"Square Dance"
New York City Ballet’s 2011 spring season begins with “Balanchine Black and White Week,” eight programs of the founding choreographer’s works performed in the company’s signature pared-down, colorless costumes. I’m sure the week-long theme is a marketing tactic, but these ballets — which include Concerto Barocco, Apollo, and The Four Temperaments — happen to be among Balanchine’s best, not to mention most ageless, works. Square Dance — a crisp, upbeat petit allegro ballet set to Vivaldi and Correlli — premiered on November 21, 1957. Ten days later came Agon, Balanchine’s modernist masterpiece set to a serial score by Stravinsky. Fast forward to 1976 and you find Stravinsky Violin Concerto, a work that shares its costumes and composer with Agon yet isn’t as radical. These three were performed opening night in a program that illustrated the sometimes surprising chronology of Balanchine’s output.
Square Dance combines the crystalline clarity of Balanchine’s Concerto Barocco and the dazzling footwork of his later Ballo della Regina. In my 14 months visiting City Ballet, I’ve never seen Megan Fairchild look better — watching her feet was almost dizzying. Anthony Huxley, a member of the corps (who, judging from recent roles, seems to be on the cusp of advancement) is a marvel as her partner, bringing finesse to the male solo. In earlier years, the ballet was presented, quite literally, as a square dance, with a “caller” and fiddlers on stage. That would have been a sight.
"Agon"
In Agon, 12 is the magic number: It features 12-tone music and 12 dancers. (A cast of this size, I’ve read, allows for seemingly endless grouping possibilities: pairs, threes, fours, etc.) The ballet was inspired by Renaissance court dances including the galliarde and the sarabande, but Agon‘s dancers often seem less like people than insects. The women, clad in all black, swarm the stage like wasps during the double pas de quatre, stinging the air with their legs. In one of the bransles, Teresa Reichlen transforms into a spider when she squats widely while on pointe. The ballet is also full of surprises: Where else does a man support his partner while lying down? Of the three works on the program, Agon showed the most focus and precision. I’d seen it once before; after this performance I’ll remember it well.
Stravinsky Violin Concerto has always been a personal favorite, but after reading Nancy Goldner’s spectacular Balanchine Variations, I’m not so sure I fully understand its two pas de deux. In the first, Maria Korowski (always fantastic in this role) plays a strange game of cat and mouse with Amar Ramasar. They attempt to find equal footing but can’t, struggling to embrace then repelling each other, and it concludes with Ramasar flat on his back, Korowski towering over him. The second pas de deux, danced last night by Sterling Hyltin and Ask La Cour (dancing too heavily here for my taste), is more intimate but also more enigmatic. All is resolved in the finale, a raucous folk dance rich in arm movement. The quartet of leaping men who move throughout the stage in a square loses some of its power due to lapses in precision, but the ballet’s final seconds — particularly the entire cast’s sideways leap to the lush strains of Stravinsky’s score — remain the most viscerally satisfying I know in ballet.
"Stravinsky Violin Concerto"
As a footnote, and to explain why this post might seem “thin,” I should mention how difficult I find it to write about Balanchine ballets, even though I credit him — particularly Concerto Barocco, the first one I saw — for my interest in dance. It’s difficult because they are so close to me: My words often can’t do them justice. I’ve also been reading volumes on Balanchine; formulating original thoughts about his works seems as impossible as doing the same for Shakespeare. There’s also, of course, the issue of the dancers. I didn’t see Diana Adams and Arthur Mitchell in the original Agon, or any other cast that danced under Balanchine, so how can I say whether Wendy Whelan and Sébastien Marcovici compare? (Writing about last night is particularly difficult because I was seated three rows in front of a woman on a ventilator. I don’t begrudge anyone who wants to enjoy ballet, but it’s not easy to appreciate the genius of a highly musical choreographer to the syncopated rhythms of a loud machine.)
Excuses, excuses.
These three ballets will be performed again this week, and I’ll be there to see them and unwrap them further (nearby medical equipment permitting). Finding them on one program, at least, underscores Balanchine’s impressive range, as well as his ability to produce dissimilar works almost simultaneously. Marketing device or not, I’m sold on “Balanchine Black and White Week”: Without costumes (or sets) that date the ballets, you can appreciate their timeless brilliance.
I look forward to repeating the experience several times this week.
Ryan,
I offer a suggestion as to your difficulty in writing effectively of your thoughts and feelings on Balanchine’s ballets (not something I’ve at all noticed in your reviews). While not absent in many story ballets, much of Balanchine’s abstract choreography is primarily about an aesthetic; it challenges the viewer/listener/dancer to find her own meaning, his own conclusion. There may be nudges and suggestions but seldom are we presented with clear direction.
To me Balanchine’s elegant way of doing this was his genius. What we see, hear, feel is stunningly beautiful but why, how? At the end we are left, uneasily, uncertainly, to find a reason and, perhaps like you, it eventually comes, arriving in a wonderfully satisfying way, just as it should.
That’s great advice, David. Like you suggested, it’s not the lack of a response that’s a problem — it’s putting that response into words. I’ve also noticed (with my most recent post on “Apollo”) that it’s much easier to write about one Balanchine ballet at a time than to rush through writing about an entire evening’s program.
Thanks for the encouragement and the advice. I hope you’ll keep reading and commenting!