by Leigh Witchel
Three female choreographers were featured on New York City Ballet’s New Combinations program. Only one of their pieces was new. One was brought up from the minor leagues, another was a reprise. How were they? Most choreography, whoever makes it, is not going to last. As before, there’s a more immediate test: Would you see it again?
Gianna Reisen’s Signs, her fourth ballet performed by the company, was young and emotional, but it was originally made for teenagers. It was first performed at the School of American Ballet workshop in 2022, and this marked its transfer to NYCB. For six women and four men, it was set to three piano pieces by Philip Glass, played by Michael Scales.
Olivia Bell returned to the lead role she originated at the school. She first appeared in front of the curtain on the apron and put her hand pensively on the piano. When the curtain rose, we saw four couples slow dancing, hugging and swaying like prom dates at a high school dance.
The music began and Mary Thomas MacKinnon entered. She and Bell raced, but then found a place and also slow danced. Refreshingly, it wasn’t love-that-dare-not-speak-its-name. The couples left, and Bell and MacKinnon began a duet. After, the women joined into the group without issue; they weren’t outsiders and the mood was upbeat. As the cast marched across the stage, the two leads entered and left the line, and others disgorged to do solos. Despite the situational hints, there was a camaraderie to the two women’s dancing, perhaps even a relationship, but as Reisen got into it, she left it up to us how we wanted to see it rather than hitting us over the head with her notion.
Several of these dancers, including Bell and MacKinnon, as well as Harrison Coll and KJ Takahashi, have been in other pieces by Reisen. Bell, small, quick and technical, did Reisen’s Play Time when she first got promoted into the company. MacKinnon, with her fearless attack and vibrancy onstage, seems to be cast in almost everything, often in solos, but hasn’t yet been given the kind of principal roles that suggest an anointment. Still, Reisen is doing what junior choreographers are supposed to do: give opportunities to dancers who are less recognized.
More solos, including for Coll or Ruby Lister, followed. Coll was pushing hard, but his sharpness looked like something. A mysterious moment occurred where the dancers waved their fingers at one another: choreography or communication?
Bell began a solo by wandering and running about the stage. She then stood there quietly, yearned into an arabesque, or rocked in a contraction. When she snapped her fingers, the rest of the cast offstage echoed it. It felt almost like Interplay, with shades of the focus on youth that Jerome Robbins or Justin Peck have. Bell walked out as the lights dimmed.
A duet for Coll and MacKinnon established a relationship that contrasted with the delicate piano music. They began what was almost a waltz before he pulled her on to pointe. There was an argument and she started to leave. He asked why, tried to stop her, and nuzzled his face in the crook of her neck. We’ve seen this before, but they are both intense dancers, and they could sell it.
Coll ran to a friend, so did Bell, before the stage slowly filled with dancers yearning, and Bell returned. The dancers clumped, then rolled and left, with MacKinnon walking Coll off, as Bell led them.
The final movement opened with everyone flying in one by one into individual solos. Victor Abreu pressed Bell overhead, Coll and MacKinnon flew in small solos. A floppy final embrace for MacKinnon and Coll ended the piece.
Signs made sense as a student work, and looked different enough from other pieces to work as a contrast in repertory. The piece felt deeper than Reisen’s previous work without going off the deep end. Would I see it again? Yeah, once, at least.
Caili Quan’s Beneath the Tides was the world premiere, to Saint-Saëns first cello concerto with Stephen Perkyns as soloist. Where Reisen largely used younger dancers, Quan worked with both Tiler Peck and Sara Mearns. But even with mature dancers, the emotions of the work felt adolescent.
The leads were Peck by herself, Mearns with Gilbert Bolden III and a male duo, Jules Mabie and Aarón Sanz in front of an ensemble of four women and five men. The two lead pairs moved slowly before Peck came in, raced off and came back. She went among and through the couples serving drama, drama, drama, but not a clear intention, so the drama felt like noodling. The music became a baroque dance, and the dancers bowed, then ginched. Because the mix of vocabulary just felt like a mix, not a point of view, it wasn’t compelling.
Mearns walked in as the movement ended, putting her arm to the side on the last note. She came to Bolden, turned and he took her and swung her round in his arms. The music soared as he pressed her overhead. These weren’t the freshest of concepts, so Mearns Mearnsed it up. “I’m not looking at you. But now I’ll relent.” At least Quan had dancers who could sell what she gave them; Mearns can make most things look like something. To look more modern after the lift, Mearns and Bolden flailed, then Bolden slowly brought Mearns off as the others raced in. Why were they unhappy? Who knows.
After they cleared, Peck had an emotional solo, and once she was done, Mabie and Sanz got their angst on. Peck added glamour to a precipitous entry, and did a fouetté or two. In an interview in the program, Quan said her main inspiration was the concerto itself. It looked like it, but not in a good way. Beneath the Tides felt like a response to the music bar by bar, but not to the piece as a whole. The movement ended with Bolden pressing Mearns off, while everyone else stared at each other.
