NYCB may as well rename the New Combinations program the Red Ink program, because that’s all it will contribute to the company if it continues on this path. Here was a night of a world premiere by the most media-vaunted choreographer of the present time on a bill with the other two most media-vaunted choreographers of the time. Lots of groupies plopped their butts down into free seats. And yet, the house was far from filled for this purportedly momentous occasion. No one was sitting in the fourth ring, a third of the third ring was empty, and there were pockets of empty seats throughout the orchestra level, most notably large swaths of empty seats in the corners. The audience in attendance struggled with its customary first-night woo-whos.
Obviously, a tremendous amount of effort and money went into the new Voices by Alexei Ratmansky: long hours of rehearsal, costume design and fittings, stage design and implementation, media marketing. But we kept hearing the choreographer say in interviews “I don’t know what’s going to happen” in regard to his new dance. In the real world where people are held accountable for results, we can tell you that “I don’t know what’s going to happen” doesn’t fly with executive managements. Managements don’t commit millions of dollars to a project without a dollar projection of its success. Further, managements don’t commit millions of dollars to a project just because the workers will feel good manufacturing it. The product’s prospects have to be that it will be good enough that people will buy it and then buy it over and over again. Unfortunately, not this time.
For a few years, we have observed that Ratmansky’s new original works haven’t been very new at all. There’s been new scenery, costumes, and even concepts, but the choreography has been the same predictable idiosyncratic, hyper-kinetic, over-stylized, desperate effort to be chic, relevant, funny, and classical all at one time. Is this an old fuddy-duddy you hear complaining? Perhaps, but it’s the fuddy-duddy who wholly embraced some of the most avant garde ballets of the 20th century: Robbins’ Moves, The Cage, and Glass Pieces; Massine’s Parade; Preljocaj’s La Stravaganza; Bejart’s Adagietto; Joffrey’s Astarte; Balanchine’s black & white canon; Graham’s Appalachian Spring; Jooss’s The Green Table; and some of the most avant garde choreography we’ve yet seen this century including Preljocaj’s Spectral Evidence and Snow White, Bigonzetti’s Oltremare, and Neuemeier’s The Little Mermaid. We’re not anti-avant garde. We’re anti-schtik, anti-throw the body around for no apparent reason, anti-gimmick, and we’re anti-money wasting.
In choosing to choreograph to Peter Ablinger’s Voices and Piano, a mash-up of intentionally inaudible recorded voices of Bonnie Barnett, Gjendine Slalien, Forough Farrokhzad, Nina Simone, Setsuko Hara, and Agnes Martin with a piano that follows their voice rhythms, Ratmansky chose to abandon all obligation to musicality. Sometimes the steps hovered around the piano’s individual notes for a few counts like a Twitter entry that purports to convey something thought provoking. The women soloists split their legs in developpes and jumps, threw themselves to the ground, assumed angry expressions, and performed steps and arm configurations as if they were trying to insert some dramatic meaning into what they were doing. Each woman’s solo was followed by an intermission where men paraded through in a line or a male soloist performed a balletic exercise in virtuosity.
But we’re incredibly grateful – grateful that Ratmansky didn’t choose Ablinger’s selections of Gertrude Stein or Angela Davis for his choreography. Can you imagine? Glissade assemble sissonne sisso glissad assem siss gliss ade able onne glissonnable pow! shoot up the police station. So we’re grateful.
The costumes hardly merited a designer per se — they were leotards, some drab, some shiny Lycra – but Keso Dekker got the credit. He also designed the scenery of a lighted voice graph that streamed across the back of the stage. We’re surprised that the piano and dancers’ sounds weren’t also graphed to add to all of the intellectual stimulation.
The dancers, of course, danced their hearts out. They obviously loved the hyper-physicality and the honor of dancing in this new piece. We wish it would have been better and more worthy of their talents. We wish that Ratmansky would limit himself to making a single original ballet per year — something that he could put all of his energies into without being distracted by his next project or a deadline or an individual company’s expectations. What might his choreography reveal under those conditions?
What a colossal waste of time and resources. I missed his Giselle that just premiered at the Bolshoi. If you saw it, was it any good?
Posted by: Shawn | February 02, 2020 at 01:04 PM
Shawn, I had a ticket to the cinemacast but didn't make it.
Posted by: Haglund | February 02, 2020 at 01:15 PM
I listened to his interview on the City Ballet podcast, and I enjoyed hearing about his background and experience. However, once they started discussing his new piece, it was red flags all over the place.
Posted by: yukionna | February 02, 2020 at 03:02 PM
Ratmansky's Giselle is possibly the most traditional restaging he's done of the full-length classics. He largely followed the standard choreography and opened up a few small cuts in the score. The way he ended the second act probably created the most buzz; it was a dramatic choice that I've never encountered. You should find the segment that was broadcast between the acts in which he talks about his research and choices. Smirnova was exquisite; the company was terrific.
Posted by: Solor | February 03, 2020 at 12:08 AM
I really wish I had seen this cinemacast. Hopefully the Bolshoi will bring this production to the U.S. in the near future. I have tremendous respect for Ratmansky's ability to bring stylistic discipline to what ever dancers he's working with.
The current "Voices" however is a hodgepodge effort to please everyone: the people who want to see classical dancing, the people who want to see non-classical dancing, the people who want a story, the people who want abstract.
It bothers me when Ratmansky chooses a theme but then doesn't commit to a story line. Rather he chooses to sort of outline or sketch out something which ends up looking like a sketch or outline.
In "Voices" it was clear that he was going for a theme where the the women were speaking and the women were dancing individually and ferociously while the over-controlling men were enforcing the classical idiom with their variations and escorting the rebel women off the stage. But it all came off as another trite cliche of women fighting men for the right to raise their voices. It was a sketch with no depth. We were in Tudor's territory but without Tudor's storytelling skill.
I'm really dreading his new Love and Rage at ABT.
Posted by: Haglund | February 03, 2020 at 09:24 AM
I second the comment by Solor regarding the Bolshoi performing Ratmansky's Giselle and the Ratmansky interview. Smirnova was lovely, just everything you'd want from a ballerina. I also loved her partner and the cast who were amazing. The filming was mostly decent though the transmittal in Kansas City had a number of minor glitches with brief sound mutes and blurred images. But I left happy, getting my ballet needs met.
Posted by: Georgiann | February 03, 2020 at 06:01 PM