BWW Reviews: NEW YORK CITY BALLET Celebrates the Storied BALANCHINE-STRAVINSKY Collaboration

On the first ever World Ballet Day, October 1st 2014, I postponed watching the video stream of five top ballet companies in favor of attending what turned out to be a mesmerizing mixed bill featuring Balanchine ballets to the music of Stravinsky at the Koch Theater in Lincoln Center. YouTube can wait for me to catch up on the video stream later, but being in the audience at a live performance is always a one-time experience never to be recaptured except in the mind's eye.

I certainly don't regret my choice. The New York City Ballet, not always as well-rehearsed or true to historical detail as I would like, did their legendary founder and choreographer proud in a series of Mr. B's early works accompanied by Stravinsky's challenging and complex scores. The opener was the current iteration of Apollo, Balanchine's first collaboration with Stravinsky, which debuted in Paris in 1928 when the choreographer was only 24 years old. For the October 1st 2014 performance, Chase Finlay danced the title role with easy virtuosity and abundant charm. The muses who sought to win him over to the art forms they represent were Gretchen Smith as Calliope, the muse of poetry, Sara Mearns as Polyhymnia, the muse of mime, and Maria Kowrowski as Terpsichore, the muse of dance.

Smith, a corps girl with great promise, held her own in the company of audience-favorite Mearns and veteran ballerina Kowrowski. The variation I liked most of all was Polyhymnia's. Mearns, her left finger held to her lips in recognition of the way Polyhymnia is often depicted, danced the demanding sequence with only one arm free. That is a feat to be admired, which I discovered by chance last year when I had an injured left shoulder that kept me from using that arm during ballet class! Yet Mearns managed to maintain her speed and exuberance as well as to project the comic touches perfectly.

When the ballet ended, with a half moon of light appearing as a backdrop to the iconic final pose in which the ladies' arabesques of deliberately varying heights create a tableaux behind Apollo, the audience gasped in approval. A long moment of awed silence ensued before the dancegoers broke into well-earned applause.

After the intermission, Momentum Pro Gesualdo from 1960 and Movements for Piano and Orchestra from 1963 were paired as they have been in performances since 1966. Rebecca Krohn and the ever-amazing Amar Ramasar led the ensembles for these two short works, the first with the ballerinas in short dance dresses and the second a true leotard ballet. Mr. B's genius and inventiveness never cease to astonish me anew as I watch the thrusting hips, intertwining arms, unexpected lifts, and kaleidoscope patterns that are part of his signature style.

Next up was Duo Concertant, which I reviewed in October 2013 when Sterling Hyltin and Robert Fairchild danced the roles that were created for Kay Mazzo and Peter Martins in 1972. This year, Ashley Bouder was Fairchild's ballerina. She delivered her trademark mega-watt sparkle in the coquettish pas de deux that ends with a premonition of a future parting when follow spots pull the couple away from one another and leave us with a final moment in which only her hand in a circle of light is visible in the dark. Violinist Arturo Delmoni and pianist Nancy McDill, working their magic onstage and interacting with the dancers, were superb.

The closer was Agon from 1957, one of Balanchine's best-known "black & white" ballets. The stunning speed and startling angular lines of this work are yet another testimony to the fact Mr. B transformed classical ballet during the 20th century into what we now call neo-classicism. Several corps dancers who were given a chance to perform alongside their more stellar colleagues did very well indeed. I love getting a glimpse of what the future might hold as the younger dancers evolve and perhaps earn promotions!

Of the more seasoned City Ballet members for this performance, principals Teresa Reichlen and Adrian Danchig-Waring in the pas de deux were the stand-outs although soloist Savannah Lowery as the woman in the second pas de trois came in a close second with her powerful technique and commanding presence.

I left the theater reminded once again that although I am a huge fan of elaborate story ballets with plots and costumes and sets, I am also on a deeper level moved by the sheer artistry of these stripped-down Balanchine-Stravinsky masterpieces that rely only on the movement and the music to reach our souls.

Photo by Paul Kolnik