New York City Ballet's second bill in Washington was all about 21st-Century Choreographers, with works by Alexei Ratmansky, Christopher Wheeldon, Justin Peck and Peter Martins.
Tag - Adrian Danchig-Waring
Oksana Khadarina reviews the Serenade, Agon and Symphony in C bill - prepare for many happy adjectives and lots of history...
The most obvious, and pleasurable aspect of New York City Ballet's mixed bill Hear the Dance: America is its juxtaposition of two very different works by Jerome Robbins.
'Rōdē,ō: Four Dance Episodes premiere: It turns out that this combination of male vigor, Copland, and Peck is a felicitous one.
"...it’s hard not to get the impression that New York City Ballet is on a roll."
Two young NYCB choreographers have been out talking and showing what they do: Justin Peck at the Guggenheim and Troy Schumacher at the 92nd Street Y. Marina Harss on why they are so worth tracking...
Acheron, Liam Scarlett's new piece, revealed a choreographer of prodigious imagination and compositional craft, adept at building an atmosphere and suffusing it with traces of meaning.
Jeu de Cartes, by Peter Martins, is jaunty and busy, a cross between the pas de deux in Balanchine’s Rubies, the trios in Danses Concertantes, and the non-stop action of Martins’ Fearful Symmetries....
Creases revealed, once again, Just Peck’s ability to create strikingly imaginative patterns and formations onstage.
N.Y. Export: Opus Jazz is certainly not Robbins’ finest or most original work but perhaps because of its relative straightforwardness, it reveals much about what is so remarkable about this choreographer.
The festival was as intensive as ever, with three performances running on seven days, four on one day, some concurrently. The range and quality of dance overall was impressive.
Within (Labyrinth Within) is no masterpiece, but it presents exciting possibilities for contemporary ballet while avoiding the hyperextended steps and sexual clichés that muddy so much of the field.
After the dreary bombast of Alexei Ratmansky's recent Firebird for American Ballet Theatre, the Balanchine/Robbins version, with its blessedly shorter score (Stravinsky's Firebird Suite), heavenly Chagall designs and the great Ashley Bouder in one of her first great roles, was a welcome palliative.
I think it's safe to say that neither of the new works knocked the planet off its axis...