On Dance

...Tall, with shapely limbs, Messac has both technique and style...

...Nureyev had previously been seen here only in Spectre de la Rose, where he plays an athletic, rose-colored ghost who enters a young woman's boudoir through the window...

...Dialogue was occasionally spoken or sung by a few members of the large cast, and Bejart's taped voice recited lines from Baudelaire (in very broken English...

...A defined and consistent pattern of instruction has enabled it to start evolving a distinctive style...

...Gaite has only a slight semblance of form...

...This was most apparent in the tone, confidence and youthful freshness of its homage to Balanchine...

...For the first time in New York, the piece was being completely staged and remounted according to Nijinksy's legendary choreography and Bakst's famous designs...

...Once inside, he entertains her dream of a night at the ball...

...Its eighth New York season matched neither my understanding of ballet nor of 20th century sensibility...

...Mitchell's always clear yet often bland choreography was seen in Biosfera (an acrobatic and sinuous pas de deux), Manifestations (an acrobatic and sinuous pas de trois about Adam, Eve and the serpent) and Rhythmetron (an ensemble effort with respectable moves but little expressive sense...

...Working in and around a tubular-frame box and intermittently joined by a long-limbed dan-seuse (Catherine Dethy), the Frenchman struck turns and poses that came from the experience of a strong dancer and from the soul of a hypnotic performer...

...The piece is the first one Balanchine choreographed on coming to America, and it is unendingly rich with elementary academic moves...

...Their repertory also includes non-Balanchine dances created especially for the company...

...Nurevey and the Joffrey worked hard to reconstruct the bygone days of Diaghilev's history-making enterprise...

...The DTH's non-Balanchine pieces were nowhere near as exhilarating...

...The stage full of poised young women was breathtaking in its stillness, and when their ranks began to streak in flight through the nighttime mood of this ballet, one's own spirit soared accordingly...

...Holding crossed-arm poses and striking hand-slapping accents atop bright pointe work with solid balances, Messac managed to evoke Bal-anchine's 19th-century Russian background as well as his polished 20th-century vocabulary...

...On Dance IN STEP AND OUT by robert greskovic February, Dance Theater of Harlem (DTH) celebrated its 10th anniversary by dedicating a two-week New York season to George Balan-chine of the New York City Ballet (NYCB...

...Yet Nureyev's forlorn doll contributed nothing new or incisive to my understanding of this foreign sensibility...

...Ten years is practically infancy for a ballet company, yet in that short time DTH has proven itself a considerable artistic endeavor...

...Nureyev's faune grew increasingly less exotic, mysterious and bestial...

...The latter is semi-autobiographical, (relating to Bejart himself): A lead figure passes through successive levels of ballet experiences and dreams—all linked by the presence of an affectionate/tyrannical ballet teacher...

...Of the two that are newest, I saw only one: an undistinguished love-hate duet called L 'Ardeur by Dane Lafont-see...

...I found Nureyev still a touch too bright and sharp in the role, but Broadway's Mark Hellinger stage was not as vast as his usual space in the Metropolitan Opera House, and he was accordingly relaxed...

...Finally, Robert North's Troy Game, a work for the male ensemble, was overly long and somewhat self-consciously brawny...

...A gem in the Hungro-Russo style, Pas de Di\ is perfectly suited to a troupe of Pennsylvania's size and schooling...

...Nevertheless, it did have some engaging athletic solo and group moves...

...Of the works by the choreographer in repertory, Agon (to Stravinsky) and The Four Temperaments (to Hinde-mith) were the best samples of the classical tradition colored by either elaborate or subtle shifts of emphasis...

...The most anxiously awaited event was Nureyev's appearance in Debussy's L 'Apres-Midi d'un Faune...

...Over a four-week span he performed three famous Nijinsky roles—in Spectre de la Rose, L 'Apres-Midi d'un Faune and Petrouchka...

...And now that he is entering his 40s, he is more carefully packaging his energy and his drive...

...A recent one-week Brooklyn season showed just how comfortable this Philadelphia-based company is with Balanchine's choreography...

...Indeed, the company is at its best unconvincing, and at its worst, distorting—qualities that also describe Bejart's choreography...

...Thus, whereas DTH was willowy and proud, Pennsylvania was more even-tempered and academic...

...As the whey-faced puppet in Petrouchka, he was simple and sweet, but conventional...

