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\u201cTo the greatest dancers on earth,\u201d said New York City Ballet\u2019s Master in Chief Peter Martins. On September 14 the Danish-born master of ceremonies pronounced this while making his annual, launch-the-season vodka toast. I don\u2019t think Martins knew that his grand words echoed those of America\u2019s most influential circus impresario. P.T. Barnum\u2019s \u201cgreatest show on earth\u201d began with elephants and trapeze girls walking the ring of the circus floor. On opening night, Martins trotted out \u201cthe greatest dancers on earth\u201d one at a time in front of the stage curtain in Barnum-like fashion. As they stood in a line and in an array of costumes (jeans to suits, cocktail dresses to tutus), they looked like kids on their first day of school. Only Gonzalo Garcia bowed with a flourish of the arms as though saying, \u201cThe show must go on!\u201d<\/p>\n
Unprecedented in City Ballet history, Martins is putting his principal dancers front and center. He is shaking up the House of Balanchine\u2019s historic mission, which has placed greater value on its choreography. Martins\u2019s approach comes in concert with a new marketing campaign that aims to humanize the dancers through images where they are shot casually, candidly, or sexily (as opposed to formally in performance and in costume). These images can be seen in New York\u2019s subway, magazines, and on billboards. They are also hanging along the public walls of the David H. Koch Theater. Marketing dancers\u2019 personalities in consumer venues is one thing. It\u2019s another matter to do it in the theater, where (until now) there appeared documentary style pictures of the company\u2019s evolution or examples of a designer\u2019s work, which helped to contextualize the complex, collaborative process of making ballets. Clearly, City Ballet is evolving.<\/p>\n
What thankfully remains the same is the high quality of much of the choreography. Jerome Robbins\u2019s 1979 Four Seasons<\/em>, which closed the program and is a satire, remains a lesson in choreographic nuance. Funny is hard to do, and Robbins Seasons <\/em>echoes the earlier Monty Python<\/em> television series, but without disrespecting ballet\u2019s demands on the body and the mind. Nonetheless, Robbins\u2019s gestural gimmickry in Seasons<\/em> pokes fun at ballet\u2019s allegorical propensities: The corps dancers of Winter shiver and hug themselves; the women of Summer are pelvic-tilting harem girls; the dancers of Fall caper and rush, resembling leaves whistling down boulevards. During Tuesday\u2019s performance, the dancers equaled Robbins\u2019s choreography. Erica Pereira rose on pointe with a snowflake\u2019s ease. Jennifer Ringer\u2019s ability to use her whole body expressively demonstrates her hard-earned artistic maturity. Rebecca Krohn\u2019s elegantly Mannerist lines and sexy confidence perfectly fits her role as the queen of Summer.<\/p>\n The other two dances on the program were Balanchine\u2019s Serenade<\/em> (1935) and Martins\u2019s Grazioso<\/em> (2007). Though it\u2019s been said Serenade<\/em> is an abstract dance, I see it as autobiography. It was the first ballet Balanchine made in America. Created to Tchaikovsky\u2019s Serenade for Strings<\/em>, the second section tells the choreographer\u2019s story: A woman (Janie Taylor) emerges from the wings behind a man (Ask Le Cour); she covers his eyes with her hand; he walks forward like a blind missionary and encounters three dancers; he shapes them with his hands like a sculptor. At the ballet\u2019s end, one of these muses (the inestimable Sara Mearns) transforms into a Madonna figure: Mearns is lifted above three porters heads like a Russian icon during a processional. As she exits the stage, she arches her back as though offering herself to her creator. What’s this? It is a highly emotional statement about redemption through artwork. In Serenade<\/em> Balanchine demonstrates his faith in ballet\u2019s expressive (spiritual) capacity. As the blind man who learns to see through his dancers, he implies he has the vision to develop ballet in the New World.<\/p>\n As for Martins\u2019s Grazioso<\/em>, it bears resemblance to late 19th<\/sup> century descriptions of the Russian Imperial Ballet, whose lengthy productions featured an endless array of divertissements that had no thematic connection to each other. They did, however, serve to show off each soloist\u2019s technical strengths. Tricks abounded, and some dancers performed with the humanity of carnival barkers. Like these divertissements, Grazioso<\/em> aims at lightness and virtuosity. What surprises is Martins choice of taking the least laudable aspects of Russian ballet and imitating it. The costumes by Holly Hines don\u2019t help matters. Think Commedia dell\u2019Arte meets a Las Vegas nightclub. Despite the choreographic and design deficiencies, Ashley Bouder, Gonzalo Garcia, Daniel Ulbricht and Andrew Veyette performed their hearts out. Mine goes out to them for their valiant efforts. \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n <\/p>\n