Master and Apprentice

...The couples are allowed to perform individual duets—although a mysterious frieze of three men traverses the stage during Neary and Luder's turn, deflecting our single focus—before this segment closes on a livelier note: The regathered ensemble splits into two foursomes, one joining each couple, and executes unison and/or mirror phrases...

...From the start, when Kammermu-sik's female leads (Karin von Aroldin-gen and Colleen Neary) each winds up a fist-clenched arm, as if to throw a pitch, Balanchine provides a harmonious physical counterpart to Hinde-mith's argumentative (sometimes to the point of snarling) score...

...What the audience is left with is an after-image of a fully worked out team piece, without any comfortable recall of the key players...

...It consists of eight brief Charles Ives pieces that provide a sampler of solos (four for Duell, three for Watts), leading into two duets (the first of which is actually simultaneous solos...

...it is impossible to say...

...If this description seems like a jumble, it is no more so than the dance...

...The company gets fresh material to sink its feet into, the extant repertory grows by one more unit, and the audience is given an opportunity to attend what may prove a landmark in dance history...

...Two new works were added last month to its already resplendent store of major 20th-century dances...

...A series of slides and spins, catches and falls, forward and backward maneuvers leave the competing couple kneeling with locked arms, as they nudge each other with "gotcha last" tags...

...Calcium Light Night is the initial composition of 30-year-old principal dancer Peter Martins...

...Similarly, the youthful, powerful Lavery is not played off against the eccentric, articulate Luders in any great detail...

...The theory of Ba-lanchine's design is continually complicated and gratifying, but its performance is rather less so...

...A final group move initiates the two couples' departure, and after a corkscrewing row of pirouettes, dashed off in quick canon and landing in wide fourth, the eight men drop to their knees, thereby ending Kam-mermusik as abruptly as it started...

...Balanchine tries virtually every combination of dancers by re-teaming them in various positions...

...Perhaps Balanchine intended a dramatic contrast...

...The configuration breaks up with taut, outstretching gestures...

...Martins' Night may dim as its young cast ripens...

...Soon, the tandem line-up of eight men stabs, punches and stomps, alternately acting the role of decor and subject...

...Balan-chine's Kammermusik may gain nuances with more relaxed performers, who could perhaps release the wit now merely lurking beneath its complexities...

...Whatever the future's judgment, though, the present has a sophisticated surface from the grand master, and a charming dance from the newest apprentice...

...As the opening movement establishes Hindemith's scrambled version of Bach-like concerto structures, Balanchine's ballerinas and corps work fast and furiously in close canon, competitive simultaneity and responsive repeats...

...Most ungracious is von Aroldingen, whose strained muscles, jutting joints and fitful allegro phrasing make for a pushy, desperate reading of the material...

...Which is Worst" brings Duell bounding back in a casually soaring orbital path around Watts' flexing feet and hand actions...

...Martins, a classical dancer who occupies Olympian heights in terpsichorean history (and is just reaching his peak) is not about to rival Balanchine for choreographic honors...

...When the company in question is the New York City Ballet—the country's most energetic classical ensemble—the chances for a substantial evening are especially propitious...

...then, just as rapidly, he submerges the arrangements into a full-cast ensemble pattern...

...Its score is a 1924 chamber music piece by Paul Hinde-mith, and it employs 12 dancers—two lead couples and a corps of eight men...

...Her full point moves enable Martins to show how his female dancer's motion differs from his male's...

...the dancers are either in a perpetual-motion state of flux or they're poised to launch into further articulations...

...The murky lighting and the murmuring, occasionally listless tone of the piano and instrumental byplay make this the work's most nearly intimate mood...

...The third movement (lebhafte again) is the concerto's shortest, fastest section, and it brings out Balanchine's speedy enchainments...

...Yet his Night studies do possess genuine theatricality...

...The structure is considered and logical...

...Watts walks on from the corner opposite Duell's exit and repeats his last solo to the same music ("Ann Street...

...2, Daniel Duell and Heather Watts (still officially ranked corps de ballet) are happily showcased in Peter Martins' Calcium Light Night...

...There is no resting...

...To begin with, they reinforce the improvisational, whimsical mood of Ives' compositions...

...It is choreographed for two dancers and set to several Charles Ives orchestral works...

...Von Aroldingen and Neary then appear, supported in lifts by their respective partners (Sean Lavery and Adam Lu-ders), who are thus introduced already executing their porteur function...

...Ben Benson's costumes lend an appropriate athletic ambiance to the proceedings: The men wear cyclist striped t-shirts, tights and socks, and the women t-shirt tops with mid-thigh length sheer skirts...

...2 is by George Balan-chine, and it strengthens his standing as germinator/formulator of modern ballet technique...

...This is followed by a final duet, "Hallowee'n," that is a race against time, but is not frantic...

...the latter, a series of limited, nonchalant dances, is elemental and completely ingratiating...

...Ives' "Gyp the Blood or Hearst...

...Time will tell which, if either, of these newborn dances will live...

...Neary, happily, shows flexing limbs, multiple easy angles and playful speedy dancing...

...Watt's two other solos are more limited than Duell's, but her sharp line and technique make up in phrasing and attack what her steps lack in ingenuity and variety...

...Instead of giving him the standard classroom positions, the choreographer has shown a penchant for working his dancer with casual turnout, arms loosely hung and feet sometimes oddly flexed rather than correctly stretched...

...in addition, they capitalize on Duell's strengths—his easy airborne power and his youthful, urgent attack—and deemphasize his liabilities—his limp feet and lazy ankles that so often spoil his traditional line...

...All of the action here is for the solo dancers, and it is so quick, with concentric-path double work and criss-crossing diagonals that it is almost over before it begins...

...A crouched grouping of the male ensemble ends the (lebhafte) first movement and opens the (langsame) second...

...The former, a dazzling display of inventive combinations perfectly fitted to the piano concerto's quirky and exuberant energies, is brilliant but not especially amiable...

...The end product is an unaffected, challenging opportunity for the two dancers to display their abilities...

...Kam-mermusik No...

...These physical colorations are doubly useful...

...Her solo to "Calcium Light Night," for example, is almost all walking on point, into and out of loose chaine-tum paths...

...The fourth movement (schnell) finds everyone executing further complexities to create a stage picture that is all active field, without any individuals standing out...

...The soloists appear to be token captains of this team-focused ballet, and we are the spectators to an invigorating game of unknown outcome...

...The design of Duell's four solos has obviously gained from Martins' background, and reveals a respectable range and a throw-away spirit...

...Of course, comparing the master's mature choreography with someone's first attempt to construct a dance would be foolish...

...w. hue their material is certainly not so extraordinary as that of Kammermusik No...

...Fine points, such as contact made with heel then toe, and feet-spragging, knee-knocking ronds de jambe details are interspersed with long and wide strokes, such as high-turning saute moves and split-leg, running grand jetes...

...Nevertheless, I must admit that as these two ballets took their positions, in the repertory during the closing weeks of the winter season ending in mid-February, Balanchine's piece gave me less pleasure than Martins...