July September Romance

In the unlikeliest of places—Miranda July’s erotic perimenopause novel, All Fours—I came across a fabulous piece of dance writing:

When he leapt and turned in the air like that it was ecstatic and obsessive—he did the move again and again like some kind of endurance art and it only became more exactly the truth the longer he did it. He was pouring sweat. I was entirely known and I thought: This is the happiest moment of my life. And with that sentence came tremendous sorrow because nothing was more fleeting than a dance—dance says: joy is only now. So I gave up on everything but now. Every opinion and judgment I had ever had, my entire past including my child and husband and parents, my future, my career, my eventual death—I let all of it go. Or I did nothing, for once. I just watched the dance.

Performance

New York City Ballet: “Tschaikovsky Piano Concerto No. 2” / “Duo Concertant” / “Glass Pieces”

Place

David H. Koch Theater, Lincoln Center, New York, NY, September 2024

Words

Faye Arthurs

Samuel Melnikov, Emily Kikta, and Mckenzie Bernardino Soares in George Balanchine’s “Tschaikovsky Piano Concerto No.2.” Photograph by Erin Baiano

Well, I suppose there could be less likely places. After all, July is a cousin of American Ballet Theater principal dancer Skyler Brandt, and her Instagram account is filled with selfie dancing videos. She moves her lithe, balletic body (which is sometimes clad in a leotard) quirkily, compellingly, and wholly uninhibitedly. July clearly understands—both through doing and through watching—the potential promise of the art form: the ability to be so present in time and space as to stop caring about time and space at all. When I read the above passage, I felt entirely known, and I have been itching to see some world-class dancing ever since. Last night I went to my first show of New York City’s jam-packed fall dance season, and though I never floated outside of the space-time continuum (and I definitely checked my phone for messages from the babysitter at intermission), I did feel invigorated by the New York City Ballet’s excellent opening program.

The first ballet, Balanchine’s “Tschaikovsky Piano Concerto No. 2,” from 1964, is one that I could watch every night. It is an abstract, technical Everest for its entire cast of 29. Yet it reads like a story ballet at times—likely because the 1941 draft of this dance, “Ballet Imperial,” featured pantomime and palatial scenery. The plotless version that remains still contains regal bowing, a smidge of acting, and even a pointed “Swan Lake” crossed-wrist partnering hold. There is a lot to manage in “PC#2,” both physically and dramatically. It is by turns grand and intimate, lush and cold.

Tyler Angle and Sara Mearns in George Balanchine’s “Tschaikovsky
Piano Concerto No.2.” Photograph by Erin Baiano

The cast on the second night of the season was mostly up to the challenges. Soloist Emily Kikta, in the secondary principal role, confidently and gracefully led difficult pas de trois. She was well-flanked by McKenzie Bernardino Soares and Samuel Melnikov. This trio is borderline funny in how it commences with sunny teamwork then quickly takes a dark turn. Kikta broke away from her consorts and danced increasingly tricky steps to progressively ominous—and progressively demanding—piano passages. Pianist Hanna Hyunjung Kim was impressive as well. Principal Tyler Angle dispatched his entrechat-huits with fine form and elegantly partnered Sara Mearns as well as demi-soloists Kristen Segin and India Bradley (who made an ardent debut).

Like the mid-September performance date, Mearns is in the late summer/early fall of her career, which means she has entered her “choices” era. This is always a fascinating time in the life cycle of a prima ballerina. The choices era is not necessarily a good or bad thing, and not every ballerina hits it. (Some power along in the same way despite injuries or bodily changes, which is often worse.) And some make choices because of temperament rather than physical issues. It can also be a sign of shrewdness or deeper artistry to accentuate certain steps and gloss over others. For example: Kyra Nichols made mostly wonderful, musically playful choices in her later career; and Wendy Whelan worked around hip issues so astutely that she altered the course of contemporary choreography. On and off in recent years, Tiler Peck has smartly accommodated for her back and neck injuries through inventive phrasing. Dancers can dip in and out of choices phases too.

I don’t know why Mearns was not chasing down every step and note like she used to (maybe it is simply a new artistic approach after her extensive exposure to other styles), but I respect the shift even if I didn’t love every choice. In her opening solo, she remained calmly yet firmly behind the music. She would not be rushed by the whims of an unconducted pianist. Though I wanted her to push more for some of the timings and technical passages throughout, I did enjoy how her unperturbedness underscored the imperial nature of her assoluta role. And in general, she still crafted compelling arcs: she made sure to strike massive arabesques on reverberating notes, and she didn’t stint on swooning backbends into Angle’s arms in her many pas de deux. It is when ballerinas only stress walks on pointe that you start to worry. At any rate, it will be interesting to see how choosy she is in other ballets this season.

Ashley Hod and Aarón Sanz in Jerome Robbins’ “Glass
Pieces.” Photograph by Erin Baiano

Unlike the enigmatic “PC#2,” I don’t need to see Balanchine’s sentimental “Duo Concertant” too often. However, the gracious Indiana Woodward and the catlike, perpetually underused Taylor Stanley beautifully reprised their partnership in this ballet on Wednesday. The evening’s closer, Jerome Robbins’s “Glass Pieces,” has a third movement that always thrills, and there were many exciting debuts in the first and second movements too. The sextet of new Rubric aliens—Ruby Lister, Jules Mabie, Nieve Corrigan, Maxwell Read, Marlorie Lundgren, and McKenzie Bernardino Soares—was strong. Corrigan caught my eye earlier in the evening as well. She was the most on-the-music of the tall corps of “PC#2” during the fast piqué emboîté motif in the third movement.

Ashley Hod and Aaron Sanz were sleek and secure at the helm of the “Facades” adagio. Hod has had great attack from the get-go, and she has improved her feet and lines every season. It is nice to see that hard work paying off. And this role was a great fit for Sanz, who should always be reaching and melting in a spotlight on a dancefloor. He convincingly “let all of it go,” per July. The swirling, droning “Glass” finale is one of the most obvious examples in the balletic canon of the capacity for repetition and endurance to reveal greater truth, as July so brilliantly observed. But Akhnaten’s accessibility doesn’t diminish its power. Every time the dancers furiously chaîné and then freeze with their arms flung skyward as the music bottoms out, it is like a finger-snap awakening from hypnosis.

Faye Arthurs

Faye Arthurs is a former ballet dancer with New York City Ballet. She chronicled her time as a professional dancer in her blog Thoughts from the Paint. She graduated summa cum laude with a B.A. in English from Fordham University. She lives in Brooklyn with her partner and their sons.

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