A slow procession into lines turned into side to side motion while Peck moved avariciously at center; a moment that echoed the finale of Tschaikovsky Piano Concerto No. 2. Peck sped up wildly into step-over turns; the little showoff moment was welcome. Bolden, Sanz and Mabie did contractions, then everyone assembled for a classical finale.
There were many ways that Beneath the Tides didn’t fully know what it wanted to be when it grew up. Gilles Mendel’s costumes for the men didn’t help. Mendel put the women in handsome bodices and basques with long filmy skirts. He had also made stunning men’s suits way back for Melissa Barak’s Call Me Ben. This attempt for the guys was not as successful. He had them bare-chested in low-cut waist cinchers, but when Quan was doing classical vocabulary, it looked as if the guys had forgotten their shirts. Mearns and Peck came in, there was some recapitulation, spinning round, and a sudden bow to close.
Beneath the Tides failed the Would I See It Again test. The weak concept kept it under the waterline, but so did the movement palette. Quan was mixing classical steps with a wiggle or contraction, but not with a sense of purpose or integration. The changing steps were as if the dancers put on red hats at one moment, then green ones. OK, but why? It looked as if Beneath the Tides were choreographed by putting on the music and making steps until the music stopped.
Tiler Peck’s Concerto for Two Pianos may have had the most straightforward intentions of the evening, but Peck accomplished what she set out to do. The large work immediately began with more clarity. Seven couples, dressed in simple, clean costumes by Zac Posen, did a brisk allegro in unison, followed by a male solo, then a female duet. Even though it was all at top speed, there was no time needed for your eyes to adjust. It felt this clear even on first viewing. It was music visualization, plain and simple. If Peck wasn’t as ambitious conceptually, she still challenged herself in terms of craft and especially scale. Also, she made something the company always needs: a big closing ballet.
After his impressive opening, Roman McShowoff . . . sorry, Mejia . . . hurled into a massive manège, and in came Mira Nadon, as a disturbance in the force, then Chun Wai Chan to form a trio. A trio often means drama from an implied choice, and there was some, but Peck was mostly concentrating on kinetics.
Emma Von Enck shot in, shivering on pointe. Because of her casting in Concerto DSCH as well, you could see the links. Von Enck is absolutely amazing at her blindingly fast corner of the repertory and was soon doubled by India Bradley. Mejia came in, and how many turns did McShowoff do on his entry? I lost count.
The rest of the cast appeared round him. Like the choreographers Peck was modeling, Alexei Ratmansky and Justin Peck, she learned to have a nose for a tableau. Also from Justin, to have a decent budget for graph paper in order to plot out patterns beforehand.
She conceived of the slow movement as a reverie where the women circled and partnered Mejia to tinkling piano, but ended that on a flip note as Mejia did a jaunty air turn off. The men entered, slowly circling, which brought Chan in, and Nadon worked with all the men until Chan retrieved her, but sent her rolling down the backs of a line of men. It didn’t feel threatening, but she did feel like cargo. He pressed her and they raced until they faced one another, and the ballet slowed down. Mejia, Von Enck and Bradley crossed the stage in the opposite direction in the shadows.
When Peck had Nadon rolled down a line of men it felt familiar, as when the men threw her into entrelacés. Amidst the solid construction, it felt as if Peck were asking for a moodiness that’s not really Nadon’s thing; but more Mearns’ territory. The movement ended with Nadon perched on Chan. Her disposition kept it from falling into an angst tar pit.
The final allegro molto was a test of technique and velocity, with Von Enck and Bradley starting off top speed, an echo of Von Enck’s entry in the last movement of Concerto DSCH. BAM! McShowoff sailed in with a whoop-de-doo en tournant. All the principals made a brief, antic appearance, but tailored by Peck to flatter them, before the men coalesced for a grand allegro. Even though Peck was responding to the music as literally as Quan, she approached the ballet as an arc as well as individual moments, so the changing moods felt more part of a whole.
Nadon led a section before another juicy solo for Mejia, that led to a duet with Chan on the arpeggios. Everyone came and went with increasing frenzy, and Mejia spinning in the center for the final measures: he even did fouettés before the final bow.
A few things felt more apparent on second viewing. Yes, Peck’s going to marry McShowoff but it did feel as if she put all her conceptual eggs in that basket. It was a concerto for two pianos but a ballet for one. Peck had a bullseye on who Mejia is (thank heavens) but she wasn’t as sure about either Nadon or Chan. Even though Chan could keep up with Mejia in their duet, he was used as a porteur. He and Nadon seemed framed as the generic unhappy pas de deux couple.
Still, we can dig in for a more advanced critique because Concerto for Two Pianos is a successful, assured and mature work. I’ve seen it twice now, and yes, I Would See it Again, with no problem.
copyright © 2024 by Leigh Witchel
Signs, Beneath the Tides, Concerto for Two Pianos – New York City Ballet
Lincoln Center, New York, NY
October 11, 2024
Cover: Roman Mejia and New York City Ballet in Concerto for Two Pianos. Photo © Erin Baiano.
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