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Reviews

Weren’t We Fools?—
American Ballet Theatre at City Center

by Carol Pardo
copyright © 2001 by Carol Pardo
Winter 2001

When it was first established in 1997, American Ballet Theatre's fall season at City Center was intended to provide the opportunity to perform (and see) ballets which would be swallowed up in the barn-like precincts of the Metropolitan Opera House, the company's home in New York every spring. For some time after the announcement of this additional season, there were persistent rumors of a Shakespeare triple bill in the works: Limon's The Moor's Pavane, Tudor's Romeo and Juliet and Ashton's The Dream, never produced due to lack of funds.

The repertory on view during the fall of 2000 was about as far from such quality choreography and cogent programming as is possible. The few works of proven substance were eclipsed by novelties and particularly by bits and pieces: excerpts from full-length ballets: the Black Swan pas de deux, the bedroom scene pas de deux from MacMillan's Manon, and on opening night, the grand pas de deux from Kevin McKenzie's Nutcracker.

One of the novelties, and the marketing hook of the season, its picture on the program cover and in every ad, as well as the subject of a mass mailing, was Christian Holder's Weren't We Fools? Set to compositions by Cole Porter, some familiar, some never published or newly rediscovered, the ballet is proof that laudable musical archaeology is not necessarily the basis of good dance. The piece strives to blend the danced emotion of Lilac Garden with the rhythmic verve and popular appeal of Who Cares?—a strange combination to begin with and one that Holder can’t make work. We are asked to empathize with a woman and her lover, who, though they love each other, we are told in song, break up. She presumably returns to her husband and he to his mistress. The presence of the vocalist on stage encourages one to take the words of the songs literally as an explanation of the action; that being the case, the choreography is redundant. Moreover, the singer becomes a character in the action, at one point joining the Woman in embracing the Husband. The moment when four hands clutching his head (seen from the back) in passion was pretty risible. The characters are neither sympathetic (all except the Husband are cheating on someone or would like to), nor fully or vividly drawn. The husband is tall and stoical; the lover can unleash balletic pyrotechnics at the drop of a hat--an obvious casting call for Ethan Stiefel or Angel Corella (their tails fly all over the beat as they turn). In the end we are never told, in words or motion, why the Woman and her Lover break up, nor, after thirty-five minutes that seemed endless, do we really care.

ABT. did not help the ballet by performing Lilac Garden during the same season as Weren't We Fools? Although I am not convinced that Tudor's work has the same impact on audiences today that it did at its premiere, the choreographer sets out the situation clearly, and succinctly while also engaging the spectator's sympathy for Caroline and her plight. In this the ballet was helped enormously by the dancers. Julie Kent as Caroline was able to distinguish between duty and desire simply by turning her head. In the alternate cast Ekaterina Shelkanova’s delicacy and understated tone made her plight seem even weightier than it is. Angel Corella as the Lover reined in his energy, letting it show only when the character was a breath away from losing control. As the mistress, Erica Fischbach was determined to win back her lover and daring in the character’s signature jumps. Ethan Brown made Caroline’s future husband (and the mistress’ former lover) more than a stiff control freak. He was a little rough around the edges and gave the impression that he may have wanted this marriage, but certainly needed it. For whatever reason, social or financial, he could not afford to let Caroline go.

The other novelty was Jabula by Natalie Weir, billed as "a ritual of joy". Actually a group work for the company's corps and younger soloists using the usual pirouette, lunge, jeté and roll hybrid of ballet and modern vocabulary with substantial work for the men while the women remain little more than appendages to be manipulated. The riveting aspect of the production was the lighting, by Brad Fields after the original by David Whitworth, which turned the black-draped stage into the interior of a faceted gem, glowing with warmth.

Unfortunately, I saw Jabula on the same program as Meadow, one of the novelties from the company's 1999 City Center season. Both outfit the male dancers in culottes, brown and to the floor in Jabula or turquoise and to the shins in Meadow. Both share the same hybrid style. Neither provides any dance-driven moment compelling enough to merit a second viewing.

The excerpted bits which filled out this program were the pas de deux from act three of The Sleeping Beauty and Vaganova's Diana and Acteon, originally intended as an addendum to Esmeralda. The former was danced by Susan Jaffe and Vladimir Malakhov, not well matched, as though it had been lifted from a manual on technique: clean, clear, strong and bloodless. It required conscious effort for Jaffe to rein in her forthright power and refashion herself as a demure princess. Diana and Acteon, though slight and hokey, with much shooting of invisible arrows from invisible bows, was notable for José Manuel Carreno's unselfconscious dancing (in spite of having to wear gladiator sandals and hot pants) and considerate partnering and for Paloma Herrera's technical confidence and relaxed demeanor.

