NYCB – Year of the Rabbit

It's the Year of the Dragon.  It probably comes as no surprise to anyone that Haglund was born in the Year of the Dragon — a while back.  Thankfully, the elemental sign of water is associated with the year and is known to have a soothing, calming effect on the dragon's personality.  Obviously.

Year of the Rabbit, choreographed by Justin Peck, began as a workshop piece in 2010, the Year of the Tiger, and was completed in 2012, the Year of the Dragon.  Perhaps that explains why the diverse elements within the ballet did not really make a substantive whole.  But there was enough to like about the piece for some to jump to their feet while jubilantly rejoicing Hallelujah, a great new choreographer is born.  Haglund isn't going to throw any of his elemental dragon water on all the cheering, but he's not quite ready to join the chorus in response to Year of the Rabbit.

He attended the first two performances of Year of the Rabbit – first sitting in an upper ring and then sitting dead center orchestra.  This is a ballet that is more enjoyable when viewed from the upper seats than from the orchestra level where a lot of the corps formations, including early ones which seem to suggest  Zodiac designs, can't be seen as clearly.  Also, with more distance between the viewer and the stage, one spends less time wondering about the odd choice of costumes for the women:  blue pleated tennis skirts with white horizontal stripes.

The ballet is set to music by Sufjan Stevens, originally entitled Enjoy Your Rabbit (2001), which takes its inspiration from the animals of the Chinese Zodiac.  Stevens' initial work was an electronic score which in 2006 was collaboratively orchestrated by Michael Atkinson along with members of the Osso String Quartet, Gabriel Kahane, and — wait for it — Nico Muhly.  The resulting work was retitled Run Rabbit Run, several sections of which are available on YouTube. 

For this ballet, Justin asked composer and arranger to make modifications to the music so that the sections would be more adaptable to his choreographic ideas.  The final music is something along the repetitive lines of a faux-Stravinskyized, faux-Glassified haphazard go this way, go that way, go any way you want composition with big musical sounds but few melodies.  Mozart supposedly said — "music should never be painful to the ear, but should flatter and charm it" –  thank you, Mozart, but there seems to be some argument about that these days.

An important characteristic of Justin's Rabbit is that it takes several steps backward from the trend of over-reliance on the use of the Pas de Deux structure that often results in corps work being treated as filler material.  Six of the seven sections of the ballet prominently featured the corps interacting with the principals.  In particular, those sections with Ashley Bouder were truly interesting for her fierce relationship with the corps dancers:  in one early section they seemed to stalk her and in a late section they lifted her high above their heads.  Her solos celebrated what Ashley does best — fleet, slicing, space devouring allegro all wrapped up in a compelling stage presence.  Always a pleasure to watch.

In another section, the principals and corps stood in vertical lines while one person danced his way to an empty space in another line.  Another person then danced to the previous dancer's empty spot in his line.  One tended to start predicting where the next dancer would finish — like working an old time sliding puzzle.

Regrettably, the choreographic elements that drew the greatest spontaneous reactions from the audience were gymno-acrobatic type moves:  women repeatedly hurled themselves into the arms of their partners from great distance and were caught by interlocking arms; corps men repeatedly hurled the women, feet forward, sliding their bodies across the floor.  A little of that is okay, but there was a lot more than a little of it.

Joaquin De Luz's solo could almost stand independent of the rest of the ballet.  It was a furious and fabulous combination of technical wizardry of the type for which De Luz is prized, but like a lot of the choreography that was originally made on Baryshnikov, it may not transfer well to another dancer.

Robert Fairchild, a captivating leader in front of a number of corpsmen, was less so in the PdD with Teresa Reichlen.  While the two dancers were coordinated with each other, they didn't compliment one another that much.  The elements in the PdD were predictable:  you knew when Tess would lift her leg; you expected all of the supported turns and penches; the lifts were, well,  lifts.  The PdDs for Janie Taylor and Craig Hall were of the same sort of choreography and went on too long.  Haglund felt that he'd seen lots of things just like it before in other repertory.  The inventiveness and entertainment value of Justin's PdD choreography somewhat lag behind his designs for corps work and principals with corps.

At the premiere performance, Rabbit received a loud and sustained roar of approval from the audience that included many dancers and others who were especially focused on showing their appreciation to Justin.  Following the second performance on the next afternoon when the house was more the usual audience, the reception was politely enthusiastic but did not nearly match the reception of the night before. 

The main strength for this ballet is in its casting.  It's fairly hard to miss your mark when working with these brilliant dancers.  They can make anyone sit up and take notice no matter what they do; they could sell shampoo to a bald guy, as the saying goes.  Clearly, they liked what they were dancing which will tend to add a lot of value to the end product. 

We can celebrate Year of the Rabbit as a promising start.  The choreographer is in the perfect incubating environment with everything he needs to grow while still developing as a dancer:  a steady salary, many of the best dancers in the world on which to try out ideas, a nurturing boss, unparalleled facilities, the most artistic-inspiring city in the world.  Looking good, but not quite ready for high heels.