Interludes

VIEWPOINTS – City Ballet concludes a ravishingly varied retrospective for Jerome Robbins’ centennial

• By drediman
• May 26, 2018
• No Comments

Jerome Robbins’ “Glass Pieces” danced by New York City Ballet at the David H. Koch Theater.

This May at the David H. Koch Theater, New York City Ballet pulled out all the stops to celebrate Jerome Robbins’ centennial. All-in-all, the revered ballet company performed six different programs to commemorate the special occasion. Of the six programs, five were comprised of pieces that were solely choreographed by Robbins. The sixth program, which was used for City Ballet’s spring gala performance, included two new works inspired by Robbins: Justin Peck’s energetic but generic “Easy” and Warren Carlyle’s “Something to Dance About”, a joyous medley of Robbins’ greatest choreography for the Broadway musical. In total, that means an astonishing 20 Robbins ballets were danced:

1. “Fancy Free” (Music by Leonard Bernstein)
2. “Dybbuk” (Music by Leonard Bernstein)
3. “West Side Story Suite” (Music by Leonard Bernstein)
4. “The Goldberg Variations” (Music by Johann Sebastian Bach)
5. “Les Noces” (Music by Igor Stravinsky)
6. “Opus 19/The Dreamer” (Music by Sergei Prokofiev)
7. “Dances at a Gathering” (Music by Federic Chopin)
8. “Glass Pieces” (Music by Philip Glass)
9. “Interplay” (Music by Morton Gould)
10. “In the Night” (Music by Federic Chopin)
11. “The Cage” (Music by Igor Stravinsky)
12. “Other Dances” (Music by Federic Chopin)
13. “Fanfare” (Music by Benjamin Britten)
14. “In G Major” (Music by Maurice Ravel)
15. “Afternoon of a Faun” (Music by Claude Debussy)
16. “Antique Epigraphs” (Music by Claude Debussy)
17. “The Concert” (Music by Federic Chopin)
18. “The Four Seasons” (Music by Giuseppe Verdi)
19. “Circus Polka” (Music by Igor Stravinsky)
20. “A Suite of Dances” (Music by Johann Sebastian Bach)

Luckily, I was able to catch all six programs this May – but really, I wouldn’t have missed any of them for the world.

New York City Ballet dances “West Side Story Suite” choreographed by Jerome Robbins.

As you’re likely to already know, Robbins was the legendary George Balanchine’s successor as ballet master of City Ballet (the company was co-founded by Balanchine). Robbins built on the distinctive aesthetic established by Balanchine – unfussy, clean, and fast – by adding to it an unforced theatricality that naturally made him an icon not only in the world of dance, but also in the realm of the Broadway musical. Indeed, Robbins choreographed some of the most immortal works in the American musical canon: West Side Story, On the Town, Fiddler on the Roof, The King and I, Peter Pan, Gypsy, just to name a few.

New York City Ballet’s Sterling Hyltin in Jerome Robbins’ “Afternoon of a Faun”.

But back to ballet – experiencing these works back-to-back-to-back, I was struck at how each work created worlds unto themselves. Unlike Balanchine, whose focus was typically on pure dance and the mysterious but admittedly vague potency generated by the intersection of music and dance, Robbins’ ballets tended to have discrete narratives, which dictated the particular choreographic vocabulary and look of each work  – just compare the crispness and discipline of “Glass Pieces” with the sensuous, ethereal tone of “Afternoon of a Faun”. As a result, Robbins’ body of work is astonishingly varied (also manifested through the diverse catalog of composers he’s used), which is especially apparent when they’re seen within close proximity of each other.

The incomparable City Ballet dancers were thrillingly at the top of their game for the Robbins centennial, with many of the big guns – Mearns, both Pecks, Bouder, Stanley, Veyette, Ulbricht, De Luz, Lovett, Finlay, Hyltin, the Angle brothers, and especially Kowroski (City Ballet’s glamorous senior ballerina, and the only dancer in the company to have worked directly with Robbins) – comfortably appearing again and again in wildly different ballets. This was a ravishing celebration for the ages, and I’m sure that I’ll be getting mileage out of it for years to come.

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JEROME ROBBINS CENTENNIAL
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