by Leigh Witchel
The Classics Old and New program showed American Ballet Theatre making the same assumption as New York City Ballet last season: that dancers can make anything work. ABT took three dances from the past 80 years, each made for a specific company and presented them as if they might have been danced by the National Ballet of Anywhere. In defense of ABT, its dancers are better than that. If nothing else, we could be witnessing the meteoric rise of a major new virtuoso dancer.
Alexei Ratmansky’s “Piano Concerto No. 1” was made for ABT in 2013. It was almost set to Shostakovich’s first symphony, but Ratmansky switched scores to the first piano concerto. The last part of his trilogy to the composer, the work was a hive of activity under cartoon stars and symbols suspended above the stage.
The first movement was crazed and antic. This cast made its debut two days prior, led by two couples in front of a corps in unitards that were steel blue in front, magenta in back. Both Skylar Brandt and Jake Roxander spun and spun before giving way to Calvin Royal III and Christine Shevchenko. This was Roxander’s season. He had two demanding, major leads in this program alone and the company is trying to either promote him or kill him.
Both men pressed their partners over their heads and off before Brandt returned to be cradled, yanked and balanced by Roxander and three other men, who tossed her to him as the movement ended.
The lights dimmed to twilight as Shevchenko and Royal danced. Royal is lanky with huge splayed hands that cupped the space; he tossed Shevchenko into the air and off. Roxander and Brandt sped on in a cadenza; he popped her into tours. Shostakovich stayed subdued as Roxander leaped and spun more, while a trumpet sang a muted refrain. The couples circled, then Roxander pressed Brandt into the wings but lingered until the women entered for the next movement.
If in the final ballet on the program,“Études,” technique was a statement, in “Piano Concerto No. 1” it felt like a commentary. The women were carried in on the men’s shoulders like figureheads in a procession on a diagonal. The trumpet fanfared hysterically as Brandt sprinted across. Was the technique Ratmansky demanded a means of expression, a mark of distinction or a series of hoops to jump through? All the men backed Roxander as he did Stakhanovite tricks, then he shrugged as if this were “Les Patineurs” at the agricultural collective.
Brandt and Shevchenko huddled together before starting to dance, but they weren’t doing it as if it meant anything. They shot into pointe work and kicks circling one another, they huddled again at the end amidst the women. When Shostakovich’s jovially lunatic fanfare returned, the symbols rose skywards, everyone partnered everyone, including Brandt partnering Roxander in pirouettes, before the ballet ended in a freeze frame.
Despite the evidence of the advent of a major new talent, “Piano Concerto No. 1” felt hollow this time, like the bright symbols designed by George Tsypin. What was missing was a sense of commentary. This is a ballet made when Ratmansky still saw himself as Russian, in all its complexity and hazard. Shostakovich had an opera banned by Stalin and lived in fear of arrest. Before his American career, Ratmansky ran the Bolshoi Ballet; he’s now pulled his works in protest of the invasion of Ukraine. Tsypin was born in Kazakhstan where his parents had been sent in internal exile. “Piano Concerto No. 1” is a deconstruction of the Soviet Union these men grew up in and contended with.
In 2013, the original cast, which was led by Diana Vishneva, Cory Stearns, Natalia Osipova, and Ivan Vasiliev understood the context – for most of them it was in their blood. With this cast, even with Shevchenko (who was born in the Ukraine, but left for America at age 8) it felt like steps.
Could any dance be more monolithically gender-typed than Jiří Kylián’s“Petite Mort?” The work, made for the Salzburg Festival commemorating the 200th anniversary of Mozart’s death, opened to a low rumble with men walking backwards, acting butch. Brandishing swords. What could those possibly represent? The twist, of a sort, is that the men were wearing corseted shorts.
They worked in unison without music, then the adagio from Mozart’s 23rd piano concerto began. The men brought forward a black silk that covered the stage and like a conjurer’s trick, the women were revealed on the floor. The six couples also danced in unison, and the work headed into a series of duets. “Petite Mort” is so Kylián – the unison, the turned-in contractions, the partnering of a woman folded like a parcel.– it was almost a stereotype. Even though the couples got time alone onstage, their duets blurred together. The movement ended as it began with rumbling.
Mozart’s famous andante from the 21st piano concerto started, and five women in voluminous black dresses appeared in the darkness; their dresses turned out to be freestanding, rolling on casters. It’s a reminder that Kylián also made “Symphony in D,” an early comic work that’s now rarely seen. He has a sense of humor and can pull our leg.
Cassandra Trenary danced with exquisite control when partnered by Herman Cornejo, but even when dancing barefoot her feet and rapier legs and made it into ballet. Is that what “Petite Mort” is? Stearns with Hee Seo and SunMi Park with Joo Won Ahn danced everything with an upwards accent, and without weight, effort or resistance. It was ballet, except sometimes they turned in. Without any sense of conclusion after the relatively short adagio, the dresses rolled back onstage to end.
