The Genius of George (Plus Felix and Will)

Since cities were built their dwellers have tried to escape; get out of the crowds, noise and filth to take in nature, clean air and space.

A Midsummer Nights Dream is the idyll that results from the combination of George Balanchine, Felix Mendelssohn and William Shakespeare. This is Arcadia: where beauty, comedy and mystery all conspire to create a world where butterflies hover over lovers who are a little confused. Then there are the fairies, at the beck and call of their Queen, Titania, danced by the ethereal Miriam Miller. It is just a dream...

I always forget how, in classic farce, the plot intricacies are complex enough that there is no one story. That's fine; no need to worry who is going to end up with who. It's sufficient to celebrate summer with a full house of New Yorkers roaring at the stunning costumes of Karinska, the glorious music of Felix Mendelssohn and the genius of George Balanchine, the man who made it all happen.

Sensing His Help

Last night’s performance, Classic New York City Ballet II, is my favorite one this season. I know I will change my mind when I see A Midsummer Night’s Dream next week (I cannot wait…) however the program yesterday was sheer joy.

George Balanchine once said, “In everything I did to Tchaikovsky’s music I sensed his help. It wasn’t real conversation. But when I was working and saw that something was coming of it, I felt that it was Tchaikovsky who had helped me.”

Balanchine’s masterpiece Serenade, the first original ballet he choreographed in the United States, is a take-your-breath-away meditation on movement, rhythms, and patterns, all in a blur of ice-blue tulle. There is a stunning moment in the middle of the piece when five female dancers slip into splits, then form a circle, twisting around themselves into a knot that eventually unfolds. The light, long skirts cannot keep up with the rapid body work of the dancers, creating a delayed reaction effect between dancer and costume that is mesmerizing.

I first saw Serenade when I was an undergrad at SUNY Purchase and its conversation between modern dance and classical ballet never fails to fascinate. The elegance of the classical line pared against the company snapping into first position from parallel or the flexed hands that begin and end the piece must have been revolutionary when they were first introduced at the School of American Ballet in the summer of 1934.

New York City Ballet -- American Music

The first element I noticed was that her feet were bare. Barber Violin Concerto (Peter Martins 1988) is choreographed for two couples, one more modern in style (hence bare feet) and one dancing classical ballet.  It was a stunning contrast, to have the two mirror each other, in white costumes that resembled silk floating across a sky, accompanied by Barber’s sometimes tense yet mostly lilting, ethereal visions.  

If the kids from West Side Story took a train to the suburbs they would end up in N.Y. Export: Opus Jazz, Jerome Robbin’s 1958 piece that was first performed in Italy at the Spoleto Festival of Two Worlds. The dancers all wear candy colored t-shirts with Keds-style sneakers to match. Creating a kaleidoscope of colors they circle each other warily, like dogs approaching each other on the street. There are street scenes and a dark, club-like number with some very Audrey Hepburn-in-Funny Face moves. The backdrops, by Ben Shahn, are stunning, giving the work an abstract setting that only the 1950s could produce.

Less is definitely more in The Most Incredible Thing (Justin Peck 2016) based on a fairy tale by Hans Christian Andersen. The story, of a contest to win a king’s daughter, is on a grand scale that employs a large cast. I felt the costumes, while impressive on their own, were a distraction bordering on camp, as was the scrim that opened the piece. There were too many patterns, colors and words that were not discernible. The work would have been much more powerful if it had put the City Ballet stamp of minimalism on it. I would have loved to see this work with simple colors and no patterns to showcase the dancing. The story would certainly fall into place if this had been the case.