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Tiler Peck and Sara Mearns at New York City Ballet

Tiler Peck and Sara Mearns at New York City Ballet

Spring 2010 Revi ew

From the Spring 2010 issue of

Tiler Peck and Sara Mearns at 4 New York – Alice Helpern 7 Stuttgart – Gary Smith 8 Lisbon – Peter Sparling 10 Chicago – Joseph Houseal 11 New York – Sandra Genter 13 Ann Arbor – Peter Sparling 16 New York – Sandra Genter 17 Toronto – Gary Smith 19 New York – Marian Horosko 20 San Francisco – Paul Parish David Vaughan 45 23 Paris 1909-2009 Sandra Genter 29 Pina Bausch (1940-2009) Laura Jacobs & Joel Lobenthal 31 A Conversation with & Misha Chernov Marnie Thomas Wood Edited by 37 Celebrating the Graham Anti-heroine Francis Mason Morris Rossabi Ballet Review 38.1 51 41 Ulaanbaatar Ballet Spring 2010 Darrell Wilkins Associate Editor and Designer: 45 A Mary Wigman Evening Marvin Hoshino Daniel Jacobson Associate Editor: 51 La Danse Don Daniels Associate Editor: Michael Langlois Joel Lobenthal 56 ABT 101 Associate Editor: Joel Lobenthal Larry Kaplan 61 Osipova’s Season Photographers: 37 Tom Brazil Davie Lerner Costas 71 A Conversation with Howard Barr Subscriptions: Don Daniels Roberta Hellman 75 No Apologies: Peck &Mearns at NYCB Copy Editor: Barbara Palfy Annie-B Parson 79 First Class Teachers Associates: Peter Anastos 88 London Reporter – Clement Crisp Robert Gres kovic 93 Alfredo Corvino – Elizabeth Zimmer George Jackson 94 on Disc – George Dorris Elizabeth Kendall 23 Paul Parish 100 Check It Out Nancy Reynolds James Sutton David Vaughan Edward Willinger Cover photo by Paul Kolnik, New York City Ballet: Sarah C. Woodcock in ’ production of The Sleeping Beauty. Sara Mearns as Odette. (Photo: Paul Kolnik, NYCB) spring 2010 3 No Apologies: Peck and The Sleeping Beauty and Sara Mearns in last winter. Mearns at NYCB Peck provided a true diapason of movement qualities in her accounting of Aurora. She has her controlled version of a strong attack, and Don Daniels she has her utterly distinctive idea of fil- igree. There is a startling softness in areas of When a produces fine artists this young woman’s dance. Not only does she among its dancers, it can honor such signs of dare to discriminate among a wide range of health by rearranging existing repertory dance energies; suddenly we are able to find a around them. Despite the fact that we often see logic in dance passages that other Auroras undercast new productions of old at leave untouched. An obvious example is to be major houses around the world – revivals by found in the way she takes full advantage of companies that do not possess the necessary transitional movements. A Peck glissade can personnel – dance lovers have every right to ex- become a major statement; I have seen recent pect a match between first-rate material, how- Auroras who cannot essay a plausible glissade. ever old, and first-rate executants, however The poetic force of a Tiler Peck new. Anything less may allow a dancer to coast derives from such acts of discovery. on his or her popularity with the fans, but it Peck’s sense of timing and dance adds nothing to the serious process of defin- rhythm allows her fresh, unexpected agree- ing stage artistry. ments with Tschaikovsky’s great score. Peck We need to find fresh facets in a discovered can indicate a dance gesture with the lightest favorite, and the best way to release aspects of of touches, and she can clinch a phrase with dance genius is through work that creates a the most definitive of accents. In the midst of context for discovery. Ballet fans often com- her most decorative flights, there is a clear des- plain about the paucity of new, young choreo- tination. Peck does not condescend to the Peti- graphic talent. Perhaps more disturbing is the pa conception of the role of Aurora. She has failure to introduce young dancers to revived studied her place in the ballet from the ground tradition. up. Watching this young ballerina pull the If companies can be foolhardy in imagining spectacle around her is one of the great ex- ballets-without-dancers, they also often ap- citements of the art today. She is the most vivid, pear to doubt the old ballets themselves as ve- the most unpredictable of Auroras, perform- hicles. We get productions that apologize for ance by performance. the venerable warhorses, tricked out in wilted Sara Mearns’s Odette-Odile hit the City Bal- “concepts,” attempts to salvage something let audience like a lightning bolt. In her char- from the glue factory, almost anything to res- acterizations, she works against the fatalism cue a modern audience from a lengthy ride. It of the full-evening NYCB production, with is enough to make one wonder whether there its suggestion that the lakeside couple’s dou- isany need for future retrospection. (At the cur- ble suicide and apotheosis are not sufficient rent rate, there may be little to remember.) Ac- for an unhappy ending. Only a retributive tually, those of us who recall the Grigorovich separation and mortal solitude will do: no thrift-shop revisions of the classics at the Bol- spells broken here. But Mearns weaves her shoi have been here before; now that he’s once own spell. She differentiates between the two again working for his old company, even Grig- swans. Her Odette endures an exquisite mar- orovich has been here before. tyrdom. Her Odile takes a wide range of joy At New York City Ballet the best young in her villainy. dancers themselves do not apologize. My ex- Over at American Ballet , Veronika amples are the of Tiler Peck in Part gets more neurosis into her Odette, and

