On Dance
JACOBS, LAURA
On Dance THE ABT AT FIFTY BY LAURA JACOBS It may seem only yesterday that the American Ballet Theatre (ABT) was celebrating its 40th anniversary, but this January it turned 50. For a...
...When that Mona Lisa smile plays on her face, you want to be part of her thought—and that is really the whole point...
...Both are second-rate ballets, and one wondered why they were part of such an occasion...
...About him the gala is mum, no doubt because of his tempestuous departure in the fall...
...Whether amnesty will bring renewal or regression remains to be seen...
...Jane Hermann, the ABT's new executive director, has hinted that for an unspecified period she will head artistic direction with the help of an advisory staff...
...No serious appraisal of the past is included, nor is there any discussion of future directions...
...He is no longer even that...
...He purged the repertory of pseudoworks and replaced the Petipa productions with grander, more thoroughly conceived, often Kirov-influenced versions (not without upsetting some fans who decried this "Sovietization" of ABT classics...
...Nonetheless, her '40s technique of soft turn-out and sachet-like port de bras gave the ballet a glow that was missing from every performance by ABT's young beauties in their spanking new Swan Lake last spring...
...Thus Antony Tudor, one ofthe century's choreographic geniuses, was for a time ABT's house choreographer...
...Baryshnikov made his mistakes and had his flops...
...The gala opened with the finale from Les Sylphides...
...A medley of Tudor ballets came next, a reminder of how well the current company is dancing his cruel, magnificent, complex mixes of memory and desire...
...Enthusiastic, optimistic, starstruck, looking not at tomorrow but counting the blessings of today—that was Chase and that is the present celebration...
...There is no other explanation for the nearly hysterical outburst that erupted at the gala every time Fernando Bujones' name was uttered, not to mention the enthusiastic uproar when he finally appeared...
...The aging Alicia Alonso donned her point shoes one more time for the pas de deux from Swan Lake, Act II...
...Notwithstanding a spirited footlight speech from Agnes de Mille about how "alive" the company is, the "Three Variations" from Jerome Robbins Fancy Free and an overlong excerpt from de Mille's Rodeo looked forced and stale...
...It boasted young Julie Kent, a porcelain beauty and one of the few reasons to see ABT's waterlogged version last season...
...Perhaps the dancers are out of sync with the patriotism or innocence of the two works from the '40s...
...Regardless of how one feels about the controversial choreographer, the company looks undeniably fabulous and happy in her dances...
...The evening's crowning glory was the corps de ballet's performance of the La Bayadere adagio from the "Kingdom of Shades," Act II, possibly the whitest of all "white" acts...
...Her dedication was no substitute for artistic vision, of course, yet her flexible, pragmatic policies were often strong compensating factors...
...Now 42, NYCB was formed solely to provide George Balanchine with the kind of dancers he needed to make his ballets, dancers whose musicality and technical clarity took priority over a grand manner...
...When properly danced it dissolves out of sight into pure sensation...
...In celebration, ABT has conceived a multimedia evening as the kickoff gala for each leg of its national tour...
...There never was a galvanizing esthetic at ABT of the kind that fired New York City Ballet (NYCB) from its very inception...
...Whatever the circumstances of his quitting, though, the imprint of his vision on the company cannot be denied...
...The idea was simply that it would be a company of American performers doing, as much as possible, American repertory...
...True, Amanda McKerrow is a dancer of luminous musical gifts and growing presence, a real ballerina and, handled wisely, a potential star, but she came to Baryshnikov largely formed, courtesy of the Washington Ballet...
...Under his reign classical temper took the place of star excess...
...It consists of film clips, company alumni dancing and speaking, and segments of 28 ballets arranged by genre...
...Committed to the academic classicism of which he was the peerless embodiment, Baryshnikov built a troupe that could confidently dance a Marius Petipa Sleeping Beauty alongside Tudor's stream-ofconsciousness ballets and Merce Cunningham's rigorous post-modernist creations...
...So ABT moves into the '90s guided by a woman who should have no trouble managing money—she was previously the Metropolitan Opera House's Director of Presentations—and who, like Chase, will certainly be a constant, reassuring presence...
...She knew what the audience wanted...
...Running the company with an instinctive maternal will, Chase was always present and always readytobailout ABT financially...
...It seems safe to assume that many dancers unable to work with Baryshnikov will be invited to return...
