by Leigh Witchel
Pacific Northwest Ballet has always had a damned-if-it-does-damned-if-it-doesn’t time choosing repertory to visit us. Bring Balanchine – get crucified by the critics. Bring modern works – have critics ask “Where’s the Balanchine?” For this visit in June, which began with a benefit performance for The Joyce Theater, the company brought coals – in the form of compressed carbon – to New York for the gala only.
“Diamonds” was performed with an absolutely bare stage, but past the absence of a set, the performance could have used something. PNB offered us an Emeralds-ish “Diamonds” as if the Tchaikovsky were Fauré. It was elegant and classical – but how classical is “Diamonds?” Even if the tutus are ivory, they’re encrusted with bling. The women in the corps were punctilious about lines and port de bras, but when they lifted their legs to the front, they didn’t fall forward when they came down, they retracted under themselves as if they had no room to move. There’s more than one way to do Balanchine, but dancing under yourself isn’t one of them.
The restraint bled over into the pas de deux. Lesley Rausch and James Kirby Rogers opened with beautiful, but slow, decorative salutes as if standing on ceremony. Then Rausch turned to stare at Rogers as the music paused and her hand hovered in space, as if caught. It was beautifully planned and calculated, but the part was made on Suzanne Farrell, one of the most go-for-broke dancers. That quality is not just an overlay, it’s in the steps and the partnering. Only towards the end, when Rausch dove and stalked into poses was there a hint of abandon.
Both dancers handled the technical demands admirably; he landed his turns in second cleanly, she showed off her strong feet in step-up turns. Rogers, whose announcement of promotion to principal dancer was made onstage last night in Seattle, danced with Artistic Director Peter Boal’s quiet reticence when he performed, but then tore into a manège with greyhound legs.
The full company returned for a clean finale, but broad, orderly imperial boulevards aren’t all we crave from “Diamonds.” It needed more of the thrill and rush of traffic.
The other work on the bill, “Waiting at the Station” is a Twyla Tharp commission from 2013. The music was by Allen Toussaint, a pivotal figure in New Orleans soul and R&B until his death in 2015. In a curtain talk, Boal mentioned that The Joyce’s Executive Director, Linda Shelton, congratulated him on acquiring a Broadway show. Tharp’s vocabulary was ballet, her attitude was Broadway and the combination set off no sparks with either. Also, Broadway shows have plots.
The work was well into several large numbers before we had any idea who the dancers were or if there was a storyline. The plot was not really a plot, but an allegory about time and family relationships. Even so, it was a muddle that Tharp tried to solve the way she tries to solve most things: with constant activity.
James Yoichi Moore played a smooth-moving father who had a strained relationship with Kyle Davis, his punchier, more explosive son. Davis snapped into positions and poses, then the two knocked out beats and turns in what you weren’t sure was a friendly competition.
There was a large cast and constant dancing from two couples, a chorus and three ladies in large bedazzled orange berets. The ladies made periodic entries to dance with Moore, and were quite chipper, but that hid a more sinister intent.
The set designs by Santo Loquasto were unsurprisingly a train station, with girder supports and a clock. Moore went to the clock and set it back, then got Davis to dance with him. Entrance after exit of dances followed with the father, the son, the couples, the trio. Still, “Waiting at the Station” failed the “can you just watch it and figure out what’s happening” test.
Both Moore and Davis were strong dancers but the work, with its emphasis on ballet, didn’t give you a sense of a distinct movement style. Every now and again, it percolated up from the men in the corps; you saw one of them shimmy, almost floating from one position into the next. That looked like what Tharp was aiming for.
Moore danced a wistful solo as couples drifted and lifted past. Davis danced with Moore, and they embraced. As the piece went on, it was more apparent the three ladies happened to be the Three Fates. They entered to lift Moore awkwardly and bring him towards the back to disappear behind the set. So if you see three ladies in bedazzled berets, run.
Lights on the girders started flashing, and the cast came out in carnival masks carrying Moore’s coffin, in a New Orleans funeral procession. Except processions move in a line. This was reimagined by Tharp into something more chaotic.
Davis did turns in second; Moore rolled out to do one last jazz solo. As in any decent tale with a ghost who gets one last chance on earth, the other dancers were unaware of him. Still, he pacified a fight between two women, watched his son dance, and saw him get a hat like his.
Finally the back scrim opened and a train appeared that Moore got on, and saluted to close the ballet. That brief ending effect cost a lot of money that it wasn’t worth. It might have been better to spend it on a chandelier or two for “Diamonds.”
“Waiting at the Station” was from a period where Tharp was concentrating on plotted works – she had made “The Princess and the Goblin” for the Atlanta Ballet the year prior. Before that, her major project was iterations of her Sinatra project, called on Broadway “Come Fly Away,” where it ran for six months. But “Waiting at the Station” uncomfortably straddled the area between a revue and a story.
Just Be Yourself is one of the most unfair pieces of advice you can give a ballet company coming to New York, especially as critics rarely see eye-to-eye on repertory with directors, presenters or the audience. But more than companies such as Miami City or Sarasota Ballet, PNB has a brand issue in New York. Balletomanes think the company should be a Balanchine satellite, even though it hasn’t been for going on 20 years. We know this, but in all that time, New York still hasn’t embraced the alternative.
copyright © 2022 by Leigh Witchel
“Diamonds,” “Waiting at the Station” – Pacific Northwest Ballet
Lincoln Center, New York, NY
June 22, 2022
Cover: Pacific Northwest Ballet in “Diamonds.” Photo credit © Angela Sterling.
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