by Leigh Witchel
The last repertory show at New York City Ballet before a run of A Midsummer Night’s Dream still brought a few surprises. A different cast of Interplay got another shot. The same for Year of the Rabbit, but there was also a guest appearance was from some folks across the plaza, Gillian Murphy and Aran Bell.
Other Dances has had guests before, but that makes sense. It wasn’t originally created for NYCB, but in 1976 for a benefit for the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts. The original couple was Natalia Makarova and Mikhail Baryshnikov, so who better than two dancers from American Ballet Theatre?
Like most showpiece duets, there’s room for the couple to do it their way, but seeing it here made it more apparent what house style looks like there. Murphy approached the entrée with scoopy hands (none of the splayed fingers you might see at NYCB for her) and a dreamy demeanor, with her gaze high, taking deep, rapturous breaths.
Bell is maturing like other tall principal dancers such as Sean Lavery or Charles Askegard, filling out and gaining strength. He’s an excellent partner. He can haul when needed; Murphy went right overhead on lifts. He was also very solicitous, always echoing Murphy’s line or completing it with his hand.
One of the noticeable differences in ABT and NYCB house style was how much Murphy and Bell emphasized politeness in the duet. They bowed to pianist Elaine Chelton before she began to play, then to each other as they entered or exited. It became very noticeable, as if the greetings were part of the choreography, but after a while felt like studied convention rather than organic politeness.
Bell has solid technique. Pyrotechnics are a much bigger fight at his height, but he still did three double saut de basques in a row without a hitch. He was also lightly funny at the joke in his solo where he lost his spot, but the real beauty was in his long leg lines.
Murphy did most of the dance with her upper body, really emphasizing the arch of her back when she bent, which marked her immediately as not being from around these parts.
A lovely novelty for the NYCB audience to see the difference in accent. Murphy put her hands to her heart in “rapture” on the last pose. That’s an echo of how ballerinas at ABT usually bow. They tend to use bows as an emotional “I’m overwhelmed” moment, and even in that little gesture, you saw how much convention and artifice is in things we take for granted.
Gustave le Gray No. 1 had the same cast as earlier in the season, but it was still a pleasant surprise how well it paired with Other Dances. Pianist Stephen Gosling, seemingly out of nowhere in Caroline Shaw’s poignant but odd score, quoted the opening notes of the Chopin Chelton just played a few minutes prior, and one of the four women came forward in an elongated lunge that was a distant echo of Other Dances.
Gustave has been cast with different genders, but always tall and leggy dancers. Casting it with four tall women gave it a striking look: postmodernism, only for models. Ruby Lister seemed to have been tapped to dance in most modern works. Naomi Corti as well. Is NYCB becoming like Paris Opera Ballet where the company informally has classical and contemporary wings?
Much of Tanowitz’ work has an odd tenacity, as if the dancers were indicating that they were going to keep doing battements and this chord is going to keep repeating until it doesn’t. But, like Cunningham’s work, Gustave also has an oblique serenity in its compulsions. Still, Tanowitz has gotten into the groove here of applying this philosophy to ballet dancers. Gustave is made with ballet vocabulary but post-modern structure. The dancers needed to adapt to the mindset, but not change their training.
As the score crashed into dissonance, the barrier between the stage and the audience was diminished. Lighting designer Mark Stanley put a red glow on the proscenium, then brought the house lights in the theater up from darkness to half. The breaking of conventions is so much Tanowitz’ calling card that it should have lost its surprise, but well-crafted enough that it stayed bracing through repeated viewings. Also Gustave is short enough that the most parochial audience member should be able to sit through it. A final repeat of the Chopin quote ended the work like a period.
A group of new young women went into Interplay, led by Lauren Collett, who did the main duet with another new addition, Jules Mabie. The two had a callow, unaffected quality. Collett asked KJ Takahashi to dance before coming to Mabie. Mabie is tall and a strong partner, and Collett used her carriage, doing full port de bras, pulling them long.
