by Leigh Witchel
Once upon a time, there were three ballets. Each lived in the Visionary Voices program at New York City Ballet. The first ballet was all entertainment, with very little concept. The second ballet was all concept, and very little entertainment. And the third ballet was just right.
Jamar Roberts’ new “Emanon – In Two Movements” turned out to be much lighter in mood than his “Holding Space” for his own company, Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater.
The music, from an eponymous album by jazz saxophonist Wayne Shorter at first recalled Gershwin, but as it went on, it had many moods, a lot of them Easy Listening. Unity Phelan entered into a space created by Brandon Stirling Baker’s lighting. The upper part of the stage was black, a sliver a bit taller than human height was lit by a pale glow.
Roberts wasn’t trying to import movement into ballet. His steps for Phelan – neat walks on point, extensions, balances – for the whole work in fact, were clean, fluid and showed a command of ballet vocabulary. The ease of the long solo felt like speech, but it wasn’t a monologue: there wasn’t a point. It was bright chatter, and she ran off at the end. Emily Kikta came out and meandered with Peter Walker through a chipper duet. It wasn’t clear what Roberts was getting at beyond a showpiece.
Some of this may just be a difference in culture between Ailey, which is a dancer-centric company and NYCB, which still acts as if it’s choreographer-centric. Roberts gave the dancers something that they can sell, but not much else. Kikta and Walker’s duet was supposed to be a flirtatious relationship, but mostly it was amiable but not meaningful steps. Indiana Woodward replaced them to do balance after turn after beat after port de bras. Then out came Jovani Furlan and Emma von Enck. The bright chatter was starting to grate; without a purpose it felt like compulsive taking.
The stage darkened for a second movement and a change of mood. To wailing saxophones, Jonathan Fahoury wandered about as if punch drunk – moving note for step. Anthony Huxley led a showy trio backed up by von Enck and Woodward, but even that was largely in unison. They walked round to pose in tendu, then curled around to run off, and Kikta and Phelan danced, then Furlan. Then a quartet for the women. In unison. The men joined them and the quartet became a dance for four couples. In unison.
By this point it was starting to feel as if the pandemic had forced Roberts to only rehearse with one person at a time. He wasn’t choreographing by the idea, but by the yard.
A solo for Huxley did show off how beautifully he connects movement. He left and the rest of the cast came in for the finale, and guess what? It was in unison. When Huxley returned to complete the full cast the dance finally had some kind of layering and counterpoint but that was late in the game. The cast soon faced us and stopped for a non-ending.
It felt as if “Emanon” came from a desire to explore New York City Ballet’s neoclassical tradition, and its traps are ones that almost every choreographer who tried to follow Balanchine in making neoclassical ballets has fallen into. Balanchine’s ballets only look as if they’re just steps. “Emanon” was so unambitious conceptually that Roberts’ skill in making movement wasn’t going to make up for that.
Pam Tanowitz’ “Bartók Ballet” was the temperamental opposite of “Emanon,” almost all structure, form and concept to the point where it seemed more of an intellectual exercise than a performance piece.
Two years on, the dancers have figured out how to make the piece work by largely dancing through the music (still played live by the FLUX Quartet) but to the movement phrase. This moved the work’s timing from their ears to their bodies.
The dance started with Kikta and Woodward standing next to one another onstage, posing for us and pumping their feet into ripe banana curves. It was that look from photos of Balanchine surrounded by women in the ’60s, They raced through an almost competitive duet.
It seemed this time there was less deconstruction of Balanchine and NYCB than the folk origins of much of Bartók’s work, and ballet’s response to folk music: character dance. A big group started to do a sort of czárdás. Then everyone exchanged places with a mazurka step and a tap on the shoulder – a character deconstruction of Duck, Duck, Goose.
Woodward counted down a finale, again with folk steps but also her upraised fingers. It led into an adagio movement where every expectation of a central duet was upended. Instead, Tanowitz set small groups of dancers moving slowly in isolation – one or two at the back or the sides. Towards the end Miriam Miller walked past the proscenium to the apron and held on to a side wall while she dipped and stretched. The music paused to transition into a new movement, but the dancing continued.
