devotion to his ideal love was revealed in the Vision Scene. (We do wonder, however, in this staging by Peter Martins, if the water in the goblets is spiked with something that causes Désiré to so abruptly switch from having a great time at the picnic to severe introspection after just one gulp.)

In the Wedding Scene, Gabriel’s Désiré managed the fish dives expertly and made his Aurora’s positions look beautiful. By now, both dancers knew that they had a smashing success and all they had to do were a couple of grand allegro manèges, a few piqués, and then mazurka their way to the finish line. 

The supporting cast included an admirable quartet of Jewels. Preston Chamblee’s Gold was giving potential greatness vibes if he would just always point his feet and stretch both knees. Naomi Corti was the ballerina who finally made beautiful sense of the Diamond variation which has looked spastic over the run. Grace Scheffel’s Ruby revealed a unique sensuality to go with her splendid dancing. And what a pleasure it was to see Rommie Tomasini dancing so joyously in the Emerald variation.

The Lilac Fairy, Dominika Afanasenkov, offered some lovely port de bras but the overall effect of her performance was less than it should have been due to a fitness issue that needs to be addressed. Meaghan Dutton-O’Hara’s Carabosse was sufficiently menacing. The corps de ballet was attentive and superbly coordinated throughout the evening. There are so many quick changes before the intermission that it is a wonder the Nymphs, Cavaliers, Attendants, and Suitors don’t have Garland remnants sticking to them upon returning to the stage.

Daniel Ulbricht and Sara Adams repeated their excellent Bluebird and Princess Florine. During the preceding variation, a piece of fluff dropped to the floor from a costume which was distracting for the dancers who followed. Unfortunately, Sara slipped close to it, and her lovely foot and ankle collapsed under her. Scary as it was, it seemed not to affect the rest of her performance. 

Our H.H. Pump Bump Award, Louboutin’s Rosa Z stiletto with floating crystals, is bestowed upon Emma Von Enck for her truly amazing, long overdue debut as Aurora.

When Good meets Evil at the ballet, usually Good wins out. But Wednesday night, Ashley Hod’s Carabosse nearly ran away with the show until she went up in smoke & sparklers after witnessing a kiss and had to be hauled out by her handlers. That left Miriam Miller’s Lilac Fairy to bring the show home with her majestic grace. On Friday evening, Ashley Laracey’s refined elegance as the Lilac Fairy came up against the wicked sins of Brittany Pollack’s Carabosse in another ferocious face-off.

Of course, we’re talking about The Sleeping Beauty at New York City Ballet, the company’s best non-Balanchine full length ballet which was staged by former Ballet Master in Chief Peter Martins 35 years ago. It’s an unusual Beauty where Petipa’s ballet has been adapted to this company’s strengths and to the attention span of its audience. One intermission. Few pauses for applause. The scenery is, well, functional. Aurora seemingly slips into her birthday party from a backdoor offstage instead of arriving at the top of a magnificent staircase. The costumes by Patricia Zipprodt reflect where the money was spent. Every tutu, character dress and suit, hat and shoe conveys Dubai-sized wealth and opulence of the kingdom. They are gorgeous – every last one of them, even those of Carabosse’s hideous minions whose beetle wings vibrate when the bugs are stationary. 

The abundance of outstanding performances during Wednesday and Friday nights revealed deep strength throughout the company. We were like Aurora being kissed awake when we witnessed corps members Kloe Walker’s Fairy of Tenderness and Ruby variations, Mia Williams’ Fairy of Eloquence, Grace Scheffel’s Fairy of Vivacity, Sarah Harmon’s and Meaghan Dutton-O’Hara’s Fairies of Generosity, Owen Flacke’s gallant Cavalier to the Lilac Fairies, Charlie Klesa’s chivalrous Suitor from the East, and Keenan Kiefer’s uncontainable joy and explosive energy as a Court Jester. We see what’s on the horizon and we’re running toward it as fast as we can.

