Ater-ballet

Ater: a Latin adjective that means dark, gloomy, black, dismal, malicious, or unlucky.

 

New York City Ballet served up a heap of that this past week on the George Balanchine Stage at Lincoln Center. Some of it was sophisticated art that remains groundbreaking after nearly a half century while some of it was insipid cliche. 

 

We have long speculated that George Balanchine made Variations Pour Une Porte et Un Soupir (February 1974), in part, to remind his runaway muse that he could always build a better mousetrap than Maurice Bejart, who had previously choreographed to the same score, and thus entice her to beat a path back home to his door from Brussels. Complete conjecture is, of course, one of our specialties here on H.H., but we tend to be lucky with some of our guesses. The muse resumed communicating with Balanchine that same year and arrived home in 1975. Prior to Balanchine’s Variations, Bejart had used the same Pierre Henry sound score for a then-risky work in which his dancers improvised movement at every performance. His dancers mostly did the limb-whipping, joint-snapping, and floor-work that today’s choreographers think they have invented as the next greatest thing and the necessary antidote to classical/neoclassical ballet. Balanchine, we argue, made much better use of the sound score.

 

Composer Pierre Henry was one of the inventors of musique concrète, a quasi-genre in which noises are “sculpted” into new forms of non-traditional music. His Variations Pour Une Porte et Un Soupir spans 25 mostly 1-2 minute segments of which Balanchine used 14 and Bejart used 16. Henry's titles for the Variations included Swinging, Bray, Singing, Fever, Snoring, Gymnastics, Waves, Trance, Anger, Breathing, Death, but their compositions came entirely from manipulating the sounds of human sighs, a creaking & slamming door, and a musical saw. When married to the choreographic imaginings of Balanchine, these noises became anthropomorphic. The door was perceived to be threatening – at times sounding like it was swinging back and forth in unhinged anger. It groaned warnings –– this as Maria Kowroski (the Door) unhinged her hips to slice through the air with her legs. There were sounds like a power tool that was “waiting" for something to hammer or cut. And there outside the door was Daniel Ulbricht’s Sigh — whimpering, whining, desperate for the door to open — clearly begging without knowing the trouble for which he was asking. He pleaded and pleaded for the door to open while trying every conceivable method to get to its other side.

 

Attached to Maria’s white unitard was a billowing black caped dress that nearly filled the stage. She disappeared under it time and time again and then reappeared like some non-negotiating lethal force. The prop dress which was manipulated off-stage by handlers repeatedly swelled into an ominous black form and then sank. At one point, the back of the cape assumed the form of a huge black dorsal fin with a pair of pectoral fins forming on the sides. No, we mean a huge dorsal fin as big as – as big as – yes, as big as JAWS. And there was Maria in her white unitard as the underbelly of this huge fin-like cape. Let’s pause to point out that following an extensive public relations and marketing campaign that went on for months, the novel JAWS was released to the public in February, 1974 – the same month as this premiere – and shot to the top of every bestseller list. Nobody has to agree with Haglund about the caped dress taking on the shape of a terrifying shark fin, but everyone will agree after watching this piece the next time. (Just when you thought it was safe to stop reading Haglund…)

 

Variations Pour Une Porte et Un Soupir is one-of-a-kind in the Balanchine canon and everywhere else. It’s so good and so unique that in almost 50 years, it has been, possibly, the single Balanchine idea that no one has imitated. 

 

In contrast, Mauro Bigonzetti’s In Vento included a lot of rehashing of concepts from his previous two works for NYCB, Vespro and Oltremare. [Ed. Note: Thanks to the HH'eeler who subsequently pointed out that In Vento preceded Oltremare, not vice versa.] When the line of dancers began walking in single file at the front of the stage from right to left, we immediately thought that they all had forgotten their suitcases until we realized that was Oltremare we were remembering. When Harrison Ball performed a brilliant solo of taxing air and floor work, we wondered why the on-stage piano had been omitted that evening until we realized we were remembering similar choreography in Vespro. Even the corps work looked similar, although it was sometimes hard to tell because the stage lighting was the same dim lighting that Bigonzetti offered in Vespro and Oltremare. He’s a choreographer who truly doesn’t want the audience to see what is going on.