...And Pennsylvania's Magali Messac is ideally cast in it...

...Despite the string of inventive ensemble dances—one each for two girls, a duet for two other girls and a charming pas de quatre for the boys —this really is a ballerina's show...

...Of all the Diaghilev roles, this one refers most directly to Nureyev's native heritage—the Stra-vinsky/Benois/Fokine collaboration is nothing if not Russian...

...Unfortunately, the result, while respectable, was not revelatory...

...Nureyev approached the shapeliness of the refined/archaic movement as if he were more interested in getting to and holding the now-famous poses (from various photographs) than in concentrating on the continual, subtle change that made Nijinsky's dancing so soothing...

...In Choo SanGoh'sIntroducing...

...The tribute reflected the fact that Arthur Mitchell, codirector (with Karel Shook) of America's first all-black classical dance company, is an alumnus of the City Ballet, and that his former director and teacher's methods have exerted a strong influence on the troupe: It not only includes a sizeable number of Balanchine ballets in its repertory, but it has also followed his example by establishing a school to train and finish dancers...

...Rudolf Nureyev is another dancer who has had a long and distinguished career...

...The audience was treated not merely to entertainment but to a glimpse of human perfection...

...The latest selection included a full-evening work entitled Amor di Poeta, set to a combined score of naturalistic sound effects, lieder by Robert Schumann and circus-like compositions by Nino Rota...

...However, it is well-known in ballet circles that this arrangement of dances is derived from Balanchine's 1955 staging of the full-length Raymonda (for a lead ballerina, a danseur and an ensemble of four couples...

...But what Broadway audiences saw most clearly was a Nureyev who, when all is said and done, failed to recall Nijinsky...

...A genuine showcase for the female ensemble, it uses 18 women (plus three in leading parts), two leading men (mostly cavaliers) and four "extra" men as porteurs...

...Now in its second decade, the Pennsylvania Ballet is also indebted to Balanchine—both for his initial support of founder/director Barbara Weisberg-er and for his continuing supply of ballets to the company's growing repertory...

...The company's new production of Pas de Dix (to Glazunov) was listed in the program only as "after Petipa" (the famous French dancer and choreographer...

...The Pennsylvania's performance of Serenade was stronger than DTH's, but it was also less moving...

...The highlight of the 20th Century's season was guest artist Jean Babilee?the legendary French dancer of the late '40s and early '50s (he is now in his mid-50s...

...she brings to her folk-flavored role precisely the right edge of Slavic authority...

...toStravinsky) the company was quirky without being contorted, while Carmen de La-vallade's Sensemaya was an energetic if uninventive encapsulation of a Mexican myth...

...48), the company provided clear evidence of its debt and gratitude to the Master...

...Founded in 1960, Maurice Bejart's Brussels-based Ballet of the 20th Century is to me doubly incomprehensible...

...His most recent New York appearance was in Homage to Diaghilev (in cooperation with the Joffrey...

...Bejart's version of two ballets originally choreographed by Fokine?Petrouchka (to Stravinsky) and Le Spectre de la Rose (to von Weber)—and of Offenbach's Gaite Parisienne, originally by Massine, were ludicrous...

...As for the choreography, it resembled calisthenics more than dancing...

...Not even Bejart's uneventful choreography for Babilee in Life could conceal this performer's dignity, intensity and strength...

...Yet because it was made for Victor Ullate, one of Bejart's more capable dancers, it had a kind of credibility that the other works, featuring the ubiquitous Donn, couldn't possibly muster...

...Bejart almost always opens here with a completely new repertory of his own pieces...

...Characteristic juxtapositions and simultaneous actions, meant—as usual —to suggest personal or universal meaning, expressed only theatrical cliches and dramatic opacity...

...This is in part attributable to the relative shortness of the dancers, and in part to the overriding approach—which makes the dance phrases clean and clear albeit occasionally dry...

...The central figure—a poet's creation—was performed by Jorge Donn, one of Bejart's weaker technicians, who nonetheless remains one of his favorites...

...And in Serenade (to Tchaikovsky's Serenade for Strings, Op...

...The contemporary ambience of Billy Wilson's Mirage (subtitled "The Games People Play") was not concisely choreographed, though the DTH performers did display in the piece their authoritative stage presence and well-schooled dance manners...