A Trip to Europe Last Night with NYCB

I felt like I was in Europe last night while I was at the theater for the special "New Combinations" performance at New York City Ballet (and the trip only cost $15 with my 4th Ring Society ticket!)

First on the program was Bournonville's Flower Festival Pas de Deux danced by Katie Morgan and Allen Peiffer. I was pulled back to Copenhagen a couple of summers ago when I saw the Royal Danish Ballet in an open air performance. Katie has just the right sweet look for Bournonville and she and Allen were lovely together.

I LOVED La Stravaganza by Angelin Preljocaj. This is a totally cool piece that just feels very "European" to me. The music is a wonderful collage of Vivaldi, electronic, bird and water sounds, creating along with the lighting a very mysterious world on the stage. There are two groups of dancers, modern and old, with the "Vermeer" group dressed in 17th century inspired costumes. (My daughter Lydia danced in this section last night - exciting of course! She was put in at the last minute because of a suddenly injured dancer. Wow, when dancers are understudies they must always be prepared to go on!)

The Girl with the Red Hat by Vermeer on the left, and La Stravaganza being performed by the Royal Danish Ballet on the right:

In the program Deborah Jowitt describes the scene: "They look like escapees from a Flemish painting, stiff from being motionless too long, and, as they go about their recognizable daily tasks, the others wander around perusing them as if they were, indeed, artworks." The style of movement was strikingly different from what we usually see at NYCB. (The dancers had many hours of rehearsal lead by Naomie Perlov, assistant to Preljocaj, and then the choreographer himself.) Particularly excellent were Tiler Peck and Benjamin Millepied in their pas de deux when old and new meet. I wanted to stay longer in the world created by this beautiful ballet. When I got home, I was eager to find out more about the choreographer: Preljocaj lives and works in France, where he was born in 1957 of Albanian parents. He has a company (here is the link) of 27 dancers based in Aix-en-Provence. I will try to see more of his work whenever I can. He created La Stravaganza for NYCB in 1997. The piece had a similar effect on me as William Forsythe's "Impressing the Czar" performed by the Royal Ballet of Flanders which I loved so much this past summer.

It is exciting when NYCB invites choreographers to create new works for various projects and workshops. Douglas Lee, English and working in Stuttgart, Germany, participated twice in the New York Choreographic Institute. His new piece which premiered last night is called Lifecasting. More abstract than La Stravaganza, it seemed especially occupied with the particular physicalities of his dancers. Both ballets had many of the same dancers (the amazing Kaitlyn Gilliland and Robbie Fairchild, Adrian Danchig-Waring, Craig Hall, and Amar Ramasar)  and I loved seeing them all in the new light of these choreographers' movement.

Wheeldon's pas de deux from After the Rain, danced by Wendy Whelan and Sebastien Marcovici made time stand still and they were other-worldly. 

And ending the whole evening was Balanchine's Theme and Variations. When the curtain went up there was that collective "Ahh" from the audience, awed by the sparkle and the courtly tutus and Old-World setting. A perfect way to end the evening, because after all, classical ballet is at the base of it all! With all these ballets together, I felt happily in Europe for the evening.  I'm going back for another trip on Sunday for the same program (also repeated on Jan 31 and Feb 3) I highly recommend it!

tags: choreography  gilliland  wheeldon  copenhagen  forsythe  stravaganza  

links: technorati