Review: New York Ballet Costume Dramas


It’s been 18 months of fainting in soft clothes, but finally fashion is making a comeback on the streets of New York. He also returned to the New York Ballet stage. On Thursday, the company revived its Fall Fashion Gala at Lincoln Center with two new ballets dressed from head to toe in designer outfits – or a headpiece that once turned into lampshade territory – pointe shoes.

The question was not which dance wore their costumes better, but which one wore them brighter. (And sometimes bigger.) It seems that coming out of a pandemic is not the time to smooth things over. While I was on the lookout for crazy outfits, the show that started with Jerome Robbins’ “Shards of Glass” failed to push fashion or ballet in any innovative direction: The setting was more of a “Twilight Zone” – why dance? When will a strange dream with spinning fabric happen? – Moira meets Rose without shock or wit.

This year Sidra Bell collaborated with designer Christopher John Rogers on “Suspended Animation,” and Andrea Miller collaborated with Colombian-American designer Esteban Cortázar on “Sky to Hold.” Both of these contemporary choreographers created digital works for the company early in the pandemic. And while they took different approaches to the premiere – austerity for Bell, melodrama for Miller – both ballets found a way to slip into a hole of reductionist mediocrity.

Instead of fast fashion—disposable, flimsy, forgettable—this seemed like a night of fast dancing. It’s not destroying the planet, but it’s a wasted opportunity and in a dance where money is hard to come by, NS destructive action. Like the other ballets at the fashion premiere, these ballets won’t last long. And they shouldn’t.

Miller’s frenzied work with his patchwork consumed his energy in the most demoralizing way, while Bell’s “Suspended Animation” composed by Dosia McKay, Nicholas Britell and Oliver Davis created a more visceral experience. At times, dancers wearing Rogers’ sculptural designs—the most delightful (and Molly Goddard-ish) Isabella LaFreniere’s pink and Mira Nadon’s electric blue – it seemed to float on stage like chess pieces.

Because the focus was on the presentation rather than the steps, the dancers’ bodies were more in tune with the atmosphere around them; In some ways, “Suspended Animation” was more a dance installation than a dance, in which movement was made visible or hidden depending on the costume. As they dragged on, some dancers peeled off the outer layers as if they were shedding skin, and, in keeping with Bell’s title, they hung in midair like fantastic sea creatures floating in the darkest depths of the sea.

Once the bodies were made more visible, the dance gave one or two displays of bodily splendor: Teresa Reichlen’s serene glow proved she could beat the brightest of costumes, while Megan Fairchild’s vulnerability was revealed when she used her limbs to delicately carve in space. But this City Ballet and looks are not enough; The result was a waste of time and talent.

Miller collaborated with Cortázar on her rambling and long-running “Sky to Hold,” whose costumes – more harmonious and traditionally dance-appropriate – have changed over time and become more colorful with lighting by Nicole Pearce. Colombian-Canadian singer-songwriter Lido Pimienta Composing the score and on stage – albeit sideways – in an electric yellow dress. As she sang, her body reacted, channeling into the sound of her strong and silky voice. Sometimes I wondered How are you today dance to watch?

Pimienta made up a sweet story for ballet: A seed falls in love with a storm. The seed was Taylor Stanley, determined, whose mercury dance couldn’t carry this inconsistent ballet as best she could; The storm was Sara Mearns, whose hair acts like a fifth limb. The dancers evoked images from the natural world as they ran across the stage, like swaying trees or blowing winds. It ended in yellow: the inevitable sunshine after the storm.

As “Sky to Hold” winds its way from episode to episode, the dancers are balanced like royalty on the shoulders of the others; Stanley on the ground—he was a seed after all—rolled from his stomach to his back with the rubbery, convoluted ease of a hammer, and then arched into a back that extended until he was resting the top of his head against the stage. .

As the romance began, Stanley and Mearns met on the floor, lightening toward each other as they played silhouettes on the wall behind them. The visual effects were something you might witness in children’s theatre; The same goes for the unfortunate Mylar curtain that covers the backstage in other episodes. This image of spinning bodies trapped in a storm and finding their way to the end—a sunny embrace—was depressingly light.

The fact that both works are choreographed by women says something about the ballet world’s attempt to move beyond this all-too-familiar character: the white male choreographer. And it’s okay for the company to reach beyond the stylistic comfort zone to more contemporary dance producers. But in the end, both premieres felt out of date. “Glass Pieces” created by Robbins in 1983 after the death of George Balanchine. This is a masterful ballet; about endurance.

While Thursday’s performance was tough – the counts are misleading – this three-part ballet composed by Philip Glass now looks like an epitome of the pandemic. At first, the dancers cross the stage like pedestrians – walking freely and purposefully, as if on a bustling city street. In the second movement, a gorgeous, gloomy pas de deux draws the focus inward, as if hiding somewhere. (Still the presence of Amar Ramasar, partnered with Maria Kowroski, remains frustrating; returned to that company after a photo-sharing scandal.) And in the third, the dancers burst out with joy, a snapshot of the energetic power of bringing New York City back to life.

Ben Benson’s costumes, which featured a mosaic of colorful training suits and space age units, also had a cutting-edge feel. This year, however, there has been a significant change, starting with this ballet: City Ballet has finally begun transitioning from the standard pink to nude tights and shoes to better match every dancer’s complexion. In the ballet performances I’ve watched this season, especially the dance of the three Black company members – Olivia Boisson, India Bradley and Savannah Durham – shines even more. Honestly, it was the most important fashion statement of the night.

New York City Ballet

at the David H. Koch Theater at Lincoln Center until October 17; nycballet.com.



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