Glittering Discoveries Mark Nycb Project. - New York State Theater, New York, New York - Review - dance review

Dance Magazine, Oct, 2000 by Doris Hering

GLITTERING DISCOVERIES MARK NYCB PROJECT

NEW YORK CITY BALLET

NEW YORK STATE THEATER NEW YORK, NEW YORK APRIL 25-JUNE 25, 2000

REVIEWED BY DORIS HERING

The New York City Ballet's Diamond Project is an enormous act of courage. Planned more or less biennially by ballet master in chief Peter Martins and sustained by the Irene Diamond Fund, it showcases a brigade of new ballets during the spring season.

Unlike most companies that restrict new choreographers to modest workshop settings, City Ballet boldly sets them forth on the New York State Theater's spacious stage with sets, costumes and the company's fine musical resources. It's a rare opportunity for choreographers and audiences; perhaps less so for the dancers, who already negotiate a challenging repertoire. For them, the new material to be absorbed may be a little like climbing Mt. Everest on pointe, but what a responsive job they do.

To a degree, however, the Diamond Project has begun to play it safe. With the exception of Robert Garland, resident choreographer of the Dance Theatre of Harlem, the season offered no new names.

In Prism by Helgi Tomasson, artistic director of the San Francisco Ballet, New York City Ballet acquired a work with enduring qualities. Its title, while not unusual, is most apt. It filters the early classical style of Beethoven's Concerto No. 1 for Piano and Orchestra through a range of tastefully chosen ballet responses. I found the second movement particularly distinctive, as Maria Kowroski and Charles Askegard reflected the piano themes (sensitively played by Cameron Grant) while the corps performed upstage in more subdued light. Both revealed the choreographer's honest affection for the music. For the final movement, Tomasson made exuberant use of Benjamin Millepied's lightness and gyroscopic turns. But designer Martin Pakledinaz dressed Millepied in black tights that made him look spindly. The black was also an illogical contrast to the yellow, orange and red dominating the remaining attire.

Christopher d'Amboise is interested in the texture of movement, and his ideas convey a sound kinetic insight. For Triptych, to the Bartok Music for Strings, Percussion and Celesta, there was a touch of the archaic, as the dancers stood in profile or used sturdily simple arm shapes. Wendy Whelan set the tone with her vivid presence. Kristin Sloan, selected from the corps, also manifested a definite presence as she wheeled through the corps on pointe. Albert Evans partnered her and later returned in a sequence of shapes that had the solidity of architecture.

It's amazing that Martins, with all the administrative responsibilities bedeviling his path, could have turned out three new ballets. They included the ambitious Harmonielehre, to equally ambitious music by John Adams. With sets and costumes by Alain Vaes, it was surely the most costly of the projects. I'd like to have been there when Martins explained the action to Vaes. I was vaguely reminded of Massine's allegorical ballets or of mythological events like the turn of the season. In other words, Martins seemed to be aiming for a philosophical substratum not characteristic of his usual cool, athletic ballets.

After an overture of intense, repeated chords, the curtain opened to reveal a backdrop painted in glowing orange and green. The dancers consumed the stage in circular patterns. The swirling energy calmed to the pas de deux for Janie Taylor and Jared Angle, followed by a strong, almost fierce declaration for Adam Hendrickson and Edward Liang. The stage darkened. Had springtime on earth moved to Hades? Jock Soto and Askegard, in long, black dresses, set about maneuvering Darci Kistler in some of the most demanding and unflattering lifts imaginable. Hendrickson and Liang seemed to be bent on rescuing her, but she was ultimately left alone on one knee.

The landscape turned icy. The corps glided back and forth beneath an obtrusion of blue draperies. Ashlee Knapp, recruited from the School of American Ballet, was valiantly toted about by James Fayette. The drapes cleared away to reveal another drop, this one a sort of murky night. As the dancers repeated the opening concentric circles, a final impression sifted through--of a world over-decorated and under-pondered.

To Slonimsky's Earbox, also by Adams, Martins devised a variety of opposing groupings. Dressed in bright colors, the dancers resembled M & Ms as they bobbed about the stage. Then Damian Woetzel, in red, blazed through like a meteor. What excitement it brought. Among the other dancers, Yvonne Borree and Albert Evans were especially stylish, but Woetzel's speed and finesse gave the ballet its spine.

The duende overtones of Astor Piazzolla's music have attracted a variety of contemporary choreographers. This time it was Martins's turn with Todo Buenos Aires, a pair of proficiently constructed pas de trois. They were distinguished by the aristocratic dancing of Whelan and Kowroski, but the passages for the men (Albert Evans and Philip Neal; Nikolaj Hubbe and Nilas Martins) needed further choreographic definition.