...In any case, the pieces need a rest...
...During its first five years ABT seemed to be playing musical chairs with directors...
...Still, for all of Baryshnikov's success in making ABT self-sustaining, in promoting the company without resorting to foreign dancers and aging stars, the fans wanted the blowsy sentimentality that had prevailed during the Chase years...
...He gave ABT a corps de ballet second to none and, just as important, a corps intended to serve as a proving ground for stars...
...Indeed, considering the gala's many references to her, it might more properly have been titled "A Tribute to Lucia Chase...
...On the other hand, ABT now has a company of men who, from corps to principals, are commandingly virile and virtuosic classicists...
...The character of thecompanyhas been altered, but the audience's expectations remain the same...
...Watching these 24 women move from sous-sus to arabesque in breathtaking academic alignment and within the same fierce heartbeat, one is left with a handful of ghost words: rustling, restless, nether, charged...
...Then Lucia Chase, a dancer of soso talent and immense wealth, landed the job and stayed on for 35 years...
...We are reminded of ABT's past bounty of foreign stars, home-grown talent, choreographic diversity, and heavy touring schedule...
...Unfortunately, instead of developing ballerinas of importance, Baryshnikov too frequently promoted dancers for either their steely technical strength (Susan Jaffe, Cheryl Yeager) or a particular beauty (Christine Dunham...
...Italian diva Carla Fracci danced Caroline in Jardin Aux Lilas...
...The obvious irony in all this, however, is that the ABT we are seeing now is unquestionably the handiwork of Mikhail Baryshnikov, the company's director for the past 10 years...
...Bujones, never a first-class artist, was in his youth a first-rate technician...
...The fourhour affair, asortof three-dimensional scrapbook, premiered at the Metropolitan Opera House on January 14...
...By contrast, ABT began with a less focused sense of purpose...
...Before long she changed the company's character somewhat by bringing in foreign stars to drum up business, even though she was ruefully aware that they were taking roles away from their American counterparts...
...It is an event when danseurs like Julio Bocca, Wes Chapman, Ricardo Bustamante, and the younger Jeremy Collins and Parrish Maynard take new roles...
...It was an excruciatingly slow and rickety performance...
...A string of classical solos and pas de deux was next...
...No group in the world performs Tudor with ABT's delicacy and self-possession, and no dancer is able to negotiate the technical and emotional intricacies, to express the silent reverberations of The Leaves Are Fading like Amanda McKerrow...
...For a half-century, despite incessant domestic squabbles, an almost constant state of near-bankruptcy, and occasionally inscrutable artistic decision-making, the company has brought us ballet in all its guises: Imperial Russian, American folk, hi-tech contemporary, neoclassical, neoromantic...
...By old ABT standards Bujones is a star, although during the Baryshnikov years he could not make the company because his sort of bluster was not countenanced...
...But one wonders what Hermann's esthetic values are, and how she—a nondancer, nonteacher, nonchoreographer—will effectively communicate them...
...On this occasion she was thrillingly sensate and quicksilver in the pas de deux...
...nevertheless, his tenure was in many concrete ways a crucial one...
...Clearly, the ABT's masterful corps at the moment holds the keys to the company's future...
...Perhaps that lack is inevitable...
...Without that empathy the Tchaikovsky ballets can become the senseless Freudian exercises so many choreographers are unfortunately inclined to make of them...
...Then came excerpts from Robbins' Les Noces and Alvin Alley's The River...
...She is a flickering presence in this quintessentially Romantic work, sometimes with us, sometimes off in her own fine-spun fantasy...
...Standouts were McKerrow in Giselle, Act II, with that feral slumber still upon her, and Martine van Hamel, wiseandcrisplymajesticin.Ra.ymonda...
...Alonso had it in her total embrace of Odette, in the utter seriousness of her make-believe...
...Her wide, solemn brow, graced with the most eloquent widow's peak in ballet, spoke achingly of Caroline's figurative death in love...
...She may not have recognized what was bad (the choreography of Glen Tetley, for instance, or the motleyness of her own corps de ballet), but she was open to much that was good...
...An interlude of dances by Twyla Tharp followed, with Tharp herself on stage delivering droll commentary...
...He whips up audiences by approximating virtuosity, rushing the stage and inflating his flourishes...
Vol. 73 • March 1990 • No. 4
