by Leigh Witchel
Welcome to New York City Ballet’s favorite game show, Promote or Kill, where the company gives a promising dancer a zillion new parts until they either go up a rank or get injured! Two performances of the Balanchine/Evans/Martins/Robbins quadruple bill showed the ballets coming into focus, as well as the main candidates for Promote or Kill. Let’s see who the contestants are this season.
Alexa Maxwell seemed to be the front runner. From a slow trajectory for several years, her rise has ramped up to the asymptote. Among several other debuts, she gave her first performance as the girl with the fuzzy hat in The Concert. Maxwell approached the comedy like an actress, through preparation as well as presence. She didn’t wing it like Mira Nadon, but it worked just as well.
Maxwell’s performance was funny, studded with little details that she further refined when she did the part again. When Rommie Tomasini literally took her chair out from under her, Maxwell gradually realized something was amiss, looking under the piano first as she held on to it. When she saw the other woman wearing her glorious fuzzy hat, she slumped away flatfooted, but flying in later supported in a lift, she passed the woman and noticed she still was wearing her hat.
With Spartak Hoxha out, David Gabriel did Hoxha’s turns as well as his own as the shy, terrified nerd. This time, the “Me Tarzan” moment happened onstage instead of in the wings, and Maxwell wisely handled it as slapstick, wibble-wobbling on pointe before collapsing. That’s the best way to handle the jokes in The Concert.
Mary Elizabeth Sell also made a debut as the wife. Rather than a harridan, she played her more as an arriviste, intent on making a good impression, and politely seething when Harrison Coll fouled that up. Coll managed to be funny and dance a bit more than the folks we usually see do the part, zestily flapping one arm, newspaper under the other when he followed Maxwell. The Hungarian dance was the only off-note for Maxwell and Coll. Maxwell did this realistically, getting a bit upset when Coll copped a feel. For gags that haven’t aged well, it works best to make the reaction ridiculous rather than realistic, and take advantage of doing the same thing to him on the next phrase to even out the score.
Alec Knight seems to be another contestant on Promote or Kill. He danced In a Landscape with Dominika Afanasenkov, a potential entrant in a few seasons. Like her alternate, Ava Sautter, she’s tall and long, but when she entered, she seemed to hold her arm out straighter, as if she were an architectural detail in a formal garden.
Afanasenkov has a youthful, unaffected glow, long, beautiful feet and a dreamy stage presence. She and Knight paired well and partnered so that you noticed less emotion and more physical harmony. They fit one another hand in a glove as she floated and revolved in his hands.
On the 29th, the glider that brought her on seemed to need oiling, but the dancers remained cool and unperturbed. Like John Cage’s music, the duet has a contemplative quality, so the shapes in the slow lifts, promenades and falls reinforced the effect of watching moving sculpture from a distance.
It’s amazing how much good casting can do for a work. At its first outing this season, Hallelujah Junction gave the impression most of Peter Martins’ work does: a competent but sterile exhibition of the dancers’ skills. The happenstance trio of Taylor Stanley, Lauren Collett and Gabriel (Stanley had to go in for the injured Aarón Sanz) made a strong, surprising showing: They made the piece look good.
Stanley will make anything elegant. Here, it was plastique added to Martins’ turned-in poses. Collett has been getting parts, but this is a big one and she made an impression. She’s long, almost lanky, but she was strong enough to stay in full control on the windmilling arms and turns to open positions. Flicking her leg, she was animated but still elegant, hitting and suspending the balances to the side that were a motif.
Stanley and Collett set each other off beautifully. They’re a good height match and had a similar calm. She had a delicate warmth as she draped vulnerably over Stanley. There was a moment where thay couldn’t control Collett’s momentum but she would have noticed that more than us.
This was a good cast at all levels, making it as stylish as a Martins ballet gets. The casting of the four ensemble couples remained constant, Victor Abreu and Alston Macgill went from sharp pops into slow, jazzy drifts. Andres Zuniga and Nieve Corrigan whirled again through chaînés to spin out as Mary Thomas MacKinnon and Kennard Henson spun on. Jules Mabie and Jacqueline Bologna pushed and arched before everyone returned.
Gabriel looks as if he’s being groomed to compete on Promote or Kill. He’s a whippet, not tall but long, with a strong jump and beautiful, intensely accurate turns.
On the 29th, KJ Takahashi went into this cast instead of Gabriel. Takahashi was technically unimpeachable; his brisé volés so precise about widening the legs before the beat to make them clearer. But he finished an amazing series of fouettés with a flourish, yet didn’t invite applause. He has a similar challenge as a performer as Anthony Huxley, whose stage presence is also reserved. Still, Martins’ ballets are not a bad place for a cool dancer.
