Interludes

VIEWPOINTS – NEW YORK CITY BALLET’s fall season was rife with farewell performances, notably the retirements of Lauren Lovette and Maria Kowroski

• By drediman
• October 19, 2021
• No Comments

New York City Ballet‘s fall season came to a conclusion last Sunday with the farewell performance of beloved principal dancer Maria Kowroski. She wasn’t the only major dancer, however, to retire from the ranks of City Ballet in recent weeks. Indeed, the season also saw the departures of principals Lauren Lovette, Ask la Cour, and Abi Stafford.

Ms. Lovette – A petite but willowy dancer who rose quickly through the ranks – retired from City Ballet last week at the peak of her powers to boldly pursue dancing and choreography outside of the company that has nurtured her. Given her penchant for creating vivid characters and exuding genuine charisma in her performances, Ms. Lovette excelled in an unusually wide variety of roles over the years. In her farewell performance, she chose to dance in the balanced bookend pairing of Jerome Robbins’ Opus 19/The Dreamer and George Balanchine’s Serenade. In the former, she displayed a range of emotions and an uninhibited love of dance that have been the hallmarks of her onstage work. In the landmark early Balanchine ballet (which closed out the program), Ms. Lovette’s was radiant, if a tad unorthodox in places. Nevertheless, the ballet’s luminous final procession was an inspired image to associate with the ambitious and much admired ballerina’s onward trajectory.

Just a week later, Ms. Kowroski’s farewell performance was truly a bittersweet affair. As the elder stateswoman of the company, the statuesque dancer held a special place in the company and the hearts of dance fans. Like a fine wine, she’s only gotten better with age, dancing with a pronounced sense of presence, poetry, and beauty that made every opportunity to see her perform an occasion. In her farewell performance, Ms. Kowroski showed off her versatility in a program that was curated specifically for her, appearing in such diverse works as Balanchine’s serene Chaconne (excerpt), Christopher Wheeldon’s propulsive and modern DGV: Danse à Grande Vitesse (excerpt), Mauro Bigonzetti’s raw and austere Amaria, and capped off by a delicious final performance in Balanchine’s buoyant ballet-within-a-musial Slaughter on Tenth Avenue (those iconic kicks from those legs the seem to go on forever!). Although her performance seemed more determined than effortless, she captivated throughout, giving her adoring audience one last glimpse of her glorious talent.

NEW YORK CITY BALLET
Dance
David H. Koch Theater
The fall season has concluded