Another new movement began with an extended solo for Woodward with as many beats and turns as Tanowitz could cram in. The others formed gates for her exits and entries. Folks hopped with one leg bent, then headed into a finale that seemed like another – purposefully crazed – folk dance. An arm raise and the ballet was over.
The most fun part happened around the middle of the ballet: a snaking step across the stage from front to back that each dancer began like a mechanical duck in a shooting gallery. But like a persistent argument with two Dixie cups and a string, each dancer did the phrase differently, as if no one could decide what is was, or how it actually went. Did the head tilt awkwardly to the left, or awkwardly to the right?
With so much to parse and very little in it meant to entertain, “Bartók Ballet” was tiring. For all the deconstruction and intellectual conceits, it remained opaque about its point and purposes – your guess is as good as mine.
Kyle Abraham’s “The Runaway” got the balance between concept and entertainment just right. The piece is a dance; there’s plenty of humor, no preaching and little overt commentary. But it has a variety of moods, and an overarching point of view baked right into the sensibility of the work.
The opening solo for Taylor Stanley was a tour de force, what’s doubly impressive is this solo of posing, balancing and shivering to solo piano is for the same person who danced “Sonatine.” The link is in how he connects a phrase.
The costumes, by Giles Deacon are a attention-getting mix of graphics and silhouettes, some of which reshaped the body, while others exposed it. They’re both fashion and urban, and after three years, they haven’t lost their éclat. Sara Mearns and Gina Pazcoguin came out in thick pigtail wigs that looked like black raffia. They stalked in tandem like two sisters who didn’t exactly like one another. Megan LeCrone backed on to the stage in tiers of black ruffles, like a lacquered lady shopping on Fifth Avenue. She made leggy poses and dipped low like a stork, but then cartwheeled off to exit.
Sebastían Villarini-Velez and Roman Mejia wore less: short shorts, no shirts and black neck ruffs. They did a buddy-competition duo, then Stanley came on solo, preening. He moved from brisé to breaking to gargouillade to a runway sashay. Yet the multitudes were contained. Abraham said volumes about two styles of masculine dancing: one where energy and force are the priorities, the other most concerned with line and shape. I’d posit that the division line is more often than not straight versus gay.
Deacon rolled out another tour de force costume: Walker wore an enormous stand-up collar that completely concealed his head in what looked like palm tree fronds. He changed out of it to something less restrictive; there was an intelligent balance of costumes affecting the shape of the body and the body being unencumbered so the choreography could be seen.
The three women came out and Pazcoguin served bitch realness; slowly stealing focus to remove her skirt, while Mearns was Not. Having. It. A group dance followed, but one with three separate voices in it. Yet it was still easy to look at even with texture. By the time you realized that Mearns was being used as part of an ensemble she started to tear through a manège of piqué turns at an insane speed and sure enough, milked an ovation. In her universe especially, there are no ensemble parts.
Mejia did a short, show-stopping rip through petit allegro, to rap by Kanye West. The juxtaposition of two types of male virtuoso showing-off worked. Abraham may have been daring but didn’t make any false moves. He brought his A-Game to this commission. The music drifted to a mournful song by James Blake and the dancers linked for a line of slow tendus. They left or disconnected from Stanley as he did a final solo of revolving arabesques that ended in a crumple as the curtain fell.
It’s no easy task to make a durable commission for New York City Ballet. Every choreographer needs to find the sweet spot between how they think and move and how the company does. That takes extra time. Roberts seemed to try to do what the company does; Tanowitz more stuck with her brand. Abraham found a meeting point where everyone got something from the encounter.
copyright © 2022 by Leigh Witchel
“Emanon – In Two Movements” “Bartók Ballet,” “The Runaway” – New York City Ballet
Lincoln Center, New York, NY
February 22, 2022
Cover: New York City Ballet in “Emanon – In Two Movements.” Photo credit © Erin Baiano.
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