NYCB – 2/5 & 2/6

Haglund wants to encourage everyone to see the New Combinations program at NYCB. Three very distinct choreographic voices are there for the listening: one utterly predictable, one compelling in its invention and message, one at the beginning of what could be a major choreographic career. Somehow they all seem to fit together to make the evening interesting and more than worthwhile, even if it’s not all good.

By the time the Mark Rothko-inspired lighting backdrop finally appeared at the conclusion of Mauro Bigonzetti’s Vespro on Wednesday and the deep blood-red color pushed upward and finally overtook the black canvas, Haglund had a full appreciation of the painter’s depression. More than a half-hour of watching dancers whack away at Bigonzetti’s arm choreography and gratuitous extensions while wearing little outfits with Kenneth Noland-like circles on them triggered painful symptoms of OCBS that had Haglund wriggling in his seat like he had a 3-alarm hemorrhoid. OCBS, for those of you who don’t watch Dr. Oz, is Outdated Contemporary Ballet Syndrome. You’d rather have fleas.

Spectral Evidence, which has yet to impress some people, continues to be riveting. The young SAB students sitting near Haglund thought that the women in the ballet were space aliens who the men liked but feared, and so they were burned at the stake. Three hundred years have sanded the sharp edges of history surrounding the witches of Salem who Angelin Preljocaj used as his inspiration for the ballet. The horrific deeds of those men seem remote and unrelated to who we are now. It’s hard to connect the burning of women then to the violence of today. Our methods of violence have advanced and become more efficient while our reasons for employing it are still the same. Violence, it seems, may be part of human hardwiring. Spectral Evidence is worth seeing again and again.

A second view of Liam Scarlett’s new Acheron revealed new similarities to John Cranko’s work which Haglund wishes he had not observed. During the premiere, he was so busy trying to understand the motives and impetus for all the anguish that he overlooked moments such as when "Tatyana and Onegin" were on the floor and one arched over the other. The cast for the second performance didn’t convey as much angst and emotion as the premiere’s cast, and so it was a little easier to pay attention to the stage patterns. All of it was very interesting and wonderfully responsive to the music. True, the PdDs had too much gymnastic manipulating for the sake of manipulating. But Scarlett’s self-editing skills should improve unless he takes on too many commissions and succumbs to pressure to produce quantity rather than quality.

Thursday evening’s highlights included impressive debuts in Robbins’ Dances at a Gathering by Lauren King (in blue) and Lauren Lovette (in apricot), and Ashley Bouder in the R.C.A.F. and WRENS sections of Union Jack.  Wearing the mauve in Dances, Rebecca Krohn's exquisite musicality and generous, unforced lines eloquently spoke of romance. She may have the prettiest sustained open attitude derriere position of all the women in the company, and last night she let the balances linger beautifully without any sense of showiness.

Watching Lauren King and Lauren Lovette take over roles in Dances was like watching the ballet for the first time. King’s frizzy strawberry-blond tresses were as minimally contained as were her enthusiasm and freshness. Here was a real person, not performing, but just dancing at a gathering of friends. Lauren Lovette, though small, presented a huge stage presence along with killer allegro.

Seeing Ashley Bouder dancing in front of a line of corps women hammered home one of her many important attributes as a Balanchine-bred dancer: the speed with which she arrived at closed positions. She got there on the front of the count, e.g., on the t of the two or the f of the four, whereas many of the corps women behind her swam through the music and closed their positions in the middle or at the end of the count.

There is much classical choreography that is particularly beautiful when danced and weighted on the end of the musical counts – but not most of Balanchine’s. Is this important characteristic no longer being taught to upcoming generations at SAB? Haglund noticed it during Concerto Barocco last week when Maria Kowroski arrived at her closed coupes so much more quickly and clearly than the much younger Sara Mearns. Long time corps member Faye Arthurs certainly had snap-speed in her closings last night but some of these younger corps women were definitely missing it.

The evening’s Pump Bump Award, a Gucci gold standard that goes for $700+ but unfortunately does not come in size12*, is bestowed upon Ashley Bouder for whom upholding the gold standard is part of everyday business.