by Leigh Witchel
The universal refrain of choreography (or writing) teachers: Who Are These People? American Ballet Theatre’s 21st Century Works program had varying answers to that question.
It wasn’t a question Alonzo King felt compelled to answer. His “Single Eye,” returning from last year used emotion and situation less as narrative and more as decoration.
The work started with a recorded, mellow score by Jason Moran. The designs by Robert Rosenwasser made good use of gauzy, crinkled metallic fabric; a gold translucent curtain as a front scrim, a silver one in the back. It gave the piece an air of crafty, boudoir chic.
The gold curtain quickly rose on darkness and haze. King’s own company is named Lines, unsurprisingly he has a linear approach. Nine women in iridescent pale blue moved side to side in long poses, at one point crab-walking.
The lead women wore yellow unitards; the men, long flowing brown shirts and gray tights. Isabella Boylston and Thomas Forster got to be the unhappy couple, grappling and pushing to Moran’s wallpaper jazz. Forster limped and dragged Boylston, then she supported him and with effort brought him round. The music was interspersed with traffic noises, but she pushed him off in silence.
Calvin Royal, in an open shirt, danced an adagio solo with additional hints of conflicted emotions in the twisted poses that unfolded to academic ones. The others entered, all in their own swirl, as he dealt with his own angst in the back. As everyone else left, Skylar Brandt waited and watched. The cast crossed behind the silver scrim as Brandt danced in front. One stray petal from “On the Dnipro” dropped down from the heavens in perfect timing.
Part of the demands of King’s choreography is that sometimes he phrases, sometimes he just does steps. After technical sections for both the men and women in the ensemble, one woman, distinguished from the rest of the ensemble by gold accordion folds at her hips, pushed the men down before leaving. OK, but why?
King gave solos to the corps dancers, alternately following a hierarchy with the lead couples and ignoring it. The beat became more insistent and King responded with a more taut solo for a corps woman, but that ended abruptly almost as it began.
Two couples entered, Brandt and Royal with Boylston and Foster. To slow thrumming chords, the men were upset in various ways. Brandt balanced in a grand rond de jambe. It was less of a dance moment than an Instagram one.
The quartet posed in dramatic light; the ensemble entered to electronic thumping. The women danced in between the beat as if they were an echo; the men hit the beat as if they were doing calisthenics. Brandt, now wearing the accordion panniers (which were quite cool) had a brief balancing moment before she passed the dance back to the men. Brandt is a technician and a whiz at balance, but did everything have to be a balancing moment for her?
After a kinetic almost-finale, Cory Stearns entered, also full of angst. Brandt reentered and they faced one another, then grasped hands to do an interesting duet to music that recalled Charlie Brown and the Great Pumpkin. Stearns and Brandt put their heads on each other’s shoulders to end.
The duet was a partnering treat for Stearns; he lifted Brandt like an envelope, and spun her round in countless turns. It was elegant but “Single Eye” was already about three sections too long and Brandt made it about balances. She has rarely felt more like an Instagram dancer. Everything seemed to be for the picture, the video clip, the medal.
“Depuis.le Jour” was actually done for the medal. The piece is a short duet by Gemma Bond, done to an aria from “Louise” by Gustave Charpentier. On the Met stage it seemed similar in purpose to the kind of bauble Ashton might have made for a gala. But it was actually made for the Erik Bruhn competition in 2012, danced by Royal and Devon Teuscher.
A soprano, Maria Brea, sang downstage right. Joo Won Ahn, shirtless in pants, and Hee Seo, in a long simple dress and soft slippers, lay on the ground, reaching. They turned towards us, then he dragged her across the stage. When they got up, it was off to the races.
The piece had a weird mix of moods that didn’t need all those steps. French arias aren’t exactly allegro. Yet there Ahn and Seo were running, jumping, running, jumping, spinning. The two were breathless, literally, and we were asked to believe it was from rapture, not aerobics.
Who could tell if they loved one another? They were so busy running, turning and lifting. And Brea was facing us, acting her heart out and barely aware of what happening behind her. At the end, Ahn and Seo lay back down as if the whole thing could have gone on forever.
This was an early work for Bond, and competition choreography has no option but to be technically impressive. Ironically, as Denise Sum put it, this was the most lyrical and romantic of the entries – and of course, that meant it didn’t win.
