by Leigh Witchel
Not every Balanchine ballet was his best, and even his best don’t all look interchangeably great together. The “Masters at Work: Balanchine & Robbins II” program at New York City Ballet consisted of four lighter-toned ballets and could have used some contrast. Still, among the Balanchine, “Afternoon of a Faun” was nestled in, and offered a promising debut.
Dominika Afanasenkov became an apprentice at the beginning of last year and was only brought into the company proper last November. The role of the young girl in “Afternoon of a Faun” requires more presence than technical ability, but Afanasenkov didn’t seem lacking in either. She’s tall and long; with her pale skin and straight blond hair, she vaguely recalled Ivanka Trump.
Christopher Grant kept the narcissism possible in the role of the young boy in check. He stared at himself in the mirror not as if he were infatuated with his reflection, but evaluating it, as a dancer would. He was also an echo of one of the original inspirations for the role, Louis Johnson.
Afanasenkov’s propriety with Grant felt like another distant echo: of Arthur Mitchell and Diana Adams in “Agon.” But the casting didn’t just have echoes, it had precedents – and a history lesson, if you chose to dig. Afanasenkov’s dynamic with Grant of it looped back not just to Johnson and LeClercq, or Mitchell, who danced the duet with Kay Mazzo, but in 1958 when Robbins toured Ballets: USA, he cast John Jones with Wilma Curley.
Grant wiped his mouth, and did the final arch carefully, trying to get the implications without doing a grind. But after he kissed Afanasenkov, she put her hand to her face with as much neutrality as she could muster, as if trying to straighten things up. You could see Ivanka Trump doing that.
“Square Dance” started out very sharp, with the corps all doing the opening emboîtés, the little kicks to the front, with a punctuated rhythm – 1, 2, 3 and show! – as as if that were the point. When Taylor Stanley entered, he did the timing but without the sharpness, or the tense quality that punching the timing and poses gives the work. That kind of insistent demonstration is less punctilious and more of a tic.
It’s old news that Erica Pereira is a different dancer than she was under Peter Martins’ direction, but “Square Dance” pointed it out anew. She gave a relaxed performance and led the women’s dance with fizz, accenting the gargouillade slightly outwards as if it were carbonating the phrase. On the other hand, Stanley foreshadowed the serious mood of his solo when he led the men’s dance before it. As always, his phrasing was sustained beautifully in adagio, with arms that never stopped and a pliant back. But it did hint at limits in stamina, by the end of the solo when he had to turn, he was a little jelly-legged.
Pereira shot out with explosive Russian pas de chats, and danced the coda with happy eccentricity, flicking her turned-in leg out in front of her. Her slightness worked to her advantage; the turned-in poses in the women’s dance that can look fey if they’re done with too much emphasis didn’t look like overkill on her.
“Square Dance” gives plum roles to 12 of the strongest corps dancers. There’s tons of dancing and the corps does what the principals do, the women doing gargouillades right behind and immediately after the ballerina. “Haieff Divertimento” is even more so, with small but choice solos for the four couples in the ensemble.
Indiana Woodward and Harrison Ball, who retired a week later, gave a polished performance; Woodward downplayed the callowness that seemed overdone last season and her solo adagio went by in a flash. The two did make a big deal of a moment in their pas de deux when they reach past one another with blinking fingers. As in “Square Dance,” if you hammer a moment, it gets tense. Knowing Balanchine even a little, wouldn’t that have been more of a design than The Point? Things seemed more on tone at the end. When she left Ball, Woodward made it more of a flirt, and he made his reach after her more of a pose than a mood. That felt right.
It used to be much less unusual for an NYCB principal to do two leads back to back, but Woodward had to pinch hit in “Donizetti Variations” for Megan Fairchild. The company is short on senior dancers, and we’re seeing the inevitable wear and tear on them. Ashley Bouder is rarely on stage, but also Sara Mearns and Tiler Peck can’t carry the workload they once did. Ball only made principal last year; now he’s retired, as is Georgina Pazcoguin at the soloist level. This will put pressure on the newer principals.
Fortunately, Woodward and Huxley work well together. They looked at ease in their duet, and again, old news but still striking, Huxley has really opened up as a performer.
“Donizetti Variations” ballet is a technical showcase, but the ballerina’s tricks, intricate turns, tilts and direction changes, were easy for Woodward. Huxley’s part was also about more. Everything is in a series: multiple air turns, whizzing turns with his leg to the side, and repeated pirouettes from a single preparation that he varied by changing the speed.
This performance had tone issues. The joke during an ensemble dance where one woman broke out into a solo fell flat because of the timing. Woodward got the tone of her “Hello, Boys!” solo as she greeted each corps man while she turned. But when they got near her, it threw her back. The ballet could use some polishing.
Over and above that, why put these four ballets together? Woodward did the same Russian pas de chat entry as a showstopper in “Donizetti” that Pereira did earlier in “Square Dance.” Why pair “Haieff” and “Afternoon of a Faun?” Is there a reason to see “Haieff” and “Square Dance” on the same bill beyond that the same dancers can be cast in both corps? They’re both practice clothes, ensemble-heavy works and it made “Haieff” look as if it didn’t need revival. Why make “Donizetti” a closer? Having to bat last in this performance, it looked like one chestnut divertissement after another: all dessert. This programming added up to less than the sum of its parts.
copyright © 2023 by Leigh Witchel
“Square Dance,” “Afternoon of a Faun,” “Haieff Divertimento,” “Donizetti Variations” – New York City Ballet
Lincoln Center, New York, NY
April 23, 2023
Cover: Dominika Afanasenkov and Christopher Grant in “Afternoon of a Faun.” Photo © Erin Baiano.
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