by Leigh Witchel
Russia straddles the east and the west, fitting perfectly into neither. Its rulers built an imperial capital in St. Petersburg where they tried to outdo Europe, but its frontiers were central and eastern Asia. Russia’s art had an Orientalist streak, as did Europe’s, however, the Orientalism of Russia’s art wasn’t dealing with overseas colonies, but its neighbors and borders.
In the opening program of the Stravinsky Festival, two of the company’s men encountered the traces of this and dealt with them differently. One parodied it, mixing it with a modern response; the other exploded it.
Before the dancing, the orchestra played one of Stravinsky’s earliest pieces, “Fireworks,” which showed off his skill as an orchestral colorist. It started with a fanfare of agitated horns, moving into acid but luxurious strings. The short piece was a preview of the driving rhythms you would hear in his best-loved ballets.
The dancing began with Justin Peck’s short “Scherzo Fantastique,” from 2016. This introduced the main recurring theme of the Stravinsky Festival: cast changes. KJ Takahashi had his debut the night before going in for Anthony Huxley.
“Scherzo Fantastique” is in the bright, chemical colors of tropical fruit punches: reds, oranges and turquoise, and the costumes by Reid Bartelme and Harriet Jung incorporated bright horizontal stripes and fringe at the chest and waist. Peck made a more substantial work for Miami City Ballet the year before this, “Heatscape,” “Scherzo” inhabits this emotional landscape of big-kids-at-play.
The women wore their hair in buns with little fringes free at the end. The vocabulary was quicksilver and frolicsome. A Peck trademark that he finally used well several years later in “Partita,” everyone looked around in wonderment, but at what? The phrases for Takahashi were packed; he slashed through beats after turns.
Harrison Coll made his debut the night prior, and danced a pas de deux with Brittany Pollack. It was a Peck pas of swift sweeping motions, though this one tended not to double back on itself. There were moments where the two looked at one another as if neither of them knew what sex or attraction was. The studied naïveté can get wearing.
The duet was interrupted by Takahashi whose style is different, but as appealing as Huxley’s. When he got into the company, he looked as if he might be just the next trickster. He’s more; his phrasing is lush. The cast spun round, then stopped, as if they were surprised that it made them dizzy. Takahashi dropped with the others but Coll and Pollack stood and reached as the short work came to an end.
“Firebird,” has always seemed like second-hand, grudging Balanchine. Like “Swan Lake,” a moneymaker his heart wasn’t into. Even so, there’s much that keeps it on that stage: Stravinsky’s score, opening with its rumbling bass, giving view to the luminous Chagall backdrop.
Isabella LaFreniere had to go in the day before for Mearns in the title role; she got a second shot here. She was more human than bird, with legato, connected phrasing. When she flapped her arms and Prince Ivan stilled them she felt most like a woman playing a bird.
Amar Ramasar made his debut as Prince Ivan. He’s a vivid actor, and that’s a good acting part. Skittering around, reacting with exaggerated surprise to the spotlight representing the Firebird, Ramasar interpreted the role as comic, more specifically it seemed, as musical comedy. Even perhaps Disney. He made a big deal of the comic, out-of-place moments, straightening himself up before meeting Miriam Miller as the Princess. With similar costumes, did he see Ivan as a cousin to Aladdin?
Miller was, as usual, glamorous as the Princess, using her height well. At the end of their duet when she sensed danger it felt inchoate. She didn’t look at monsters approaching, but up at a darkening sky – before fleeing and leaving Ramasar to deal with it.
Ramasar’s reaction to the monsters was very detailed, and again, comic rather than frightened, clapping at the monsters to shoo them as you might an unruly dog. His responses to Christopher Grant made it clear that Kastchei isn’t a monster, but a magician. Both men made it clear that Kastchei is controlling Ivan’s movements. This has been a problematic fight in the past, making it magical helped.
LaFreniere reappeared with the sword and circled the stage with low jumps before a huge one to leave. She blessed the couple and began the Berceuse. This was the best section for her, where a more womanly Firebird looked best. Her footwork was agile, even as she made her bourrées travel until the final moments where she arched and tiptoed off.
Both Balanchine and Stravinsky incorporated Orientalist elements into works, often almost subliminally. Think of the last pose of the duet in “Rubies,” where the complex intertwining echoes a Western fantasy of temple dancing.
“Symphony in Three Movements” is a strange candidate for Orientalism. It’s a rumbling work where the percussion and brass roll in like oncoming storm clouds. Stravinsky’s referred to is as his “War Symphony.” The first movement was inspired by the Japanese war tactics in China during World War II, and the third by German armies goosestepping and the eventual victory of the Allies. The middle movement, a pas de deux, incorporated themes for an unused film treatment of “The Song of Bernadette.” So the references are less Stravinsky’s imagination at work, but Balanchine’s, who was likely reacting to the fluttering rhythms and the chime-like effects in the orchestration.
Taylor Stanley stepped in for Adrian Danchig-Waring and blew up a few stereotypes. Stanley is a stylist and an heir to Jeffrey Edwards and Peter Boal: a type of elegant Line dancer the company only only began to have during their tenure.
This duet is not one where you think of the man as a supplicant, but the way that Stanley painted all the Orientalisms in the choreography gave it that slant. There were places when he and Ashley Laracey were also equals: When they moved up and down slowly, looking out past us in the audience, they exchanged places, casting a spell – in itself an echo of mystery. Laracey turned in and out her spidery limbs, and whacked through a turn to end in a flexed attitude like a doll.
Stanley rippled his arm into himself, and it became a snake. He walked round Laracey in a hundred small steps, his torso pitched away from her. The way he connected phrases and the sinuous lines he created linked the duet to what was the Moorish Dance (and before that the Blackamoor’s Dance done in blackface) and is now the Danse Exotique in “La Sonnambula.” Or the dances in La Bayadère. There were even moments it looked like the pas d’esclave from “Le Corsaire.” Turning towards one another to curl their arms again, hers were so long and his were so curved.
The dynamic was emphasized by Stanley being Black and Laracey white, but that was only the beginning. What made it bubble was how well he did those steps, the coordination he lavished on them.
The fascination Balanchine and Stravinsky had with Asian culture was baked into their own native culture, and Balanchine’s Georgian heritage. which gave him roots in a gateway to Central Asia. These influences manifested all over their work. Most likely coincidentally, when Ramasar encountered them, he connected them to the American Orientalist fantasies of Disney and Broadway, defanging both in the process. In the same way, Stanley’s meticulous execution was a different kind of subversion, taking what could be demeaning and making it beautiful and dignified.
copyright © 2022 by Leigh Witchel
“Fireworks,” “Scherzo Fantastique,” “Symphony in Three Movements,” “Firebird” – New York City Ballet
Lincoln Center, New York, NY
May 4, 2022
Cover: Amar Ramasar in “Firebird.” Photo credit © Erin Baiano.
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