 

But we didn’t confuse everything that we saw. When the male dancers picked up the women to spin them like windmills and then stopped them upside down with their legs up in the air in V-shapes with the men’s chins stuck pointedly toward the women’s anal areas, we figured out where the title In Ventro (in wind) came from. That must have been as nice to rehearse over and over again as it was to watch.

 

We thoroughly enjoyed the Jerome Robbins program of Interplay, In the Night, and N.Y. Export: Opus Jazz – a whole evening devoted to three distinct groups of friends dancing together. Interplay illustrated the spirited play yard one-upmanship among the type of carefree youths recognizable from our own lives. The youths in N.Y. Export: Opus Jazz had a New York Broadway energy and more grown up ideas on their minds. In the Night gave us three adult couples, each at a different point in their love affairs. Sterling Hyltin and Tyler Angle were in potent fresh love; Sara Mearns and Ask la Cour were a couple who had been together for a while — now comfortable going through the same motions although their sizzle had seemingly fizzled. Tiler Peck and Jared Angle were in the throes of a challenging lovers’ quarrel: No, I quit, Maybe, Now, Yes, I don’t want to talk about it, Never, I give up until tomorrow but I desperately need you tonight. 

 

Robbins was always able to pick the right music for his dances, even when there was no music at all. Morton Gould’s Interplay between piano and orchestra told the story before Robbins set a single step. In Robert Prince’s composition for N.Y. Export: Opus Jazz, the trumpets wailed more seductively while the bass powered a simmering passion that Robbins' choreography captured.The melancholy in Chopin’s Nocturnes demanded an under-lighted stage for In the Night where a variety of emotions swirled in privacy. Robbins had a knack for finding the right music for creating dances – a knack in short supply among today's choreographers making work at NYCB.

 

Maybe it’s time for a Directors’ Choices Festival at NYCB. The Music Director and Artistic Director should choose the music for all of the new choreography to ensure that each evening is balanced and that regardless of the choreographic content, the music will be enjoyed/appreciated by the audience. The music comes first. Then send out an RFP (Request for Participants, not proposals) in which ballet choreographers are invited to create ballets in which they have absolutely no say in what the music is, how many or which dancers are used, or what the costumes and scenic designs are. None. They don’t even see the designs until the dress rehearsal. All they have to do is create choreography. AND they must agree to submit their creations to a rigorous, heartless, brutal editing process by NYCB's Artistic, Music, and Costume Directors and possibly other producer-types. It’s time to get serious and stop wasting wads of money on whatever kitsch or offensive crap can be sold. 

 

Our H.H. Pump Bump Award is bestowed upon Daniel Ulbricht and Maria Kowroski for the extraordinary theatrical experience that they delivered to us in Balanchine’s Variations Pour Une Porte et Un Soupir.

 

 

 

 

Comments

[Shawn]

Love the review and the award! And I'm no choreographer, or musician for that matter, but sign me up for choosing the music. Since becoming a ballet fan, I can't help but listen to music for its ballet-worthiness.

Here's an especially danceable new piece called Music for Beasts in five movements for brass band by American composer Daniel Nelson.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qVa-ulAiAMI

[Haglund]

Thanks, Shawn.

Nelson's propulsive tune sounds a little like Michael Nyman's music, particularly MGV Musique à Grande Vitesse which Christopher Wheeldon turned into DGV Danse à Grande Vitesse with great success -- first for the Royal Ballet, then NYCB, and more recently Pennsylvania Ballet.

[Marta]

Hi Haglund,

I love the review too. I saw Variations ...Soupir a few years ago with the same cast. I was absolutely dazzled by it and their performance. It was on a program with much much newer work but was still the most original, most radical and most surprising ballet on the program!

[Shawn]

Really enjoyed the clips of DGV on the NYCB website Haglund, especially the one featuring the gorgeous Teresa Reichlen, my favorite of the company's dancers.

Musically, there's an important distinction to be made between what bears repeated listening and what will work for a performance.

If I had to choose only a few pieces of music to listen to for life, I'd take the masterworks, Beethoven's piano sonatas and string quartets, Bach's cello sonatas. Others would choose Mahler's symphonies. These pieces are of course endlessly fascinating and rewarding.

As for a ballet performance, I think so called "minimalist" compositions work really well. (Would also really like to see Wheeldon's After the Rain.) The themes are more readily discernible and in the best works the repetition isn't tiresome upon first listen.

