Six performances crammed into four days, New York City Ballet (NYCB) visits London after an absence of sixteen years, and, needless to say, performances are sold out. They bring an eclectic bill of four disparate pieces, both in mood (wit and joy stand out), length and style. The anticipation is huge.
Founded by George Balanchine in 1948, NYCB has grown in reach and contemporary content and context, but its legendary athleticism, its fleet footwork, the long-legged ballerinas Balanchine liked so much, their legs scything and spearing the air, are intact. The dancers excite, their nonchalant dynamism and precision attack have me on the edge of my seat.
But the choice of works is a different matter. Not all will please all, but there’s something for everyone. Resident choreographer Justin Peck’s opening number Rotunda is a half-hour warm-up for the audience—let’s ease them in gently.
In costumes that look like regular individual rehearsal wear (designed by Reid Bartelme and Harriet Jung), twelve dancers form a tight circle, then peel away in groups, trios, pairs, solos—it's a playground. Peck seems to have interpreted Nico Muhly’s chugging music, Cascades, literally. Beautiful arms, line, poise, fluidity are not abandoned in these swift perorations.
Balanchine’s 1972 Duo Concertant has the pair of dancers (Indiana Woodward, Taylor Stanley on the second night) communing intensely with Stravinsky’s 1932 composition for violin and piano. They stand and listen, as pianist Elaine Chelton and violinist Kurt Nikkanen play the first movement of five. Then they dance.
“Dancing is music made visible”, “see the music, hear the dance” are famous Balanchine (1904–83) quotes. Each movement in music has its equivalent in Balanchine’s witty vision: the bodies become the music as they inscribe the air. The final movement, the Dithyrambe, is an ancient anxious drama (a crisis of creativity?) set in darkness. His muse vanishes out of the spare spotlight; he searches for her; finds her and kneels at her feet.
The piano remains on stage for Pam Tanowitz’s brief (ten / fifteen minutes) Gustave Le Gray No.1. Set to Caroline Shaw’s eponymous discreet piano composition, the four female dancers (Naomi Corti, Emily Kikta, Ruby Lister, Mira Nadon) in red costumes (Bartelme and Jung) might have stepped out of Leonora Carrington's surreal paintings.
The concept leans towards Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker’s dance playbook and geometry: the thigh-slapping dancers interact with the piano to the point of shifting it from one side of the stage to the other with pianist Stephen Gosling heroically continuing to play standing up. Finally, a stool is returned to him.
The final piece, Love Letter (on shuffle) by Kyle Abraham, is the longest at about forty minutes, mixing the classical with the vernacular, ballet and all its techniques at the service of hiphop—or maybe the other way round. I like its incongruous blend full of dynamism and energy and pizzazz, hands flicking, bodies gently popping and locking... and the discipline of classical ballet, from which Abraham has borrowed much, not least ballet class centre work for the ensemble, and three cygnets from Swan Lake.
A blend of the old and the new (hand bumps too), Dan Scully’s psychedelic lighting giving it a midnight gig feel, dancers in solos, pairs and group explicate Blake’s album. Love stories, male duets, and I see some similarity with William Forsythe, who also likes James Blake. To an album of pop songs, mellow voice, heavy beat, white noise electronica sounds, fifteen dancers flit across, and fill, the stage in curious travelling circus costumes by Giles Deacon.
Celebrating its 75th season anniversary, NYCB brings an interesting choice of works to London, a cross-range of dancing genres and music, contemporary taking on classical and, if not winning, giving it a run for its money.
The dancers are superb, committed, invested, and tireless. What are they on… can I have some of it, please? New York has given this tired Londoner a much-needed fillip. Don't leave is so long next time… although we did have Tiler Peck here last year.