New York City Ballet: Dances at a Gathering, Monumentum & Movements, Stars and Stripes

(Jerome Robbins' Dances at a Gathering. Photo by Paul Kolnik)

Thurs, Jan 29 - I hauled myself down the city in the middle of the week specifically to see Jerome Robbins' Dances at a Gathering, and it did not disappoint – I love this ballet. Robbins' choreography here feels simple and clear, but is surprising and inventive throughout. Only a solo piano accompanies the dancing, which creates a quiet, intimate environment.But most importantly the ten dancers on stage – five men and five women, each dressed in a differing distinctive color – all have a touching individual, humanity in the roles that they dance on stage. The ballet is 60 minutes long but I could watch it for much longer. (I describe it more fully in this review of Miami City Ballet's performance in 2006.)

NYCB's performance on Thursday hit all the right notes, and I particularly enjoyed seeing Benjamin Millpied, in brown, and Sara Mearns, in green, as the who can't find a partner of her own to dance with. The cast featured many of City Ballet's new soloists and principals, including Kathryn Morgan, Adrian Danchig-Warig, Kathryn Morgan, led by Yvonne Borree, a senior principal who did well here (after a few alarmingly weak performances over the past few weeks). It was a very satisfying performance of this ballet.

Going in to tonight's program, I was also interested in seeing Balanchine's paired Stravinsky ballets, Monumentum pro Gesualdo and Movements for Piano and Orchestra, given tonight as the program's openers. Both are very short and their choreography is deliberately disjointed and angular; the ballets are brief essays in stark neoclassicism - court dances turned on their heads and dressed in stripped down ballet rehearsal clothes. I had seen video clips of Monumentum and Movements in a news item on the Suzanne Farrell Ballet several years ago, and I was intrigued by the fascinating and bizarre energy shown in the Farrell company's video clips. The music was stark and angular, the dancing sharp and jagged. There is also a brief clip of Farrell herself dancing in Movements, from archive foortage in her biographical documentary - in that, too, there was a fascinating energy and angularity.

But that was not on stage with NYCB tonight. Both works were given mannered performances by the ensemble and a principal couple, here Maria Kowroski and Charles Askegard. It was studied rather than energetic. Monumentum has several visual effects that are created as the ensemble arranges itself into various formations, then plunges into a pose, like friezes on a Greek vase. Lacking precision and crispness, these images didn't register with very much impact. And there was something missing from Movements - the angularity and bizarreness in the choreography had soft edges and fuzziness rather than the fizzy energy that I was expecting.

Stars and Stripes, the final ballet of the evening, is pure cotton candy, a nice confection if you happen to be in the mood for it. Balanchine created ordered patterns and shapes in the choreography that are usually quite fun to see as the dancers bound around the stage, marching band style. But the dancing must also be performed with precision and a sense of bravura fun. Sadly, at this performance, it was performed only tentatively. There were times that I thought things might be headed in that bravura direction, but just as I was about to start smiling, the herd was looking sluggish again.

In the Fourth Campaign, Sara Mearns was in the midst of her first few performances in the ballerina role. Though she was all smiles, the adage was wobbly and tense: one wants to be swept along by all the fun they are having on stage, not concerned that she's going to fall out of a supported pirouette. The variation was accomplished successfully, though a bit raggedly. Charles Askegard had an irritatingly smug stage demeanor; he kept smirking and mugging to the audience, with a forced arrogance that came off as cloying. Not an altogether satisfying performance of this light-as-air ballet.

All photos by Paul Kolnik: (1) From left to right, Sebastien Marcovici, Adrian Danchig-Waring, Jared Angle, Yvonne Borree and Kathryn Morgan in Dances at a Gathering, choreographed by Jerome Robbins. (2) Maria Kowroski and Charles Askegard in Movements for Piano and Orchestra, choreographed by George Balanchine.