ARTS
In a state of ill health
Giannandrea Poesio believes that the New York City Ballet is still suffering an identity crisis Athough the language of dance is uni- versal, dance culture varies considerably from country to country. It is not easy for the dance reviewer to switch from a famil- iar artistic tradition to a less known one and to assess the latter with the same informed objectivity. In a letter published in the June issue of Dancing Times, the eminent American dance critic Arlene Croce laments that `casual viewers' — those not constantly in touch with a particular dance scene often get an incomplete, if not distorted idea of events, companies and perfor- mances. This is, according to Croce, the case with the New York City Ballet. The glittering advertising campaign and the 'at- all-costs' support given more or less arbi- trarily by the local media to the ballet master in chief, Peter Martins — a former principal dancer of the company — provide the 'casual viewer' with an unrealistic vision of both the company and its current artistic policies.
Yet not all occasional observers are as blinkered as Croce might think. They might not have her authoritative knowledge of the company and of its repertoire, but they are still able to detect the symptoms of what Croce refers to as the New York City Ballet's 'ill health'. As in the past few years, the 1997 spring season also encompassed different styles which ranged from the company's tradi- tional repertoire to specially commissioned, innovative works, such as the one signed by the French post-modern choreographer Angelin Preljocaj. The thematic and mono- graphic nature of each programme — such as the All Balanchine Program, the All Rob- bins Program, the All American Music and the New Generation Program — should have offered enough variety to accommo- date everyone's taste. It would appear, therefore, that one aspect of the 'Martins regime' is gradually to expand the already rich repertoire of the company. According to what is written in the advertising leaflet for this particular sea- son, in fact, the aim of the so-called Dia- mond Project (under which the new works were presented) was to extend 'the bound- aries of the classical ballet repertory' and to celebrate 'what makes new work a sur- prising and thrilling experience'. The shift from a 'choreographer's company' namely a dance institution that grew and thrived under the charismatic guidance of a choreographic genius such as George Bal- anchine — to a 'repertoire company' (which combines its distinctive stylistic imprint with diverse artistic formulae) is always difficult. Old and new are seldom compatible and often end up affecting each other in a negative way. In most cases, heading towards new horizons leads inevitably to a gradual loss of the compa- ny's own artistic heritage.
Programmes such as the All Balanchine one demonstrated clearly that little is left of the choreographer's stylistic principles. Admittedly, the steps were there and the outstanding choreographic construction of each piece — Allegro Brillante, Pavane, Kammermusik No. 2 and Brahms-Schoen- berg Quartet — was still perfectly readable. Yet, style transcends the technical require- ments of a given movement vocabulary and, in order to be successfully revived, it requires an attentive reading of that special subtext inserted by the choreographer in his compositions.
Unfortunately, this unique combination of interpretative and qualitative compo- nents was missing in the four items on the programme. Whether this lack of stylistic appropriateness depended on a flawed Just my luck! A gay parrot!' restaging or on a superficial approach to the existing repertoire is difficult to say. Although the dancing was competent and the company boasts first-rate artists such as Kyra Nichols, Merrill Ashley and Nikolaj Hilbbe, the overall feeling was that an in- depth understanding of Balanchine's artis- tic canons was not successfully passed on to the dancers.
At the same time, most of the new works gathered under the Diamond Project umbrella can hardly be seen as 'innovative' solutions that break definitively away from the well-established tradition of the compa- ny. On the contrary, in most cases there was an irritating and disappointing tenden- cy to regurgitate pre-existing formulae. Works such as Robert La Fosse's Concerto in Five Movements, which was given its pre- mière on 19 June, contain some interesting solutions that hint at an experimental exploration of an unusual movement vocabulary. Pity that similar solutions were to be seen, the following evening, in Balan- chine's Kammermusik No. 2, an impressive- ly unusual work — in terms of choreographic vocabulary and syntax created in 1978.
Fourteen years after Balanchine's death, the New York City Ballet is still going through an identity crisis. No wonder that this lack of distinctiveness is causing so much distress among experts on American ballet. It is worth remembering, however, that the problem is not exclusive to this company but derives from an unfortunate trend that affects most ex-`choreographer's companies' all over the world.
Not everything was disappointing, though. The All Robbins Program resulted in a brilliant evening of excellent dancing and unparalleled examples of 20th-century choreography. Jerome Robbins's latest cre- ation, Brandenburg, which had its premiere last January, revealed the inexhaustible freshness of the man's creative genius. The still utterly comical The Concert (1956), on the other hand, brought back pleasant memories of the old Royal Ballet seasons.
The beauty of New York is that two major ballet companies perform concur- rently next door to each other. At the Metropolitan, the American Ballet Theatre presented a season of classics, including Kenneth MacMillan's version of Petipa's The Sleeping Beauty. The performance led by a superb Nina Ananiashvili and a rather disappointing, miscast Julio Bocca, was really worth seeing.
MacMillan's treatment of the 19th-cen- tury masterwork is based on the traditional English version of the ballet, with the exception of some wonderful interpolated passages. It was sheer pleasure, therefore, to see how the various stylistic nuances, including the mime passages, have been carefully preserved and are still performed comme it faut. Nicholas Georgiadis's sets an almost sketchy, splendour-free reading of the baroque era — are intriguing too, for they confer an unusual 'solar' quality on the entire action. Yet, when this 'casual viewer's' observations were expounded to an American colleague, his reaction was almost unexpected. 'How could you like this production? After all you come from England, where you can see the "real" thing!' I did not reply.
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