Among the men, Andres Zuniga led the first movement with impetuous technique. You could see him push to start a turn. When the group came to a line in the front, he was there with an expectant, tense energy that recalled Edwin Denby’s quote describing a man in Agon: “a New York Latin in a leather jacket.”
The cast looked great in the first three movements, Olivia Bell pulled way off her leg, but could still control it in a developpé and Takahashi buzzed through multiple turns with clean finishes. But the final movement, where the men competed, adding an air turn more than the last guy, went south. It gave the men trouble earlier in the season and looks as if it only got worse in the interim. This time, instead of Zuniga doing the first tour, he did an entrechat six so Takahashi only had to do three air turns instead of four, but he barely made three. It felt like a psych-out; Takahashi seems like a natural turner; his axis was correct everywhere else. As a teacher back in the dark ages said to me as I struggled through one double air turn, not four, “tours are very emotional.”
A largely new cast also led Year of the Rabbit. Casting showed that the company is interested in Rommie Tomasini; she’s been getting parts, and she’s handled them. She did the opening movement odd-girl-out solo, and there was a fascinating tilted quality to the opening. When the curtain rose, Tomasini was angled way back on her leg facing the corps in lines. The corps had its heads to one side or the other to slot in and fit.
Emily Kikta felt as if she appeared from nowhere to the front, dancing with Gilbert Bolden III. His movement was extravagant, swinging into the transitions between turns from a single preparation. David Gabriel danced a solo with catlike, flickering feet before a seamless transition back to Kikta and Bolden.
When Peck introduced an early motif, the men sliding the women laterally, he started with the soloists, then incorporated the corps, then amplified it into all the ensemble men throwing the women into a slide that traveled. Year of the Rabbit is a classic first ballet at NYCB for someone who’s ambitious. If you want to get a second commission, you have to bust out of the gate and your work had better be ingenious. Rabbit had all of the signs.
Tomasini swooned into Preston Chamblee’s embrace, and ended their section jumping into his arms carried into the wings. The most cryptic moment in the ballet happened when Kikta and Bolden reacted to a change in Sufjan Stevens’ tuneful score as if they were threatened. Just about every choreographer at NYCB plays mood swing games – if the music changes, so does the way the ballet feels whether it makes dramatic sense or not – but this one still felt as if it came out of nowhere and went the same way.
The work moved into a luminous duet for Sara Adams and Chamblee. We saw too little of Adams, but her appearances this season were small, precious jewels. She has a delicate, vulnerable quality in adagio, and a rare magic that you can’t teach. She could do Alexandra Ansanelli’s part in Polyphonia, she had the same gossamer magic in the adagio with Chamblee.
Gabriel, along with Alec Knight and Mabie, were promoted to soloist at the season’s close. None of that came out of the blue; with the exception of Mabie, who got roles but wasn’t inundated, it was Promote or Kill in action. When Gabriel was briefly out, Zuniga was under the microscope. The company seems to be looking at Tomasini and Olivia Bell. For the dancers’ sake, let’s hope it’s not ADHD.
Over the 75th anniversary season, we’ve watched some hard-working, very capable women who were being pushed to be ballerinas. And with coaching, some of them have managed ballerina level performances. But we also saw Ashley Laracey, who was the MVP the whole fall season, going into one role after another because they needed her, and instead of falling apart, growing as a technician and an artist. And we saw Adams, who had a delicate aura every time she steps out onstage, yet those appearances are rare. Perhaps the rarity makes it more special, but wouldn’t it be lovely for morale if all the company’s dancers knew they had a shot to blossom, even later in their careers? Wouldn’t it be lovely for us if these talented women got to live up to their potential?
copyright © 2024 by Leigh Witchel
Interplay, Other Dances, Gustave le Gray No. 1, Year of the Rabbit – New York City Ballet
Lincoln Center, New York, NY
May 26, 2024
Cover: Aran Bell and Gillian Murphy in Other Dances. Photo © Erin Baiano.
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