Friday October 30, 2009 - I've ended up seeing Program B before seeing Program A of the current MORPHOSES season at New York's City Center. Above, Wendy Whelan and Andrew Crawford in the new Wheeldon ballet RHAPSODY FANTAISIE photographed by Dave Morgan. The evening featured two works by Christopher book-ending a dramatic Lightfoot/Leon duet.
Christopher (above, Yaniv Schulman photo) came before the curtain to welcome us and give us just a bit of information about the works we were to see. In a film shot during the Company's stay on Martha's Vineyard we got to meet some of the dancers new to us this year. The young Argentine danseur Lucas Segovia spoke movingly about having found a family among his MORPHOSES colleagues. Any film in which Wendy Whelan is featured is bound to please me.
Above, the composer Gyorgy Ligeti. Christopher created CONTINUUM for San Francisco Ballet in 2002. Along with POLYPHONIA and MORPHOSES, CONTINUUM form a sort of Gyorgy Ligeti/Wheeldon triptych. These works - and perhaps most especially CONTINUUM - show Christopher's links to the Balanchine black-and-white ballets. Ligeti's music can seem spare and edgy but there is also a mysterious beauty there which Cameron Grant's rapt playing always underlined.
CONTINUUM opens and closes with the dancers in silhouette. Throughout the work, Mary Louise Geiger's lighting played a major role in the visual experience - at one point the dancers' enormous shadows filled the backdrop (Erin Baiano photo, above). Her choice of colours and the way they appeared and melted as the ballet progressed so pleased the eye, as did the simple forest-green costumes.
Like POLYPHONIA, CONTINUUM features four couples. Each pair have a duet and there are also three solos: Melissa Barak, Gabrielle Lamb and Rory Hohenstein each very responsive to the music and to Christopher's steps. We met some of the 'new' MORPHOSES dancers - the Australians Danielle Rowe and Andrew Crawford and the curly-haired American blonde Matthew Prescott who drew the dream job of partnering Wendy Whelan and clearly relished the opportunity.
It's almost impossible to take your eyes off Wendy whenever she is onstage. For her legion admirers tonight was a double pleasure since she appeared in two ballets we haven't seen before. In the film, Wendy spoke of wanting to do new things and to continue expanding her horizons by seizing on fresh choreographic opportunties. As Christopher's muse, she's simply magnificent.
At one point the Ligeti music shifts from piano to harpsichord and Christopher said in his pre-show speech that watching the playful sparring of a dog and cat had inspired him in this particular passage; Edwaard Liang and Danielle Rowe were wonderfully subtle and their bodies perfect in fluidity and stretch for this piece which captured the audience's fancy.
There was an airy quartet for the four women in which they merged and withdrew and re-emerged, as well as a quartet for the men who - like the SWAN LAKE cygnets - held hands throughout. Overall I thought CONTINUUM one of Christopher's best abstract works especially for the opportunities he affords the dancers.
Rubinald Pronk and Drew Jacoby (above) danced the Lightfoot/Leon duet SOFTLY AS I LEAVE YOU which they performed to acclaim at Fall for Dance earlier this season. This duet successfully melds the music of J.S. Bach and Arvo Part and shows an evolving relationship which begins and ends with one of the protagonists trapped inside a coffin-like box. While not a choreographic masterpiece, SOFTLY gives the two dancers a perfect setting to display their powerful style: intense, sexy but unromantic, with engrossing fluidity of movement and remarkable extension. The audience greeted the ultra-charismatic couple with a screaming ovation to which the celebrated dancers seated in front of me added their own enthusiastic bravos.
RHAPSODY FANTAISIE is Christopher's new ballet set to the Rachmaninov Suites for Two Pianos. Above, the ensemble in Dave Morgan's photo. The Cuban designers Los Carpinteros have created a set of floating megaphone-shaped panels (interestingly, this ballet was premiered in London with a different setting). Francisco Costa of Calvin Klein has provided gorgeous red tunics for the women and billowing trousers for the shirtless men. Again Mary Louise Geiger's lighting was perfect.
With Cameron Grant and Susan Walters playing the Rachmaninov Suites with a nicely lush quality, the twelve dancers move thru a flowing sequence of ensembles, duets and solos. A quartet (Carrie Lee Riggins - welcome back to the NY stage! - Rachel Sherak, Juan Pablo Ledo and Lucas Segovia) appear and reappear throughout the work, as a sort of chorus. All four of them are intriguing dance personalities, and seeing Carrie Lee made me again regret that she left NYC Ballet for California.
Rory Hohenstein and Melissa Barak (photo: Dave Morgan) have the first duet. Rory's impetuous, slightly edgy sense of lyricism is well-matched to Melissa; she was always a particularly vivid and very musical dancer during her time at New York City Ballet. She seems now to have developed a nice floated quality to her extension and her port de bras while maintaining her strong technique. In their duet and in solo passages, both dancers excelled.
Rubinald Pronk and Drew Jacoby carried over all the strength and suppleness of their performance in the Lightfoot/Leon into RHAPSODY investing their duet with a very personal magnetism.
Australian Ballet's Danielle Rowe (on the right above, with Wendy Whelan) caused much excited comment during the evening for both the clarity and poetry of her dancing. Both here and in the opening CONTINUUM, Danielle found a perfect partner in expressiveness in Edwaard Liang; Edwaard was on peak form all evening and what I have always loved about watching him is his effortless sense of placement: his line at any give moment always so perfectly scuplted right to his fingertips. He is a dancer I could watch for hours on end and how lovely his partnership with Danielle was tonight.
Wendy Whelan (top photo) was partnered by the Australian Andrew Crawford whose quiet confidence and looming sense of tenderness made Wendy seem especially light and luminous. As their sustained, emotive duet came to an end, Andrew placed Wendy on the floor as if she were sleeping and he slowly withdrew. I thought the ballet should have ended here with this incredibly poignant image.
One of the most exciting segments of RHAPSODY was a sextette for the men in which they appeared in pairs with virtuosic combinations and then in swirling ensembles where their red trousers added to the exhilarating sense of motion. This made me think - again - that I'd like to see Christopher create an all-male ballet.
Erin Baiano photos from RHAPSODY - the ensemble (above), and Andrew & Wendy (below).
I want to see both CONTINUUM and RHAPSODY again since I feel both have layers that invite further delving. The house was seemingly full and the dancers were joyously greeted by the crowd which included many of their colleagues from the Gotham dance scene. I very much enjoyed seeing Melissa and Carrie Lee onstage again since their NYC Ballet performances have always remained clearly in my mind. Wendy and Edwaard, Drew and Rubinald, and Rory - all such compelling talents. And the 'new' dancers look great and rose to the occasion with flair.
My appreciation to Helene Davis for sending the Erin Baiano photos 'hot off the press'.
RHAPSODY FANTAISIE photos by Dave Morgan courtesy of the photographer with my sincere thanks to him.
I'm now a fan of Danielle Rowe's. I wonder if the Australian Ballet will make their way to NYC in the future?
Even though I was not impressed with "Softly.." (as you know), it was a chance to see the fantastic Drew Jacoby.
And what can more can we say about Wendy? There are no words! (just love her!). A special bravo to Edwaard Liang. He was brilliant.
Posted by: Deborah | October 31, 2009 at 09:51 AM
Brilliant coverage! The photos from the ballets are great and it's so good of you to provide links to further information about the photographers and the people involved. I almost feel like I was there!
Posted by: JRP | October 31, 2009 at 10:17 AM
How gorgeous those Whelan legs in the top photo.
Posted by: Marisa | October 31, 2009 at 12:57 PM