It’s good to see “On the Dnipro” again. Originally made in 2009 as “On the Dnieper,” Alexei Ratmansky has changed the spellings from Russian to Ukrainian, though Prokofiev’s score is still “On the Dnieper.” That’s one of the awkward issues of retrofitting titles, even justifiably. Dnipro or Dnieper, the ballet is a bittersweet meditation on love and its collateral damage.
After war, a soldier, Sergei – now Sergiy (though the program still refers to Sergei’s mother – see the above about the hazards of renaming) returns to his village as the cherry blossoms flower and fall. His solo was alternately manic and yearning; you could tell what he had been through.
He greeted the townsmen, who brought in fences. Simon Pastukh’s simple designs have remained as effective as ever. Also greeting him was Christine Shevchenko as Olga and her unnamed fiance, James Whiteside. Olga’s parents were happy (and a little surprised) to see Sergiy. Sergiy’s mother arrived among the women, with immense relief. Her boy was home. Olga’s fiancé only had a father, Sergiy only had a mother. Ratmansky didn’t press the point, but the cast was dotted with broken families.
Teuscher played Sergiy’s fiancée, Natalia. She nodded, permitting him to lead a dance with the men. They crouched low and reached high; he fell into the men’s arms twice before they carried him overhead. It was a unison meditation on the life of a soldier: the fear, the danger, but also the broadening of horizons.
“On the Dnipro” is one of Ratmansky’s cleanest narratives. He telescoped the action greatly, but it was still clear. Olga entered with a happy solo. Like “Romeo and Juliet,” Sergiy and she spotted one another in a coup de foudre but it took Natalia no time to realize something was horribly wrong.
This is a narrative, not an abstraction, and Ratmansky gave all his characters room for individual lives, but the life of the village was just as essential. He has long seen the corps as like a village, and you see it nowhere more than here, where everything played out in front of them as witnesses.
Natalia tried to hold on to Sergiy, but as the women watched, he went to dance with Olga. Everyone noticed; all the parents argued. Sergiy later arrived onstage drunk as the others walked by in the moonlight for Olga’s betrothal. They threw flower petals and assembled for a photo, echoing a more desperate “A Wedding Bouquet.”
Natalia’s desperation played out in front of the women; she had no privacy. Whiteside danced a frenzied solo, again, with the village watching. He started with multiple turns into slides and beats, and ended slamming the ground. The most painful feelings, all happening in front of everyone. He has rarely looked more inspired. Roman Zhurbin as his father came to him, Whiteside shrugged off his hand and raced off, his father following.
Shevchenko danced an adagio solo, throwing herself round and round, then into arabesque turns. Yearning and uncertain, again it happened in front of her family and the village. She spun to the floor, and her mother took her off, with her father following.
Conflict erupted in front of the village, and it joined in. Stearns and Whiteside confronted and the men took sides. Stearns punched Whiteside, the men went after Stearns, but Natalia stopped them. She hovered over Stearns, then danced, torn this way and that, but as she came to him, the dead way he took her hand made it impossible to pretend that he loved her anymore.
She fell in tears and he helped her up, but wouldn’t hug her back. When Olga arrived he went to her and danced without hesitation.
Natalia led both, then bowing low, entreated them to leave together, pointing the way to escape. Even though Stearns and Shevchenko were dancing ecstatically, you watched Teuscher cry. The lovers bowed to her before leaving, and a gentle rain of petals fluttered down.
All of these ballets, even the one made for the Bruhn competition, were made on the company. But the one where you really got to know the dancers was Ratmansky’s. His willingness to be understanding about the collateral damage caused by infidelity is explored as well in “Of Love and Rage,” but “On the Dnipro” did it even better. As in the later work, Ratmansky stuffed this full of steps, but “On the Dnipro” was making them speak. We know all too well who these people are, and recognize ourselves in them.
copyright © 2023 by Leigh Witchel
“Single Eye,” “Depuis le Jour,” “On the Dnipro” – American Ballet Theatre
Lincoln Center, New York, NY
October 27, 2023
Cover: Christine Shevchenko and James Whiteside in “On the Dnipro.” Photo © Rosalie O’Connor.
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