On the 18th, Ballo della Regina was led by two previous champions of Promote or Kill, Joseph Gordon and Megan Fairchild. Fairchild took Tiler Peck’s performances as well as her own, and was more fizzy than on her first outing. She did the series of attitude turns like snapshots and then nailed them again without it seeming as if she were working. There was a momentary hiccup when Gordon supported her with an arm overhead that nearly threw her back, but mostly she was freer and more expansive with him than with Huxley.
If you’ve been watching NYCB for a while, watching Gordon is like watching Damian Woetzel. Gordon takes risks and though he’s got plenty of technique, he’s precipitous rather than precise. He has beautiful ballon, and sprung up with his legs flying apart in beats. In the coda, he sailed in, flew up, then nearly bought the farm in a tour. Yet it was somehow OK. He’s half virtuosity, half swagger, but he’s developed the skill of taking us with him.
Takahashi likely went into Hallelujah on the 29th to give Gabriel a shot at a major new role: he and Emma Von Enck went into the leads of Ballo. They were given a matinee for students a few days prior to this performance to get their sea legs: Promote or Kill with a smidgen of kindness.
This is a big deal for Gabriel, who only joined the company in 2022. The part is built for someone good at beats and pirouettes, and he did a series of turns to more turns that he nailed, one after another. When he strode forward in the coda . . . BOING! Straight up in the air. The only thing that seemed not fully there was a generous split jeté.
Gabriel is callow, and this could change, but right now he doesn’t seem destined either for the explosive panache of Gordon, or the brilliant reserve of Huxley. Right now, he has the look, and the virtuosity, but with a wildcat, impetuous poetry. Hopefully when Jewels returns, we’ll see him in the Emeralds pas de trois.
Watching Von Enck was like watching the quickest, most nimble hummingbird, but where you remembered a heron. When she hit a balance . . . BOOM. She was on. Her bourrées skimmed to a flash-photo pose. But she seemed to be trying to do the partnering herself, and when she arched back in Gabriel’s arms, you finally saw the expansion she needed.
Her variation had more play, but her technical precision came with a cost. She did every treacherous arabesque turn at tempo but they felt broken into components: arabesque then plié, just as she portioned the tongue-twister phrase into neat triplets.
The danger of the virtuoso is the difficulty they have following the advice Alexandra Danilova gave (and Merrill Ashley recounted in her book Dancing for Balanchine). Make it look difficult, make them think it’s hard. For wunderkinds that’s not as simple as it sounds. You can do the hardest step in the universe effortlessly, but then half the audience won’t even notice it.
The four soloists all made debuts, Baily Jones made the first variation a creamy waltz. Meaghan Dutton-O’Hara in the final one was clean and precise, India Bradley had the jump for the third. MacKinnon, in the second, was sharp, a huge mover and vibrant. Your eye went right to her the moment she came onstage. It’s a gift, that kind of hunger for performing isn’t a quality that can be taught.
Ballo, premiered in 1978 right before Balanchine’s 74th birthday, was, even at the late age, a breath of fresh air for the choreographer, a playful exercise inspired by Ashley, who coached the performances. Tall and rangy, Ashley had a matter-of-fact presence onstage. Her accurate delivery and impressive competence made her sometimes seem like the world’s best student.
Balanchine turned her into a wit via the paradox of a long-legged woman speeding like lightning on the stage. That quality has not been preserved in casting; the role almost immediately went to shorter dancers who were more comfortable with the speed, but removed the frisson.
Miranda Weese and Ashley Bouder, neither tall, still brought something back to the ballet, Weese with her incisive timing and Bouder with her take-no-prisoners personality. But more needs to be brought to the table than the ability to do the steps. If there’s a current dancer who might bring some of Ashley’s qualities back to the ballet, why not Isabella LaFreniere? She’s been a conundrum in casting, but Ashley’s roles might very well suit her.
Promote or Kill doesn’t always result in one or the other. Last year, it looked as if Ashley Laracey finally got her turn to play, but neither happened. Let’s hope for the current contestants, some of them wind up with the former, and none of them with the latter.
copyright © 2024 by Leigh Witchel
Ballo Della Regina, In a Landscape, Hallelujah Junction, The Concert – New York City Ballet
Lincoln Center, New York, NY
February 18, 29 2024
Cover: Alexa Maxwell in The Concert. Photo © Erin Baiano.
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