©20104 Don Daniels ballet review she does so with a scar of masochism through ing the or creating movement her cut-glass Maryinsky style. Mearns has a , however swift. She must find ways ready speed denied to Part, but Part’s suffer- of bracketing not only the dance’s small, but ing is dark and deep. Diana Vishneva turns also its large, gestures. Only then do we see the Odette into a creature fearful for Siegfried ’s reciprocal motifs, variable scale, because her beauty and plight may lure him and vast formal range. Balanchine and Farrell, unfairly; she fears her own possible predation who originated the role, threw down this chal- upon the Prince, one equivalent to her en- lenge for the future. slavement by von Rothbart. Vishneva thereby I seem to remember a wider command from connects her Odette to her rapacious, force- Mearns in her earlier performance of “Dia- of-nature Odile. monds” (she was again allowed only one last Mearns contrasts her portraits with two winter). This ballerina is a true creature of the distinct fantasies: one infinitely painful, one stage, and she alters her approach from night effortlessly calculating. Thanks to her, we are to night, so I may speak too soon or place too permitted a variety of privileged glimpses of much emphasis on what I took to be missing what is really going on in the netherworld of this time in “Diamonds.” Mearns has already this ballet, the sorts of things you usually only mastered the Mimi Paul role in “Emeralds.” catch out of the corner of your eye at a busy One wants to see Mearns in other great Bal- party – livid, frozen images that classical dance anchine roles. If the City Ballet seasons are to can vouchsafe with no morning after. Jared An- be expanded backward and forward around gle was brilliant both in his partnering of current schedules, perhaps there will be time Mearns and in his suave suggestion that this to sneak some contraband works into the mix. Prince is finding his own guilt-riven way to And if we are to have more full-evening bal- grow up. lets, perhaps the way could be cleared for the Both Mearns and Peck are mistresses of dra- return of Balanchine’s , especially matic contrasts in their dance movement. (At now that there are candidates – Mearns, Tay- City Ballet they have a sister genius in this skill lor – for Dulcinea. If NYCB does not currently – Janie Taylor.) Perhaps at times the two could boast a choreographic staff, resident or guest, use more stretch amid the high speeds of the that can supply its best ballerinas with rich new NYCB productions. Peck’s line can become material – roles with poetic range and fitted briefly attenuated, and Mearns’s can look ropy. technical challenge – the search must turn to Mearns’s “Diamonds” in (where she the company’s own past. Every major Balan- is sympathetically partnered by Jonathan chine ballerina role becomes precious for the Stafford) appeared to use what she had learned development of NYCB’s dance genius. from her recent Odette. In the great Balanchine Before he died, Balanchine expressed the pas de deux, Mearns employed a more com- wish to condense his three-act Don Quixote in- pressed phrasing than I remember in her first to a two-act work so that the ballet could be “Diamonds.” A more expansive idea of phrasal performed in repertory. We know that its relationships would achieve a greater effect. , Nicolas Nabokov, had earlier men- When her dance tightens, Mearns can look tioned to his wife that he had found a way to old-fashioned in her accents and periods. “fix” the ballet. Both Balanchine and Na bokov (There is always a part of a ballet audience that were thus considering a substantive revision wants an old-fashioned ballerina busy around until the ends of their lives. Balanchine’s Don the house.) At such moments Mearns refers Quixote is as personal a work as his La Son- back to that first fast entrance in Swan Lake, an nambula. In many ways the 1965 ballet has the entrée that only she has conquered among the dark, self-punishing quality of a film by Ing- City Ballet ballerinas. But an artist cannot mar Bergman. The role of Dulcinea is central master the pas de deux of “Diamonds” by rid- to NYCB’s history. Perhaps a way could now spring 2010 5 Tiler Peck and Joaquin de Luz in Theme and . (Photo: Paul Kolnik, NYCB) be found to compress acts 1 and 2, retain ing act Balanchine. But the title alone is regarded the large integrity of Nabokov’s score and the as box-office. And newcomers would confront iconic stage vignettes (Marcela’s dance, the a fascinating reclamation, streamlined along best pas of the in the original Balanchine’s late plan. The result could offer act 2), so as to construct a new act 1. City Bal- something like a perfect marriage of new let has a new generation of skilled ballerinas commercialism and old art, between young for the large cast of Don Quixote: Sterling Hyl - ar tists and unapologetic tradition: a consum- tin, Teresa Reichlen, Rebecca Krohn, Kath ryn ma tion devoutly to be wished. Morgan, and Kaitlyn Gilliland. The recent NYCB tendency has been to try Many members of the new seat-filling au- young artists in the most demanding active rep dience at the Koch Theater would undoubted- right away. (Peck has already done Theme and ly not know that there is a difference between Variations.) A balletomane with a memory in- the three-act Petipa Don Quixote and the two- evitably laments the absence of the challeng-

