Diamonds are the New York City Ballet's best friend - company's second biennial program of new works, Diamond Project II, from May 18 to June 3, 1994

Dance Magazine, May, 1994 by Marilyn Hunt

New York City - New York City Ballet's second biennial Diamond Project, sponsored by Philip Morris Companies Inc., will present a blitz of twelve new ballets by as many choreographers, May 18, 19, 21, 26, and 31, and June 3, during the company's spring season [see The Diamond Project II, page 54]. Creating their first works for NYCB will be Danish choreographer Anna Laerkesen; NYCB principal Damian Woetzel; Ulysses Dove, whose dances are frequently performed by Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater; Trey Mclntyre, a member of Houston Ballet; and Kevin O'Day, who recently made a witty and Tharpian piece for White Oak Dance Project, of which he is a member. Choreographers who took part in the 1992 Diamond Project and who will return this year are David Allan, John Alleyne, Robert LaFosse, Miriam Mahdaviani, Peter Martins, Richard Tanner, and Lynne Taylor-Corbett. William Forsythe, originally announced as a participant, withdrew because of his wife's death.

Laerkesen, making her New York City debut as a choreographer, is a former Royal Danish Ballet principal who has been making ballets for RDB with strong musical choices and technical challenges that are used to poetic ends. San Francisco Ballet commissioned its first piece from her this season. For NYCB she is setting Johannes Brahms's Violin Concerto and plans to use former RDB dancer Nikolaj Hubbe, for whom she has previously choreographed exciting parts, along with Wendy Whelan and six couples.

Familiar as a dancer but less so as a choreographer is NYCB dynamo Woetzel. Having primarily choreographed for students at the School of American Ballet, he says he is very excited about doing a ballet for the professional company. Working with a pianist and a ballet mistress, he says, will be "more fun than just me and a tape recorder."

Having recently choreographed Igor Stravinsky's Sonata for Two Pianos, Woetzel has chosen the composers Ebony Concerto for the Diamond Project. "The music is less complicated than the sonata," Woetzel says of the ten-minute-long concerto, "but at least as complicated to choreograph. The jazz influence in it could be a pitfall - being too jazzy could ruin it. Let's just say you have to make the right choices." He says his cast "will be great."