[Author’s note 6-19-20. I ran across this piece today when doing unrelated research. I chose not to publish it in 2011. I don’t recall exactly why. There’s no way it was rejected by the New York Post, it’s too long and analytical to have been written with that in mind. It would have been for danceviewtimes, if anywhere.
I’m leaving it as I found it, including my rough author’s notes. I think I remember feeling the piece would not go over well because Hall was a fan favorite and I was saying something no one wanted to hear, that his Apollo wasn’t a success.
As the title suggested, there’s also an elephant in the room that I found hard to talk about. I’ve spent more than three decades becoming an expert on ballet. I have something to say that is knowledgeable and worth your time. Conversely, I’m hesitant to write on racism, because I have little experience and less scholarship on the topic. Especially now, I would welcome a lot less uninformed opinion on just about every subject.
But nine years later, I think the piece has gained value as a record and place marker. There has been change and progress at New York City Ballet since the piece was written, almost all of it since Peter Martins resigned. And it happened much quicker than I expected. The failure of imagination I refer to in the piece was his, and the increased rate of representation once he left makes it obvious what wasn’t happening while he was there.]
* * *
Dancers’ Choice aimed to be daring this year – and it was. The capstone to the spring season, this final performance is done through the dancers’ initiative and on their own time, with even less rehearsal than usual. Usually, there’s some attempt to get the entire company onstage but this outing was much smaller scale; the only large cast piece was “Rubies” and much of the company did not dance. But for those who did, there was the promise of unconventional casting and several debuts.
It’s not unusual for there to be out of the ordinary – or even long-hoped-for casting choices. Probably the most anticipated was soloist Craig Hall getting a shot at Apollo. It conjured up a different Greek myth – Pandora’s box.
Quickly though, the other performances. The middle of the show was anchored by the pas de deux from “Agon,” with Megan LeCrone in an infrequent and welcome appearance. Partnered by Amar Ramasar in his debut, LeCrone has a fascinating astringency – she’s sharp, yet calm, with an oblique modesty and an eloquent, mysterious face from a Rogier van der Weyden painting. And every so often as she looked at Ramasar, out of nowhere there were goofy moments of happy-footed joy.
Wendy Whelan coached Christopher Wheeldon’s dark, brooding “Liturgy” and chose young corps member Sara Adams to learn her role. In a film before the performance, Whelan described Adams as clean, with lovely little feet. That’s what was onstage – Adams is a tallish, quiet dancer with long lines. She gave a clean performance, escorted by Jared Angle, who is probably the Best Prom Date Ever. Both of them have an even stage temperament, and “Liturgy” was danced in a quiet hush – what was missing were a few strange whispers.
Gretchen Smith has had a few opportunities but is still pushing to break out of the corps. She and Robert Fairchild danced a bleeding chunk ripped from Angelin Preljocaj’s “La Stravaganza” and she was compelling from her first moment onstage. The piece does not excerpt well, but Smith, wearing an unadorned beige dress as she grappled with Robert Fairchild, who wore simple 17th century garb, was able to give it an intense focus and a point of view as she leaned against him or butted her head into his chest.
Due to injury, Teresa Reichlen covered for Sara Mearns as the solo ballerina role in “Rubies.” She’s the go-to girl for the role at present, and she continues to gain personality in it. She’s toying playfully with her sex appeal, whacking her leg to the front and then lingering a moment with a smile before letting it descend.
Janie Taylor has leavened her succubus-like interpretation of the lead; there’s more humor and sparkle in her dancing. She had the same bête noire as in prior outings right before the finale; she didn’t regain her equilibrium in between two series of turns and nearly spun out of control. Sean Suozzi made his debut as her consort. He’s talented, intelligent and up against competition with more natural facility than him. His partnering isn’t rock steady (Taylor’s a handful) and it seemed like he didn’t straighten his legs once. But he’s still a daring choice that could pay off with repeated opportunity. He holds up against Taylor and has the force for the role.
A full cast of muses made debuts along with Hall in “Apollo.” The most senior was Tiler Peck, who kept things simple – the best choice for someone who could overpower the role. Lauren Lovette is being pushed forward; her promising Calliope wasn’t a surprise. Lovette’s small and long-legged – a little fidgety in her positions, but fascinating to watch her inner life onstage. Ashly Isaacs, like Adams, is a newcomer CHECK DATES. She’s a strong turner, yet a little too nervous to stick the inside pirouettes that are the bane of every Polyhymnia. Her ebullience with Lovette was endearing if contemporary rather than timeless – in the coda they were two mall rats prowling the Sephora counter for free samples.
Hall was made an apprentice in 1999 and has the natural build of Apollo: clean features, classical looks. This was supposed to be a triumph for him. It wasn’t. It was a good, but exposing performance. He’s got the weight for the part and the artistry. He doesn’t have the stamina – and possibly not the technique. He was winded early on and steps looked different enough in his execution that the choreography looked changed. There was instability as an artistic choice of constant motion – but also he was just unstable.
Life isn’t fair. He shouldn’t have gone from doing little most of the season to getting a single shot at a defining role on the last day. Some of that decision was just the way things are at the company. He’s not top dog, and the great fiction of American ballet is that competition is based on talent. Even in the audience we’re trained to believe that what we watch is a product of artistic Darwinism – and to cherish the results.
You could see it as going no further than that: no different than any other dancer on that stage who got – or didn’t get – a fair shake. Maybe it isn’t. But Hall’s performance – both its successes and its shortcomings – and his entire marginalized career, conjure up yet again the most uncomfortable question about NYCB: why a company so essential to the city’s cultural history, patrimony and bloodstream is so white at its core.
Black male dancers have at least always been represented in the company, but with the major exception of trailblazer Arthur Mitchell, they’re cast in leading roles as exotics, not princes. Black women are rarer. Since I started watching the company in the 1980s, I can think of Cynthia Lochard, Andrea Long and Aesha Ash. Asian women are even rarer. Lara Tong, who recently joined the company, is the first one I recall. This is over nearly three decades in a company with at 85-100 dancers at any point. Discrimination isn’t always conscious bigotry. Sometimes it’s just simple math.
The most organic and obvious solution begins at the School of American Ballet – but at the crucial moment when hiring, diversity has to be a factor. It’s not going to happen on its own – over three decades there’s been no change. One look at American Ballet Theatre or San Francisco Ballet tells you that lack of suitable talent is not a plausible excuse.
The problem has never seemed to be animus. It’s a failure of imagination. Why wasn’t Hall given a shot at Apollo years ago when it would have made more sense? Did no one see him as suitable? One can imagine Martins’ reasoning – Hall needed extra work, and he had other dancers more capable of doing the steps. Chase Finlay made his debut as Apollo this season coached by Richard Tanner and Martins – and Hall had the same coaches. Finlay’s was a stronger debut. You can move backwards in time and make the same reasonable arguments about Ash and Long. There was always someone a little better.
And yet.
There’s a great Apollo inside Hall just as surely as inside Finlay. It just takes more work to bring it out. Isn’t that why the Artistic Director of one of the best ballet companies in the world has his job? Not only to utilize the talent in front of his nose, but to develop and nurture talent – the Halls and the Suozzis – where others might not have seen it? Isn’t it an Artistic Director’s job to envision a company that reflects the beauty, energy – and diversity – of the city that supports it? Or is casting always to be the path of least resistance?
copyright © 2020 by Leigh Witchel (Last edited 6-20-2011)
“Dancer’s Choice” – New York City Ballet
Lincoln Center, New York, NY
June, 2011
Cover: Tiler Peck and Craig Hall in “Apollo.”
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