From the soloist ranks, David Gabriel’s Bluebird flew through the long series of brisé volé with crystal clarity and lightness. Olivia MacKinnon’s Princess Florine was uneven from a technical perspective; her Emerald variation from The Jewels quartet was more assured. Sara Adams’ Princess Florine was calm, confident, and correct in response to Principal Daniel Ulbricht’s blistering Bluebird. Neither Diamond, India Bradley nor Mary Thomas MacKinnon, overcame the awkwardness of this forced variation.

On opening night, Megan Fairchild’s Aurora was lively in personality but technically contained and unremarkable. Droopy, loosely squared attitude positions in the Rose Adagio revealed Aurora’s struggle rather than her celebration. Arguments can be made for lower leg heights in The Sleeping Beauty because they would support Petipa’s original style. However, one cannot argue to do a lower arabesque on one side because of a physical limitation and then zing it on one’s strong side. Nor can an argument be made for lower Petipa legs combined with neoclassical port de bras. 

Anthony Huxley found just the right tone and authenticity for Prince Désiré. Still scrupulous if no longer perfect, Huxley’s ability to cover space calmly at high speed remains unmatched. His stylish partnering was on full display in this performance but for whatever reason didn’t result in the rapport with Megan that we expected. We look forward to hopefully seeing how his maturity and elegance impact Emma Von Enck’s dancing. 

On Friday night, Aurora finally arrived in the form of Indiana Woodward who extended birthday party invitations to all 2000+ people in the audience. We were at the party living her story right along with her. She arrived with the radiance of the sun, full of life, and a blazing technique that further energized a performance which had already been at a fairly high level. Her Aurora possessed a charming, unforced modesty that revealed the beauty and grace of her royal upbringing. Basically, we fell in love with this fairy tale all over again. 

In this performance Prince Désiré found his rapport with Aurora before he set eyes on her. Chun Wai Chan gave a full accounting of his character’s search for his true love — from his discontent at a festive picnic to his fallen spirit rejuvenated by the Lilac Fairy to his discovery of his life-affirming love snoozing away under an odd quilt — Chan made us believe in his journey. His dancing looked as fresh and strong as during his Houston Ballet days. There were beautiful 90 degree arabesques, huge tours en l’air, authoritative pirouettes, and exquisite partnering of Aurora.

The corps de ballet was exceptional at both performances: the Lilac Fairy attendants’ precision and especially the Nymphs in the Vision Scene whose balloné sequences were perfection — it all was truly lovely dancing.

The children in the Garland Dance and the Wolf scene at the Wedding were, of course, what SAB children are: stage animals who want you to remember that they are stars, too. Every one of them was an asset to the performance.

It is always wonderful to see the NYCB Orchestra pit packed wall to wall with musicians. The music was glorious (except for some confusion from the right side on Wednesday night), and we appreciated the experienced guest ballet conductors on the podium: David Briskin from the National Ballet of Canada (no stranger to NYCB or ABT) and Beatrice Affron from the Philadelphia Ballet. 

Our H.H. Pump Award, a rose & vines stiletto, is bestowed upon Indiana Woodward for her utterly believable and beautifully danced Aurora. 

In Alexei Ratmansky’s terrific new ballet, The Naked King, which premiered Thursday evening at New York City Ballet, the King’s thing is so tiny that it got lost behind the tiniest fig leaf.  No wonder his glamorous, flow-posing queen sought amorous transactions elsewhere. 

Ratmansky’s source for the company’s 500th new work was the well-known Hans Christian Andersen fairytale in which a self-absorbed king is swindled into thinking that he is wearing opulent threads when, in fact, he is buck naked. The music by Jean Françaix, who also was inspired by Andersen’s fairytale, is energetic and melodious with an underlying nervousness that meets Ratmansky’s own. 

In the original story, there is no Queen. In Ratmansky’s adaptation, she not only exists — she pivots and pirouettes promiscuously as a main character who is skillful in the art of her deals. Hiding what we are sure are stoic squints behind huge sunglasses, she purses her lips and lifts her chin haughtily as if seducing her next Vanity Fair cover. Her charms, however, land in a groveling lover’s over-active lap. Just as good.