“Petite Mort” was made for Nederlands Dans Theater, which Kylián ran. In an age that’s obsessed with gender, can’t we come up with something better than a battle of the sexes fought with swords and undergarments? At the end of their duet, Cornejo slapped Trenary on the ass to leave. “Petite Mort” could still work if the dancers understood the vocabulary and context better. Here, it felt terribly dated.
“Études,” made in 1948 by Danish choreographer Harald Lander, is about as didactic a ballet as exists, but that is its context. Bournonville’s great classroom ballet, “Konservatoriet,” remains part of Danish tradition, but choreographer Harald Lander also worked as ballet master in that most technical and academic of companies, Paris Opera Ballet. “Études” entered ABT’s repertory in 1961 with Lander’s wife Toni dancing the lead.
“Konservatoriet” shows us 19th century exercises at the center, but Lander started at the beginning of class: barre. The exercises, circa 1948, were still quite recognizable to someone who trained circa 1984 and progressed largely in the order of an actual class. As usual, the guys got a break and showed up after barre, as did the trio of leads: Catherine Hurlin, Roxander and Sung Woo Han.
“Études” was another Youth America Grand Prix moment for Roxander. His part was hellishly difficult, and felt like watching someone get shot out of a cannon. Only this time, someone who was prepped and ready for the blast.
He beat the role into submission with all the subtlety of a competition solo, but Roxander also nailed every finish, did tours one after another, as well as turns in second, pulling in to uncountable pirouettes but floating to a relaxed, suspended finish.
After the adagio, Hurlin reappeared in a long tutu. “Études” is a history lesson like “Piano Concerto No. 1,” but once again we weren’t getting the history, just the steps done brilliantly. Hurlin is long and lanky, but also technical. Lander gave her a Myrtha moment, before ending a section with “The Dying Swan.”
The dance headed into a long section riffing on “La Sylphide,” with three women and Han as well as Hurlin as a sylph. She even did mime at the end for Ahn to follow her. But the section ended and everyone simply left. In 1948 in Copenhagen, Lander didn’t need to point out his references, the audience knew them. Nor did he need to make sense of any story, his audience already knew the context and could fill in any blanks.
We can’t. In 2023 New York, everything felt isolated and stylistically adrift. It was just a bunch of poses.
After, “Études” returned to class, and class from Hell. One grueling turn after another, batterie, petit and grand allegro combinations that would put hair on your chest, no matter your gender identification. Han almost lost a turn, but saved it and nailed the next one. There was no time to get nervous; because he’d fall.
It could be that the dancers looked at how hard and exposing the ballet is and decided the best defense was a good offense. Hurlin punched every pose with a flourish, but she also nailed every balance, and did fouetté turns punctuated by hops. Roxander was even more aggressive, but again, he had the technique to back it up. The company has taken the approach that the point of “Études” is just being able to do it.
[Postscript 12/23: I received a note from a good friend and great writer, Alexander Meinertz. With his permission, I’m reprinting a portion here:
“ . . . considering your point of Danes knowing the references . . . I should mention that Lander added the Romantic section, including new music, in Paris in 1951.
For instance the finale was added in Paris. The Copenhagen Etudes ended with the section that is done in silhouette – and with a reverence to the audience. So literally on a completely different note. Not a climax, not an explosion. More like a reflection, the end of class, nothing to do with being on stage, performing or having an audience at all.”
So my comment on the 1948 Copenhagen audience knowing the references isn’t accurate – the audience that saw this would have been Paris, 1951. “La Sylphide” did originate in Paris, but had left the repertory by the end of the 19th century, not to return until 1972 in Pierre Lacotte’s production. I don’t think this renders the point I was making about context incorrect, but I was using an incorrect example.
Alexander adds an even more interesting point, that there are two very different versions of “Études,” the showy, technical Paris version, which is what ABT does, and the original, more contemplative version for Copenhagen. That adds a whole extra layer to the context of the ballet.
Thanks so much for taking the time to comment, Alexander.]
As we saw it, the ballet had only one speed. It’s all amazing, all clean and all exclamation points. Roxander has more than proven himself, surviving ABT’s trial by fire with world-class technique to spare. Can we see his artistry now?
Three very different works got the versatility treatment from ABT. There was strong dancing but weak context. Instead of seeming like living works, it made the ballets feel like china dolls in a vitrine: exquisitely painted, but staring at us with unseeing eyes.
copyright © 2023 by Leigh Witchel
“Piano Concerto No. 1,” “Petite Mort” “Études”– American Ballet Theatre
Lincoln Center, New York, NY
October 20, 2023
Cover: Jake Roxander in “Études.” Photo © Rosalie O’Connor.
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