6 ballet review ing 1950s works ( Pas de Deux, Minkus Pas anchine staples. This approach would also de Trois, Bourrée Fantasque, and Pas de Dix) from mitigate the charge from new balletomanes present use, especially when bringing a young - that City Ballet is not a “classical company.” er artist up through the Balanchine classics. There would be other, specific advantages What can eventually be done about this reper- from the creation of a NYCB 2. Young male tory omission, given the pressure to keep the dancers could be nurtured in the John Prinz later rep alive and a new dependence on full- repertory before confronting the Villella roles. evening works in the NYCB schedule? (At the current accelerated rate, corps member Perhaps this is the time for City Ballet to Chase Finlay – excellent in the Gold form a junior company like American Ballet in Peter Martins’ Beauty – will soon be doing Theatre’s ABT II. Too many full-evening pro- “Rubies” rather than the in “Emer- ductions can discourage management from alds.”) Not only could a second company re- quick, improvisatory decisions, like reviving vive Balanchine works like Cotillon, Mozart Vio- a training ballet for a young dancer suddenly lin Concerto, and Glinkiana, not to be seen on to- on the rise. (Valse Fantaisie is one example.) A day’s main stage; revivals at the junior com- junior company could take over the part of the pany could be considered candidates for trans- Balanchine repertory (including the 1950s fer to the senior and, if successful, ultimately works) that the main ensemble cannot easily claimed by NYCB 1 stars like Peck and Mearns. honor. The Balanchine and Robbins reperto- The best graduates of the City Ballet’s Chore- ries are already enormous, and the company ographic Institute would be able to display copes heroically with trying to maintain them their experiments in performances of NYCB 2, and introduce new ballets at the same time. rather than suffering in comparison with the A NYCB 2 would be able to absorb some Balanchine-Robbins monolith at the David of this effort. A smaller stage would allow Koch Theater. American-born and New York certain works (, for example) a legibil- City-based choreographers might even find ity that is impossible in a large venue. Promis- their way to showing their work to local audi- ing graduates of SAB could use NYCB 2 for ences via commissions from a NYCB 2. performance experience and – should they From the beginning graduate from 2 to 1 – for preparation for the trained his dancers in a wide range of clarified more “modern” challenges of the NYCB 1 rep. rhythmic articulation toward an eventual ar - Works like the Stravinsky Symphony in Three tistry both classical and modern. His surviv- Movements might even gain in underlying ing oeuvre is our repository of that achieve- strength after dancers at NYCB 2 have tra- ment. A junior company would be one way to versed the “classical” style of the earlier Bal- claim it for the present and the future.

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