Miriam Miller and Emily Kikta as the Queen on Thursday and Friday, respectively, dealt this diva deliciously. Their 5’10” heavenly physiques were draped like a dream in Santo Loquasto’s plum and red jeweled gown, lace fingerless gloves, and a halo-crown headpiece that might have been half helmet. And sunglasses. Which never came off. Both women were fully absorbed in character while navigating Ratmansky’s inventions including forward and backward supported cantering. Big performances from both.

Pursuing the Queens were Peter Walker and Ryan Tomash as the hot to trot Lovers who burned through Ratmansky’s crackling electric choreography.  Both were fabulous, but Walker’s theatrical and technical performance was a highlight of the ballet. It was a breakout performance for the usually stoic principal.

The Swindlers who duped the King wowed their ways through pas de trois and solo phrases while wearing some of Loquasto’s designs that would make Elton John jealous.  Daniel Ulbricht in burnt red wig, electric blue jumpsuit and striped blazer delivered an amazing series of entrechat six with his knees bent under him. David Gabriel was in a leopard skin suit with a wild wig that made him look more like the Last Place finisher at the Westminster Dog Show. (Actually, we’d seen a similar wig on Elton during his all-pink period.) KJ Takahashi was in stripes and sunglasses. Gabriel and Takahashi were fabulous on their own but struggled to keep up with Ulbricht’s speed and clarity in the PdT phrases. On the second night, Cainan Weber, Sebastián Villarini-Velez, and apprentice Simeon Daniel Neeld performed as the trio.

At both performances the King’s entourage, Jules Mabie, Preston Chamblee, and Owen Flacke, hilariously served the King with their groveling. The King literally used his entourage as a floor mat and at one point enjoyed a spectacular arial cartwheel as the three slowly manipulated him across the stage. Outstanding dancing from all three who looked royally handsome in their elegant suits.

Our title character, The King, was portrayed by Andrew Veyette and Craig Salstein both of whom pulled off the outrageous personality and absurdity of the story while wearing a colossus of orangish curls reminiscent of Led Zepplin’s but clearly referencing a more contemporary King-like figure currently in all our lives. Yes, the King’s thing is tiny — nearly imperceptible. But we knew that already.

The HH Pump Bump Award, a hot red stiletto from Hardot, is bestowed upon Peter Walker for his cinematic-worthy portrayal of the Queen’s Lover. 

In case some of you titology-oriented H.H. readers were theorizing about the paratextual elements in Justin Peck’s new ballet The Wind-Up and whether the title could possibly refer to Peck “winding up” his tenure at NYCB, well, keep hoping. More likely, the title referenced Peck winding up the dancers and cutting them loose. Pick popular classical music; then pick popular classical dancers; nothing else matters. Except that it does. 

The Wind-Up is the latest formulaic trope-llet in a long line of them that Peck has made for NYCB. Soul Cycle onesie costumes for the men, GAP-wear for the women, and choreography that looks like Peck said “Show me the steps you like to do and I’ll make something up.” Here he has conflated Dig the Say with Partita to make a diggita that looks like it came out of digital software. We want to remind everyone that NYCB pays this guy more than $378K — for what? The company could give each dancer a $3000 raise instead, and it would be money better spent. Much better spent. 

It was truly wonderful to hear the New York City Ballet Orchestra belt out the First Movement of Beethoven’s Eroica so beautifully. We didn’t mind at all the additional shivers and goosebumps the music gave us on this very cold night. But we wish we’d closed our eyes to the choreography. Peck raced everyone around in circles like scurrying rats. Tiler Peck’s surprise changes in direction and speed are now easily anticipated in Justin Peck’s works. The choreography for everybody else in the cast emulated them. Instead of having Tiler doing fouettes, Peck had Daniel Ulbricht spinning a la seconde turns — winding up for the next Justin Peck diggita. Corps dancer Mia Williams was thrown into the mix of seasoned principals and did not seem particularly comfortable. It’s as though Peck intended to take this lovely classical dancer and roll her in the dirt a little. So she rolled and rolled on the floor while Daniel Ulbricht leaped over her. Mira Nadon was lifted by Chun Wai Chan into sensational arabesques, because, well, you know she looks pretty darn sensational in the air.