The longest of the excerpts was act two of Kevin McKenzie's Nutcracker continuing a recently founded--if dubious--tradition of presenting the second act of a full-length ballet as an independent work: ABT did so with La Sylphide at the Met, and Dance Theatre of Harlem presented act two of Giselle by itself in September 2000. The reappearance of this Nutcracker is particularly surprising as one could be excused for believing it to be dead and buried after the critical response to its debut in 1994. Nor has it aged well. The choreography fights the music, seeming to resent one of the most danceable scores ever written. The sets and lighting place the action firmly in mid-summer. Only the costumes redeem the undertaking and that only until the entrance of the Dewdrop, dressed to look like a toadstool wearing a bathing cap, the entire outfit hung with tinsel. Finally, the production looks uncomfortable on a small stage.

Not needing a small stage to make its mark but replacing Twyla Tharp's Brahms-Haydn (for which the stage at City Center was deemed inimical) was Etudes, Harald Lander's pumped up, fancy dress version of ballet set to Kundaage Riisager's arrangement of Czerny etudes which, taken together, pummel the audience into submission.

If Brahms-Haydn could be replaced, one wonders why Martha Graham's Diversion of Angels could not be, given the fact that any company which dances Graham these days risks, de facto, taking sides in the sad, ugly fight over her legacy. ABT. acknowledges the situation in a program note:

"The management and dancers of American Ballet Theatre ... join with the international artistic community in support of the dancers of the Martha Graham company who have requested that we refrain from licensing and performing any Graham works ... Our presentation of Diversion of Angels is based on prior contractual commitments. For a copy of the statement of the Artists of the Martha Graham Dance Company."

This can be viewed either as a case of having your cake and eating it too or as a sad commentary on the economics of keeping a dance company afloat at the turn of the millennium. American Ballet Theatre, once known as anything but a repository of Balanchine, presented three of the choreographer's works: the perennial Theme and Variations, made for the company in 1947; the Tchaikovsky pas de deux, which though short and here used as filler, at least has the virtue of being conceived as an independent pas de deux complete unto itself. Unfortunately both Ashley Tuttle and Paloma Herrera, alumnae of Balanchine's School of American Ballet, were coached to treat the choreography as a series of stops and starts rather than conveying the alertness and readiness to move, even in moments of repose, so vital to Balanchine style. As a result, the ballet, which should overflow with joy and pride in the dancers' technical mastery--on both sides of the footlights-- never progressed beyond a half-hearted simmer.

Billed as the major revival of the season was Balanchine's Prodigal Son, an opportunity to provide a starring role for the men of the company. Ethan Stiefel's Prodigal, violent and percussive, was mostly about his hair: long, straight and providing an extra accent half a beat after that in the choreography. Exhausted and humiliated, making his way home on bloodied, bruised and dirty knees, José Manuel Carreno reacted to the sight of his home like a prairie dog coming to the surface its burrow, alert and at attention with the pain and exhaustion of crawling home on his knees forgotten. Even the Prodigal is invigorated by the sight of home, the moment did not ring true. Julie Kent, Stiefel's Siren on opening night, made a glamorous entrance with cheekbones as lethal as razor blades, the initial image could not sustain the entire piece. Michelle Wiles with Stiefel and Irina Dvorovenko with Carreno have the height and long legs for the part. However, none of the women has mastered manipulating the long red cape which fascinates the Prodigal, nor did any of them slide securely down his shins as required during the pas de deux.

It comes as no surprise that Angel Corella had no problems with the first scene, where virtuosity can carry the day. The surprise was how moving he made the last walk across the stage to his father’s arms, his body low to the ground, hands clasped behind his back as if weighed down by shame and humiliation. Even more unexpected was the casting and success of Paloma Herrera as the Siren. Never known as a company sexpot, her glamour based on her youthful joy and technique nor as a particularly tall, leggy dancer, her Siren was mesmerizing rather than pretty like a cobra. Her legs were used not to emphasize her height but to reach out to the space around her and consume it; what is more, she met everyone of the technical challenges of the part, converting that success into the triumph of the Siren over the Prodigal.

So ended a season with too few high points and far too many disposable moments proving, should proof be needed, that it is almost impossible to present a great season with a repertory that is too often not great.