by Leigh Witchel
I’ve known – and liked – Robert Garland (most folks do) since we were classmates at Gabriella Darvash’s school in the 1980s. He was a lean, strong, fleet dancer, and a sweet and funny man. Fast forward nearly 40 years. If we want a clear snapshot of the man in his first season as Artistic Director of Dance Theatre of Harlem, we got it at the company’s city center season.
Garland is a Company Man, he spent his career at DTH. In his program notes, he emphasized continuity, and his first actions were not about reshaping the company, but to put his hand on the tiller and guide the boat.
Of the four works, two were new to the company, the others brought back from prior seasons. Take Me With You, is a duet to a single song, Radiohead’s Reckoner, choreographed by Robert Bondara, a Polish dancer, now director of Poznan Opera Ballet.
It started in silence with Amanda Smith clapping rhythmically, almost aggressively, as she entered. Elias Re joined her; both wore a unisex costume of a white button-down shirt and black shorts. She leapt into his arms; he spun her. The duet felt like a moment in a relationship rather than a summation or a crisis point. The brief work ended in the reverse of how it began: he left, she clapped to exit as the lights dimmed.
Take Me With You was a solidly-made showpiece, designed to make the dancers look strong and sleek. The only problem was the usual one at City Center, the godawful sound system. An interesting point seen throughout the evening: at DTH, the men have a sinuous, legato quality. It’s the women who are strong and sharp.
You could see this as well in Blake Works IV (The Barre Project), which encored from last year’s City Center season. Smith had to go in for Lucas Castro, and she kept in his double tours.
The work, which closed the evening, is a series of showy solos and duets until the final group number. A long, first duet for Micah Bullard and Kamala Saara had Saara on pointe, afterwards, the dancers wore soft slippers.
When Saara returned to do a last pas de deux with Kouadio Davis, she had changed from velvet to sparkles, and the piece closed with a short but dense group dance. The barre from the title is a red herring. Rather than investigating an actual barre (the first part of ballet class, where the railing is used as a support and teaching aid) this barre has a few passing references to barre exercises, but more theatricalized moments and glamorous lounging-on-barre poses.
Again, the aesthetic was sleek and showy. Dancers love Forsythe’s musicality and his steps. With stops, starts, pauses and poses, you’re guaranteed a moment to be fierce. The cast looked great and the piece made a strong finish.
Weirdly Blake Works IV was a showier, more ingratiating but weaker piece than N.N.N.N., at least structurally. But when Forsythe came back to making ballets later in life, he was less interested in making the kind of masterwork edifices he made earlier. Instead, he’s been making crowd-pleasers.
The other two pieces on the program weren’t about sleek. Premiered in 2019, Garland’s Nyman String Quartet No. 2 worked to fuse vernacular style with neoclassical. It’s a tall order to get that fit right.
Forsythe is one of the few who does it seemingly without effort; it’s his thing. Garland was trying for something beyond what Forsythe does: not just club fusion but a cultural statement, a specifically Black infusion into classical ballet.
Nyman opened the program: the score began and a quintet of men grooved forward. In simple blue costumes on a stripped stage, we were only looking at the dancers. It’s a tough score for the stage; all the movements cut off as if someone lifted the record – it pricked up our ears, but that wasn’t easy on the eyes.
The men moved softly, joggling and shuffling, and it didn’t look like much. The less deliberate it felt, the less it worked; the shift could look too loose. But when David Wright pushed the movement with a tight, clear, chest isolation, you could see what was going on. Even the flip humor of the men gesturing “peace out” as they left, worked. The more specific, the more things made sense.
When the women entered, they looked more comfortable with the mix and the links between classical and vernacular as they did a turned-in prance. Davis introduced a slow movement of yearning, sinuous jogging, but also turns and a manège that were technical but not pyrotechnical. Garland was pushing, but not breaking.
Garland is an institutional artist, and Nyman hints how he’s grooming the company: asking for solidity in company-level technique: tours from the men and strong pointe work from the women.
Wright returned with two women for a trio and again you could see what Garland was looking for: seamless phrasing as a bridge between the styles. The dancers did sissonnes repeating into a groove; the faster the speed the better the idea worked, and the movement ended again with another flash finish.
Davis led a section backed by two couples. He was often out front, with a soft, natural movement quality. Garland set a trio for women, with demanding pointe work.
Finally at the close, Garland disagreed with Nyman and ended after, instead of on the music. The cast walked back rhythmically in silence and ended by pointing up, but the aspirational optimism of the cliché felt correct here.
George Balanchine’s Pas de Dix may have been supplanted at New York City Ballet by both Raymonda Variations and Cortège Hongrois, but Garland bringing it into DTH’s repertory, using former NYCB ballerina Kyra Nichols as repetiteur perhaps says the most about him as a director. It’s another sign he is mindful of maintaining the company’s classical abilities.
The ochre tutus were by Pamela Allen-Cummings; the stage was unadorned otherwise, and could have used a little more glitz. Davis did the lead here as well; throughout the evening he was so calm he was almost uninflected. But he seemed to wake up in the entrée when he partnered Saara, doing one-handed supports with ease. He also made all his tours in passé. Saara, as before, had a sharper attack, almost appearing stern instead of soulful in her solo and the famous passés in the first coda felt discrete, rather than like a single phrase.
The woman in the ensemble had either solos or duets, in the first solo Alexandra Rene Jones showed off both a lovely style and carriage. In the second, Alexandra Hutchinson was strong in both in jumps and pointe work.
You saw more clearly why Garland added this to the repertory in the next duet, one of the women did beats with toes that didn’t quite point all the way. But the women weren’t having trouble with that in relevés, so it’s a process. And by the final coda, Saara was more relaxed and free as well.
The result was a conservative, correct staging. The dancers were careful, but clean, with good lines and proper port de bras. Reading the tea leaves, that seems in line with Garland as well. Lively was missing in Pas de Dix, but that could come when they live with it a while longer.
copyright © 2024 by Leigh Witchel
Nyman String Quartet No. 2, Take Me With You, Pas de Dix, Blake Works IV (The Barre Project) – Dance Theatre of Harlem
New York City Center, New York, NY
April 11, 2024
Cover: Dance Theatre of Harlem in Nyman String Quartet No. 2. Photo © Steven Pisano.
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