To sum this up, we’ll say to NYCB that it’s time to cut ties with Justin Peck. As we eagerly await Ratmansky’s premiere, The Naked King, next week, we can’t help but think of Peck as The Naked Choreographer.

The evening opened with Walpurgisnacht Ballet with Miriam Miller subbing for Sara Mearns. We saw Miller in the pas de deux with Owen Flacke on Monday night at the Inside NYCB program in advance of their scheduled debut together. Flacke was ready but didn’t get to share the stage with Miller on Thursday. Tyler Angle kept his slot and was a distraction from Miller’s beauty. Last night, however, Miller and Flacke scored well with only a few awkward moments. It’s thrilling when we can witness a partnership like this first come out of the incubator. Flacke’s dedication to precision is admirable and he is making great strides in opening up his personality and communicating warmth out to the audience. This is a pair of diamonds, if ever we saw one. Olivia MacKinnon and Sara Adams danced the soloist role on Thursday and Friday. Adams’ dancing had a silky texture and flow to it whereas MacKinnon’s exhibited some frantic movements where she looked under pressure. And what exactly is that we-don’t-give-a-shit position of the arms in the glissades?

Isabella LaFreniere and Ryan Tomash found good chemistry to go with their no-fakes-here fifth positions in Bournonville’s Flower Festival in Genzano PdD on Thursday. Ashley Hod and David Gabriel did the same last night. Both pairs were able to quickly grab the audience with their little story of quaint flirting amid technical virtuosity. We thought that we’d seen the Danes exploit those arabesques that turn to second and turn back to arabesque with a little more adventure. But we enjoyed both performances immensely and plan to go back to see both again.

Opus 19/The Dreamer got a rough start on Thursday night with Alexa Maxwell and Anthony Huxley who was subbing for Joseph Gordon. One would have expected that David Gabriel or Davide Riccardo might have been prepared to dance the man’s very interesting role. Huxley was too light weight for it although all the dancing was clear, complete and executed with commitment. Maxwell’s solo dancing was gorgeous but the matchup with Huxley had difficulties. On Friday night, the pairing of Tiler Peck with a debuting Roman Mejia was more successful. We loved seeing Mejia in a more serious role and cannot wait for Sunday’s ticket-of-the-season matinee when he comes face to face with Emily Kikta’s Siren in Prodigal Son. Oh, it’s going to be brutal.

The HH Pump Bump Award, a diamond stiletto from Jada Dubai, is bestowed upon Miriam Miller for her glowing, Romantic dancing in Walpurgisnacht Ballet.

Tradition is the future was the strong theme running through “Bellow” which just concluded performances at the Irish Arts Center on 11th Ave in Hell’s Kitchen as part of the Under the Radar Festival. In the play, Danny McMahony, the famous accordionist from Ireland who has dedicated his life to traditional Irish classical music met Gary Keegan, a contemporary theatermaker who wanted to make a piece for the stage based on Danny’s lifelong artistic journey. The two clashed as Gary tried to apply contemporary acting theory to convey Danny’s inherent need to make classical music. There was “a rattling” deep inside him, Danny explained, that only his art could calm. The art pushed and pulled him much like the bellow on the accordion pushed and pulled the air to force the music out. Now past his prime, he wondered how he would deal with the painful reckoning that an artist must face when he can no longer live through his art. 

Tradition is the future was the spirit inhabiting the opening performance of New York City Ballet’s winter season last evening. But it seemed to turn into a begrudging spirit when Ratmansky’s Paquita arrived having edited out Balanchine’s Minkus Pas de Trois. What was the point of that? Couldn’t NYCB find three dancers who could handle Balanchine’s choreography? And why wasn’t this shortened version of Paquita announced with explanation beforehand? 

