by Leigh Witchel
Balanchine may have been ambivalent about stars, but some of his ballets benefit from one. In the second All-Balanchine program at New York City Ballet, the stars didn’t really shine until the end.
Making an infrequent appearance in repertory, “Bourrée Fantasque,” created in 1949, led off with an new leading cast. The score is stitched together from three unrelated works by Emmanuel Chabrier. The men wore berets; the women, tutus and wristlets. Everyone stomped on flat feet combining humor with late 1940’s chic.
For the first movement, KJ Takahashi and Mira Nadon were mis-matched up to make a tall-short joke. She was a mystery to him as he stared up at her or got bonked with her leg. Like Anthony Huxley, Takahashi doesn’t act as much with his face, but his physical timing is good. Nadon could put the part over on presence alone. She’s got stage magic, but it comes less from her projection than her mystery.
The corps divided into four trios turning in and out wrists or legs. Less like “Symphony in C” and more like “Scotch Symphony,” the balance of this section tilted towards positions and configurations over movement phrases. Like fashion itself, what’s chic about “Bourrée Fantasque,” is pictorial.
The central adagio movement has plenty of big ballerina touchstones; some of them seeming to be lifted straight from “Symphony in C,” as if Balanchine were making a similar closing piece that was a little easier to produce.
The women were now in long tutus with a black overskirt, an idea that would reappear more eloquently two years later in “La Valse.” Gilbert Bolden III slowly walked the perimeter, making gestures as if to search, and that felt more like a trope than an action. He then supported Emilie Gerrity in step-over turns and to-and-fro arabesques. She planted herself center and extended her leg side, one of the big ballerina touchstones. Bolden searched again to go slowly off. Despite having the material, Gerrity wasn’t a big presence. Hopefully that can get filled in. But Balanchine also undercut her. Gerrity left concealed by a corps dancer and the rest of the corps left after the principals for an anticlimax.
In the third movement as well, you could see Balanchine was cross-pollinating. The couples entered running hand-in-hand to center, a moment from “Theme and Variations” two years before. The ensemble was six corps couples and two demi-soloist pairs. The corps got a lot of presence; there were moments you picked someone out. India Bradley, lifted by Devin Alberda, rebounded her leg past her head in a cabriole. In front, David Gabriel yanked Alexa Maxwell into overhead presses; their part consisted largely of entries and exits.
Balanchine filled the stage in the reprise, another echo of “Symphony in C” from the year before, then used circular patterns he duplicated for a very different effect in “La Valse.” There was more that made this finale feel like “Symphony in C Junior.” The men’s overhead arm movements recalled the earlier ballet, and both works end with shoulder sits.
The most memorable moment in the finale was one of the simplest. Balanchine brought the dancers from all three movements back in a mass device that he didn’t use elsewhere: a phalanx of dancers crossing in jetés. Was one of the reasons Balanchine didn’t bring “Bourrée Fantasque” back often because so many of the other ideas were also in other ballets?
It’s not easy to be a star in “Agon,” it’s not a star ballet. Peter Walker made his debut in the pas de deux, as Russell Janzen had just retired. Walker is a tall and spidery dancer. His gangly lines aren’t natural for classical ballet, but his intelligence and commitment to a role has made up for that.
Still, his first outing was tentative and had a soft touch. When he went to his knees, instead of hinging with both knees, he went down one at a time. But Miriam Miller wasn’t pushing either; her opening turn with him ended late and she hooked her leg around his waist, not his shoulder or head. As usual, you could sense Walker finding his way into the part. When he flipped on his back, supporting Miller in a dip, he added a note of deliberate suffering. The duet went smoothly. Miller collapsed on his back at the end but there wasn’t a lot of electricity between them yet. They’ll need some sparks.
Jovani Furlan was sinuous and connected in the first pas de trois, dancing with a low center of gravity. Furlan was an old hand in Balanchine before he arrived from Miami, but there’s something about the roundness of his attack that marks him as Not From Here.
The second pas de trois suits Isabella LaFreniere’s demeanor, technique and placement better than “Diamonds.” She hit both balances in attitude at her entry and in her solo dropped securely into plié on pointe.
If Sara Mearns weren’t the level of ballerina she is, I would wish harder that she’d go to Broadway. She was a phenomenal stripper in “Slaughter on Tenth Avenue.” She’s got all the ingredients. She has an extravagant physicality with jointless legs that go sky high to all extensions. She’s got looks: a stage face, a mane of blond hair, and in the role of a woman who has to sell her wares, a feminine body she can shake. With her hair up and curled to start, she gave a Jayne Mansfield vibe.
Balanchine put in a great moment for the stripper, right before she danced with the Hoofer. After he’s paid for the privilege, she steps from the stage on to his hand, and while the Big Boss supports her from above, the Hoofer lowers her to the floor like a hydraulic platform. It’s such a presentation, like Botticelli’s Venus appearing from the sea, that even though it happens in the middle of the dance, it feels like an entry.
Mearns wasn’t as funny as Maria Kowroski was in the part, but Kowroski was a natural comedian. Still, Mearns made a moment of loudly hissing to get Andrew Veyette’s attention, handing him the note to warn him of Morrosine’s plot and lying back down dead.
Veyette had a broad, amiable presence, a bit like a bro who woke up and found himself onstage. But he also made sense of the story. When he had to kill the Big Boss, he looked at Mearns’ body lying on the stage before shooting him. Looking out towards the first balcony at house right, he spied the Gangster waiting with his revolver (it has its own custom built platform that fits over the railing). He broke into a huge smile and started tapping as if his life depended on this Bro-adway gig. He was a decent tapper, and his routine seemed more ad lib than usual. At one point he seemed to waltz with an imaginary partner.
Morrosine’s Trockadero Russian accent seems to have become a performance tradition that Harrison Coll eagerly inherited. After telling Lars Nelson his plot, Coll did the little improv solo every Morrosine would quite literally kill to do. He took audible breaths to pace himself through his virtuoso balancés, and grabbed the curtain before his bow and exit. Nelson, probably wisely, didn’t try for a Brooklyn accent, but the low grunts he did were almost impossible to make out.
After the Gangster is caught, the story is done, and everyone dances, Mearns and Veyette broke into grins leading the cast. Mearns has the unteachable gift of a star; when she’s onstage you see nothing else. You can’t bottle that presence.
More than anything else, Mearns is a star, even before she’s a ballerina and certainly before she’s a Balanchine ballerina. Sure, she has flaws. But she steps out on stage and everything makes sense.
copyright © 2023 by Leigh Witchel
“Bourrée Fantasque, ” “Agon,” “Slaughter on Tenth Avenue” – New York City Ballet
Lincoln Center, New York, NY
September 30, 2023
Cover: Sara Mearns in “Slaughter on Tenth Avenue.” Photo © Erin Baiano.
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