by Leigh Witchel
American Ballet Theatre programmed two new works on a mixed bill program. One underpromised and overdelivered. The other did the opposite.
“Lifted,” by Christopher Rudd, was much touted as an all-Black production from choreographer to dancers to conductor. Rudd was trained in ballet and performed with Carolina Ballet, Les Grands Ballet Canadiens de Montréal, and Cirque Du Soleil. Both he and the dramaturg he collaborated with, Phaedra Scott, credit art and activism equally in their bios.
The work began in darkness and smoke. The décor was large, movable mirrored panels designed by Rudd. Calvin Royal III curled in a fetal position in a corner created by two of them, reaching and stretching to Carlos Simon’s rich, plangent music.
Royal was joined first by Erica Lall, then the rest of the cast, Courtney Lavine, Melvin Lawovi, Jose Sebastian. The women hovered over him in arabesques. After standing against the mirror, the other two men threw around the women. The piece relied on mood and suggestion more than narrative, though a dramaturg was credited. Occasionally there were clear markers; Royal was against the mirror before what sounded like a gunshot led into an anguished solo.
There were some good choreographic devices: the mirrors both recalled Alex Katz’s similar concept for Paul Taylor in “Last Look,” but it produced a different effect. The kaleidoscope of images created when Royal leaned into a corner produced a quartet or more of images, making it seem as if he were interacting with a group. It also added a mystery as he reached and recoiled at his reflection, or his friends moved a mirror so it nearly entrapped him. Who was the antagonist?
The mirrors were also moved into a configuration that made what was happening on the full stage impossible to see except if you were facing the stage head on. That was interesting in the same way it was in Taylor’s “Private Domain.” But Rudd also seemed to be using the mirror to bulk up the ballet, to let its reflections aid five dancers in filling the stage.
Rudd used the dancers’ technique effectively and showed off what they could do, sticking to ballet rather than using them non-classically, but the work relied more on message than on construction or composition. The two other men met and began by pushing and fighting but decided to be friends, which was painted with the most simplistic brush possible: a shove, and a hand clasp. Later on, the cast stared into a pool created by a mirrored area of the floor at downstage right. After agonizing, they held hands and jumped in. The images in “Lifted” were either maudlin or doggedly uplifting.
The cast left the pool one by one and walked forward, tensely reaching up and out. The mirror threatened to close in on Royal but he escaped it, and the piece closed by the quintet gathering, holding hands by the pool. The relentless messaging of the piece in favor of making a more emotionally complicated work felt like watching a work from the pre-Robert Battle Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater dropped into ABT’s repertory.
The idea of representation is essential in a way that’s hard to get if you feel represented, and creating an all-Black production inside of a company that isn’t Afrocentric is going to feel meaningful to some and provoke questions in others. The results were sincere and heartfelt, but also simplistic and predictable.
Rather like saying war is bad or we need to protect the environment: besides general agreement there wasn’t any more to work with than any other catechism. You didn’t leave “Lifted” with your intellect engaged, or your perceptions challenged. Even the concept of Black Excellence wasn’t well-served. You barely saw the dancers as more than cardboard cutouts, issues rather than humans. They would have excelled more in a better work.
There’s a bigger and more fraught discussion: about heartfelt motivations and reactions versus dutiful ones, about how to engage with art that stakes out an unarguable stance, about the demands you place on art by making it all Black, all Jewish, all trans, all gay, all Vulcan or what have you. “Lifted” felt aimed at a particular audience, which is its prerogative, as it is the prerogative of those not in that target to react to it from where they live. Unfortunately, there wasn’t much satisfaction for those looking for choreography rather than a consciousness-raising session.
“Sinfonietta” didn’t have any issues with expectations. It’s a known quantity created in 1978 and done by ABT since 1991. It’s classic Jiří Kylián to the eponymous score by Leoš Janáček. The dance played out in front of a vast green plain designed by Walter Nobbe, but the most dramatic effect was the 12 brass players lined up, six on each side of the stage beyond the proscenium, to play the opening and closing fanfares of the score.
Like the plain it’s set in front of, the work is about space. Eric Tamm leapt out in a split jeté to open the work; then all the men came soaring in. The ballet is filled with those open, ground-covering jumps that echo the spaciousness of Janáček’s musical phrases.
After the men raced off, the orchestra in the pit took over from the brass ensemble and the work became more intimate. Couples came on and off; and we could see that Kylián’s vocabulary had formed by then: a man barring the woman from walking past with an outstretched arm. A woman got picked up in a parallel position and set down with skittering feet. Side jumps were done with the legs and arms forming an X with the body – all building blocks of his dances.
From couples, the work moved into trios and a slower, more pastoral quartet. The two couples crumpled into a pile that echoed “Les Noces.” The horn fanfare returned for the final movement. At first Kylián repeated his opening, but then amplified it. The women came out to join the men streaking across the space.
The effect of “Sinfonietta” was a breathless rush of leaping and racing, and of an ensemble mass rather than individual dancers. There was space in the dance, but less place. It happened on a green plain, somewhere. Robbins would have turned it into Czechoslovakia. Kylián didn’t need to.
Jessica Lang’s “Childresn’s Song Dance,” made to piano selections from Chick Corea’s “Children’s Songs,” was commissioned by ABT’s studio company last year, moved to the regular company this year, as did most of its current cast, who danced it originally.
The piece was commissioned while Corea was still alive, his death from cancer and the pandemic delayed its premiere, but it was performed during the summer outdoors at Lincoln Center, and now it’s been moved to a main stage.
It’s a work of modest means. There’s a pianist at the back of the stage, the seven dancers in simple costumes and that’s it. The costumes got an upgrade for the main company production, but Lang, who usually produces her ballets more elaborately, had no props or design elements.
As simple as it was, there was a reason it got transferred. It’s a solid work, intelligently and ingeniously constructed. Lang used that simplicity to create the work’s atmosphere. It began with the cast of seven all facing upstage on a diagonal, then swaying side to side as they circled the stage. The informal movement gave the piece a loose and intimate feeling.
Lang chose excerpts from Corea’s cycle, so the piece was a jukebox, but one she stitched together with transitions. That can suture the piece without actually holding it together, but every time the ballet seemed in danger of that, Lang managed to make it cohere.
After one section, a trio walked down a diagonal with their arms en haut, stepping over Tristan Brosnan, who began a solo. As inventive but precious a device that was, the arm motif returned in the middle of the section and got used as more than decoration. Every time you wanted more, she managed to provide it.
Lang also delivered the laundry list of ballet virtuosity: tricky jumps, turns and partnering that couldn’t have hurt these dancers’ chances at getting into the main company. Yoon Jung Seo ripped around in turns; later on she did a fleet duo with SunMi Park. Elwince Magbitang had a solo that foreshadowed the pyrotechnical roles he would later do in the main company.
There were several memorable images: three men formed a totemic structure, all racing and pointing at Cy Doherty. In a duet for Park and Brosnan, she sent him offstage by crawling head to head with him.
The piece worked to a flashy finale with all the dancers spinning into repeated jumps, their legs flying to the side. To close, Magbitang streaked across the stage as the rest formed a group heading skywards.
“Children’s Songs Dance” went by quickly. Lang has had a good streak; her recent works, both for ABT and Sarasota Ballet have been memorable and well-crafted. Because her craft was strong, she delivered more with less.
copyright © 2022 by Leigh Witchel
“Children’s Songs Dance,” “Lifted,” “Sinfonietta” – American Ballet Theatre
Lincoln Center, New York, NY
October 28, 2022
Cover: American Ballet Theatre in “Lifted.” Photo credit © Rosalie O’Connor.
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