The evening opened with Balanchine’s wondrous Serenade. The musical pace was lethargic and the strings less than bold perhaps in deference to the ballet-geriatric cast, some of whom defied their age and some who didn’t. The opening tableau is always stunningly beautiful — the corps of women so respectful of tradition and the statement that Balanchine made with his simple movements and wispy battements. The grand jete entrance of Sara Mearns was a jarring event — she seemingly vaulted into a colosseum to battle bulls or lions. The grand jetes were effortful, loud, and wince-inducing. There was very little musical modulation in her movement throughout; it was full throttle from start to finish.

The reappearance of Andrian Danchig-Waring came with a sigh of relief that we will continue to have more time with this artist. His own gratefulness for being out on that stage again shown through clearly in his dancing. His allegro was crisp and clear; his jumps space-devouring without compromising form.

Megan Fairchild’s Russian Girl was but a sputtering of what we remember. No big flaws but no big movements and no big arabesques. Emilie Gerrity, the young’un of the bunch, displayed a sacred arabesque as Davide Riccardo rotated her on one leg above the Waltz Girl lying on the floor. 

Prodigal Son fell flat this first evening. It’s hard to imagine Anthony Huxley ever having had a temper tantrum in his life. His display of the rash, impertinent youth wasn’t all that convincing. Miriam Miller’s Siren has gained volume with each performance. Still, we think she could exhibit more poison, more power, more lethal lure. Where Victor Abreu was convincing as one of the servants, Andres Zuniga was not. We’ve previously seen Zuniga emerge from technician to build a character; we’ll be patient for a while because we know he is going to be needed for some of the miraculous half-pints in the corps who are overflowing with talent such as Mia Williams and Olivia Bell.

Other than the disappointment of not seeing the Balanchine Pas de Trois with Paquita, we thoroughly enjoyed the piece. In the production of Bellow referenced above, Danny always chided Gary for referring to a theatrical effort as a “piece” because that made it sound less than complete. Here Ratmansky’s piece without the Pas de Trois was less than it should have been. But the dancing was glorious. Boy, was it ever easy to focus on the lengthy, articulating limbs of Becket Jones and Kylie Vernia in the corps de ballet. Sisters Von Enck tore up the stage with their side-by-side steps and cheeriness. Ashley Hod and Emily Kikta commanded their material like the generals that they are, even though their epaulets are inexplicably missing the stars they have earned. Dominika Afanasenkov, subbing for Ashley Laracey, lacked the length and physical attributes that we remembered from her early performances in Afternoon of a Faun and danced with a sense of self-consciousness.

Mira Nadon and Chun Wai Chan lifted Paquita to a level that Ratmansky may not have expected. Plain and simply put, Nadon has super powers. Last evening she pulled off technical feats like a gorgeous genie emerging from her bottle with treasures to give everyone. There was the control, the geometric perfection of her lines, the calm beauty, and the joyous risk-taking. When she aced her final hops on pointe in arabesque and finished them with a penche, Chun Wai Chan suddenly realized that he had better deliver the tours a la second of his lifetime if he wanted anyone to see that he was still in this performance. He did pretty darn well, and finished them with authoritative pirouettes. 

The guest conductor, José Salazar, who began his ballet conducting at the Royal Ballet did not quite understand what was expected by the NYCB audience. The orchestra sounded restrained on this first night. Hopefully, they’ll be allowed back in their groove quickly.

Our H.H. Pump Bump Award is bestowed upon Mira Nadon for her Wonder Woman performance in Paquita.

