It’s an energetic start to the evening, which takes a humorous turn with “Trio Kagel,” the latest world premiere from Alexei Ratmansky. This 11-minute work, featuring dancers Giorgi Potskhishvili, Anna Tsygankova, and Elisabeth Tonev, is, in a sense, a romp. The accompaniment is an accordion solo, adapted from Mauricio Kagel’s “Rrrrrrr”—a work originally composed for organ. Positioned onstage, accompanist Vincent van Amsterdam functions as a set piece as the three dancers, at times, look to him for either a cue or a continuation of the music. From the moment they run onto the stage and pose, chests out, as if about to perform a character dance, this trio takes on a performative, intentionally exaggerated air. 

Some light competition seems to arise between the women as they appear to fight for their turn at partnering—which leads, in one of the funniest moments of the piece, Potskhishvili to clumsily lift both ballerinas at once, each one dangling at his side, barely above the ground, before he releases them down, as if he’d been holding a suitcase in each arm rather than a dancer. They often move erratically, jumping into lifts or, when alone, pulling off a quick Kitri. The accordion often sounds dissonant, and the dancers through the music, rather than on it.  

There are four parts to “Trio Kagel,” with Potskhishvili performing a solo with great bravado after the initial trio. He poses, often, with a hand behind his head, miming a sense of grandeur. The dancers, as a whole, have a marionettish quality to their movement. In their duet, Tsygankova and Tonev are like two Swanhildas who have, perhaps, joined forces to provoke the jealousy of the man they had earlier fought over. But in the end, the trio again unites, moving rapidly through difficult partnering sequences but passing through intentionally awkward transitional movements. This is a piece perhaps about self-seriousness: mocking it for all its delusion and performativity. 

The sense of competition continues in Hans van Manen’s six-minute “Solo,” created in 1997 for NDT 2. Despite what the title suggests, the piece is yet another trio—though one which puts three male dancers in rivalry with one another. Robin Park, Edo Wijnen, and Daniel Robert Silva each take a turn in the literal spotlight—a circle of light in the center of the stage defining their apparent arena, within which they, individually, perform repetitive, athletic jump and turn sequences. There is plenty of character in this piece, too, as dancers’ heads bobble, reverberating from their fast movements, as they walk in and outside of the circle, chins high in demonstration of their showmanship, and as they occasionally lift their hands and shoulders up in a shrug to the audience. They end together, in a sequence of chaînés that brings them, finally, on an equal plane.