Maybe there's a broader point here too, that speaks to your suggestion about the NYCB dividing up the labor in creating new works. Better to simply do the hard work of creating than to get hung up on the notion of genius. Balanchine and Stravinsky aren't walking through that door. And even worse still than simply waiting on a genius savior, is to pretend that mediocrity is in fact genius.

If no one has to take the mantle of genius, then maybe collaboration can shift the focus to where it should be, on music, technique, order, and beauty, as opposed to say relevance, identity, shock value, and self-aggrandizement.

But the bar

[SF]

Hi Haglund, I'm wondering if you saw this New Yorker article about NYC Ballet, and if so, what you thought of it?

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2019/02/18/what-went-wrong-at-new-york-city-ballet/amp

[Haglund]

I did see it and was very disappointed in Joan Acocella's lack of professional judgement. It seemed to be a "I haven't gotten my whacks in yet" story in which she offered no new information, no new light, no new nothing. She simply regurgitated the Macaulay/Kourlas brand of libel. Maybe she's being considered for Macaulay's job and wants to make it clear that she can be just as disgusting.

Acocella's assessment of the Waterbury allegations against Catazaro, Finlay, and Ramasar in which she takes them at face value further shows the erosion of journalism. She hasn't seen the evidence. She hasn't read any depositions. She doesn't even know what the law is, but she feels the need to blow her old judgemental bagpipe as loudly as she can.

[Solor]

I think you're mischaracterizing the article. Acocella makes no judgments about the three men - she clearly states that she's quoting from the complaint that Waterbury's lawyer filed. She also acknowledges the various attorneys' denials. She never says the three men did anything illegal. The emails tell enough of a story that is irrelevant to whatever the law might be. I have yet to read that their authenticity is being called into doubt. Her take on Peter Martins is much more important, in my opinion. She's a critic and is entitled to her opinions, but her description of his tenure rings true for me. Like it or not, the court that matters here is the court of public opinion, and, as far as Mr. Martins's history goes, there is a great deal to ponder.

[Haglund]

Frankly, I'm less troubled by what may have been said in the emails than by what NYCB chose to promote using Kanye West's hateful and misogynist lyrics in its new dance. I hear people say, "Well, you can't even understand what he's saying." Doesn't matter. If it was an anti-semetic rant that was the underlying lyric but unintelligible, would people have the same tolerance for it? I doubt it.

You have yet to read that the email authenticity has been called into doubt, as you say, because the defense attorneys aren't mounting a public relations campaign to make their cases. All anyone has heard -- anyone anywhere -- is what Waterbury's attorney wants released.

I, as do many, many others continue to hold Martins in high esteem and are grateful for the thirty plus years in which he steered NYCB to where it is now. Acocella is a dance critic, not an expert on crime or abuse. She doesn't know anything more about Peter Martins than what she reads in the NYT. She doesn't know what the hell she's talking about. And the fact that she has tried to wade into it now after so much yellow journalism has already created so much harm to NYCB and the art form, makes me question the value of anything she has to say about anything.

[Solor]

Let's focus on the emails/text messages. The defense attorneys have denied much of what Waterbury's complaint alleges, but none of them have challenged the authenticity of the messages, unless I've missed something. Why haven't they denied that the messages are accurate as being reported? It makes no sense that they would be silent about them, allowing the press to publicize the content, while they are on record as challenging other aspects of the complaint. So if the messages are accurate, it leaves the question of whether NYCB is justified in firing the three men based on this conduct. This has little to do with what Waterbury is alleging - it reflects upon their character. The company can certainly refuse to engage Kanye West again if they don't like his work - and that's "artistic freedom" - so why can't they apply a similar standard to the three men?

[Haglund]

Some of the defense attorneys have only made general defense-attorney type denials. The press hasn't published the emails. They've published selections that Waterbury's attorney wants to make public and added their own color commentary to them in order to assist the plaintiff.

As for your artistic freedom argument -- yes, NYCB could choose not to mount works set to lyrics that are violent or misogynistic, but the hiring/firing of its dancers is governed by contract and they have to agree to allow the disputes to be arbitrated.

No one should believe that Waterbury is a victim of Catazaro, Finlay, Ramasar, NYCB, or SAB until she proves that she's been a victim and what her injuries are. We're not a 3rd world country where accusers are automatically believed and their injuries go unquestioned; nor, hopefully, will we ever be.

#ListenInvestigateAdjudicate