In This World of Tomorrow, which just completed its limited run at The Shed last Sunday, Tom Hanks’ character was a scientist who explored the future by re-visiting the past over and over again through time travel. He finally decided to put down roots in 1939 where he found his life’s love during the New York World’s Fair. The sterile glitz of his futuristic AI-does-everything-world with its substitution of algorithms for empathy and machine-based processes for human communication lost out to a world run by human beings. It was a no less complicated time for this man from the future — on the eve of another world war which Hanks’ character was well aware of because, well, he was from the future. But he chose a messy humanity over coldly capable artificiality.

New York City Ballet’s Nutcracker evokes a similar sense of nostalgia for when these holidays were warm social gatherings marked by genuine human interaction and communication. It was much slower and more thoughtful than the ubiquitous electronic blur of knee-jerk reactions that we mismanage more often than not these days. Human intellect and emotions can’t seem to handle the speed with which electronic mechanisms now throw bytes of information at us. It’s like we are compelled to process and react to a lot of disk data that’s missing header records.

Haglund managed to see two wonderful performances of NYCB’s Nutcracker. Emily Kikta and Owen Flacke, paired for the first time in prime time, gave us a glimpse of the excitement that might await us if we are lucky enough to see them together on a more regular basis. There was an immediate sense that this pair had a grandness that could be greater than the sum of their individual artistries. Finally Kikta was rewarded with an appropriately sized partner for her gorgeous statuesque beauty. The second-year corpsman Flacke didn’t just have size; he had polish, fast feet, and a neatness that doesn’t usually come with being in the neighborhood of six and a half feet tall. This  “Big O” is a future MVP and City Ballet point guard extraordinaire. But wait! NYCB doesn’t just have one “Big O”; it has two. Racing down the court right behind Flacke, by mere months and alphabetically, is Oscar Estep — another young corpsman who is stuck in the back of the corps because of his huge size but has us laser focused on his every move. 

While Flacke displayed tremendous potential as a partner — managing the treacherous “blind” stepover pirouettes by Kikta, the shoulder sits, and the notorious promenade at the end of the first section — he did show some signs of weariness in his solo, or perhaps it was just carefulness. 

What a thrill it was to see Kikta as the Sugarplum Fairy again. Her connection with the audience was generous and immediate. She was a fairy to believe in, the one who would deliver the magic that we were about to see with dancing candy canes and flowers. Such fragrance and grace to her dancing — all of it secure and potent with a hint of mysterious Chanel Coco. 

If Kikta’s Sugarplum Fairy reminded us of Coco, the next evening Ashley Hod was No. 5 with her classic elegance and sparkling virtuosity. This is a major ballerina with every detail in place and at the height of her physical power. Her geometrics include sharp angles that can melt into curves at the violin’s signal. She should be recognized as a Diamond, an Emerald, a Waltz Girl, a deaconess of Balanchine’s Black & White canon, and everything in between. Her Cavalier, the beaming Jules Mabie, enjoyed a fabulous role debut and exhibited a maturity that we thought would be years away. Like Kikta and Flacke, the physical match-up of Hod and Mabie was sublime and something that we hope to see actively developed over time. For too long, NYCB has acted like it didn’t really matter who danced with whom. But it does. When the match-ups are attractive physically, musically, and artistically, the performances are truly memorable.

India Bradley and Naomi Corti danced the Dewdrop roles at these performances. Bradley showed great energy but still struggled with eye line focus and immature port de bras. Corti soared in this role like she was heading toward another universe. We are so excited to see her devour the Balanchine repertoire.

Claire VonEnck and Meaghan Dutton-O’Hara nailed the Marzipan soloist role as did Cainan Weber and Victor Abreu with Candy Cane. Lighting up the stage in Tea, Snowflakes and wherever she appeared was Olivia Bell. Ava Sautter and Kloe Walker were gorgeous lead flowers. Both are so ready for bigger challenges.

We’ve certainly covered a lot here: AI, NBA, expensive perfume. Only at HH will one find that depth of variety.

Our HH Pump Award, Gianvito Rossi’s gold bijoux metallic leather ankle strap sandal, is bestowed upon Emily Kikta for her Christmas dream-filling Sugarplum Fairy.