BWW Interviews: New York City Ballet's Raymonda Variations, Morgen, and New York Export: Opus Jazz

On Sunday, June 31, 2015, New York City Ballet offered the sweet, the mundane, and the historical. If I were a lyricist I could write a song about this, but since my iambic pentameter is almost non-existent, and my Stephen Sondheim thesaurus nowhere to be found, I guess I'll have to push forward in everyday prose.

George Balanchine's "Raymonda Variations" opened the afternoon. A pretty pink ballet, danced before a very strange backdrop that resembled the final battleground of the Lilac Fairy and Carabosse (maybe I'm reading too much into this, but "Sleeping Beauty" fever seems to have taken over New York), it is always a welcome opener. But openers need dancers who can rise to the occasion. Originally choreographed on the powerhouse Patricia Wilde, "Raymond Variations" offered the pleasant and nice Erica Pereira in the leading role. But wait. Nice and pleasant? The ballerina in "Raymonda Variations" isn't nice-she's a commander. She's gets two brilliant variations that are lyrical, yet so technically challenging that I've seen more than one ballerina take a fish dive right on her face. Where was Ashley Bouder? I thought Bouder was the principal dancer for the afternoon. So here I was expecting a major general and got a soubrette instead.

Andrew Veyette danced the male principal role and presented himself well with clean pirouettes and ballon. But put him together with Pereira, and it took on the look of a father/daughter relationship. This is a ballet that requires equal weight and technique from both principals. Veyette knocked Pereira out of the park. As I have said many times, you don't put a dancer such as Pereira with limited experience in such a repertoire on stage. She lacked focus and the ability to compete with her partner. Can a coach be called in?

Soloists Sara Adams, Emilie Gerrity, Megan LeCrone, Sarah Villwock and Savannah Lowery acquitted themselves admirably. But without a seasoned ballerina reigning, the ballet is colorless and tiresome. I'm just wondering why they even put an effort into reviving the ballet with Pereira in the lead.

Peter Matins' "Morgen" is a ballet I have never understood because there seems to be no need for it to be performed. Danced to the orchestral songs of Richard Strauss, it involves three couples who change partners with each new pas de deux until the very end, when they all join together. Personally, I think this would be a more entertaining ballet dancing to Irving Berlin songs. Watching "Morgen," I kept thinking of the "Change Partners and Dance?" number in the Fred Astaire/Ginger Rogers film, "Carefree."

Must you dance every dance with the same fortunate man?
You have danced with him since the music began.
Won't you change partners and dance with me?
Must you dance quite so close with your lips touching his face?
Can't you see
I'm longing to be in his place?
Won't you change partners and dance with me?

This would make a great musical comedy sequence; perhaps Kathleen Marshall might want to consider it. Not here. "Morgen" is supposed to feel soulful and deep, but it's shallow and miscalculated. Yes, there could be many opportunities for the dancers to really show off-and why not? But the endless coupling, the endless lifts, the swoonings, the lunges-cut it out.

Ashly Isaacs, Rebecca Krohn, Teresa Reichlen, Zachary Catazaro, Preston Chamblee, Russell Janzen, all excellent dancers, performed exceedingly well--and for what? Am I missing something?

Watching Jerome Robbins "N.Y. Export: Opus Jazz" can be like taking a ride in a time capsule-that is, for certain people. Were we ever like that? Did Robbins really capture the teenage spirit of the late 1950s/early 1960s in this ballet. Or was it just a meditation on a time as filtered through the Robbins' imagination?

Filtered or not, it is rocketing, pulsating with the energy that can be found on many New York street corners of today. Danced before the evocative sets of Ben Shahn, "N.Y. Export: Opus Jazz" never falls into cliché. To many, it may seem like a rehash of "West Side Story." But does angst, anger, repression really ever leave the growing teenage/ early adult population when one is trying to make it or fit in? No, it never will. And I'm not talking like a sociologist or historian, which I'm not, but someone who can walk the streets, read the newspapers, and surf the Internet and see very clearly what certain age groups are encountering. No matter how many times we address these coming of age problems-and we continually will-Robbins' ballet, choreographed in 1958, treats the subject with such detonated pyrotechnics, all danced in sneakers, that it is hard to dismiss the work as just another walk down memory lane when things seemed more innocent. Which they weren't!

The New York City Ballet dancers seemed to grasp the Robbins anxiety better than the Bournonville subtleties the previous week. I'm sure it's the subject. Just walk down 66th Street and you'll see what's happening on the street and in the projects. There has been so much critical ink spilled over Robbins since his death, as it was in his own lifetime, that I feel the need to get up and defend him. Yes, there were many misses, but lots of hits. With its power of expression, its jugular treatment of resentment, its pinpointing of mental discontent, "N.Y. Export: Opus Jazz" is a work that still articulates our internal despondency, albeit in a different century.

Emilie Gerrity, Taylor Stanley, Gretchen Smith and Zachary Catazaro were all standouts in this large ensemble. However, the last nod goes directly to Robbins. Whatever he may have been as a person, and there's a lot that has been said, his choreographic mining of the human soul can't be disputed.

Photograph: Alexander Iziliaev