Balanchine Ascendant

To celebrate the 90^th anniversary of the School of American Ballet, advanced students performed Balanchine’s “Serenade” (also 90 this year) on a special, one-off New York City Ballet program. Though “Serenade” is one of the NYCB’s signature works, it was choreographed on SAB students in 1934, fourteen years prior to the formation of the company. SAB has always been a pipeline to City Ballet, including this season: Gianna Reisen’s “Signs”—originally made for the 2022 SAB Workshop—will make its company premiere at the Fall Fashion Gala later this month. Jonathan Stafford, the artistic director of both the company and the school, stressed the interdependence of the institutions in a pre-curtain speech. He noted that only three dancers on the current company roster of 98 were not trained at SAB. (And five of the eight “Serenade” principals are already NYCB apprentices.) Although the school has performed part of the first movement of “Serenade” on a NYCB bill a handful of times over the years, this was the first time that students performed the ballet in its entirety. As always, “Serenade” was impeccably staged for SAB by Suki Schorer.

Performance

New York City Ballet: 90th anniversary performance of “Serenade”

Place

David. H. Koch Theater, Lincoln Center, New York, NY, October 1, 2024

Words

Faye Arthurs

Apprentice Maya Milić and students from the School of American Ballet in George Balanchine’s “Serenade.” Photograph by Erin Baiano

The youngsters did a beautiful job on the big stage. In many ways, they were improved from their Workshop performances of the ballet just four months ago. In fact, they were so convincing that I almost felt it was a shame to split up three of the principal roles. On one hand, it was wonderful to display the deep bench of talent at the school, and to give more performing opportunities to talented senior students and new apprentices. On the other hand, “Serenade” is an emotional journey, and the cameo approach undercut the developmental arc of the piece. I was happy to see lovely Lucie Richard as the Russian Girl in the Elegy section, but I also felt that Kylie Williams earned the right to finish out her Russian Girl voyage. Her flies in the Russian Dance were massive, and she kept up with conductor Andrew Litton’s brisk tempi—no remedial pacing for these kids!

The only aspect that exposed the students’ greenness was their spacing. You can’t fault them much for that, however. They likely only had a few rehearsals to adjust to the immense Koch stage. And “Serenade” is a spatially challenging ballet even for experienced pros. The double diagonal crossing in the Waltz is notoriously difficult. Balanchine made “Serenade” in a long-extinct Stage Technique class at SAB, but watching the students struggle to hold formations while traveling, I wondered if a Stage Spacing class might be a beneficial addition to the curriculum. That would beat getting yelled at by senior corps members to stay in line over the six weeks of “Nutcracker” performances, the traditional system for integrating apprentices.

Apprentice Kylie Williams and students from the School of American Ballet in George Balanchine’s “Serenade.” Photograph by Erin Baiano

“Serenade” was followed by “Mozartiana,” which is always a marvelous juxtaposition. “Serenade” was the first ballet Balanchine choreographed in America (premiering June 10, 1934) and “Mozartiana” was his last (premiering June 4, 1981). These ballets really speak to each other, with their moving Tchaikovsky string scores and their prominent quartet groupings. Interestingly, they are structurally inverse. In “Serenade,” Balanchine moved the meditative third movement of Tchaikovsky’s Serenade for Strings to the end, so that the ballet finishes with a slow, spiritual cooldown—featuring a death and an ascension—instead of a boisterous allegro. In “Mozartiana” he did the reverse: he took the soft third movement Preghiera of Tchaikovsky’s Suite No. 4, Op. 61 and moved it to the beginning of the ballet. Thus “Mozartiana” begins with a solemn prayer and ends with a happy allegro jig.

“Serenade” was made when Balanchine was 30, and the ballet’s leads experience love and loss in what feels like real time. “Mozartiana,” conversely, looks backward, exuding reflection throughout. Balanchine was 77 when he choreographed “Mozartiana,” and the contemplation of death is everywhere—from the black tulle mourning tutus to the black curtains draped across the cerulean cyclorama backdrop (like sitting a balletic shiva). In the opening Preghiera, the ballerina is shadowed by four young SAB students, as if remembering her youth, or passing her torch. After the male soloist’s joyous Gigue solo, he kneels and stares out at the audience for quite some time before slowly getting up and ceding the stage to the Minuet quartet.

Sara Mearns and Peter Walker in George Balanchine’s “Mozartiana.” Photograph by Erin Baiano

Sara Mearns was luminous in the Preghiera, and her petite retinue—Isla Cooley, Wakana Ikegami, Sasi Shrobe-Joseph, and Stella Tompkins—was excellent. As the show progressed, however, Mearns seemed less continuously present. Moments of technical brilliance and attack (lovely floating attitude pirouettes, an emphatic pause in fifth after the tricky swivel pirouettes) were followed by distracted passages. She is working through a calf issue that has caused cast shuffling at City Ballet and repertory shuffling at the Fall For Dance Festival, which was increasingly apparent as the ballet wore on. Peter Walker debuted opposite her in the lead male role. Though he had a fluke moment that will likely eat at him until he can get back out there and redo it, he made elegant work of all the syncopated battu. And he convincingly sold the low dégagés en cloche which often trip people up.

Unity Phelan and Adrian Danchig-Waring in Alexei Ratmansky’s “Concerto DSCH.” Photograph by Erin Baiano

Alexei Ratmansky’s “Concerto DSCH,” from 2008, perfectly rounded out the bill. Like “Serenade” and “Mozartiana,” “DSCH” filters technical challenges through a deep well of feeling. Emma Von Enck was terrific in the spunky, difficult soloist role, as were her hammy co-conspirators Harrison Coll (in a debut) and Sebastián Villarini-Vélez. Unity Phelan also made a fantastic debut in the lead female role. Her acting was extraordinarily natural.

“DSCH” reveals Ratmansky as a true disciple of Balanchine, their shared Russian heritage and love for classical ballet is evident in these works. However, “DSCH” is both more populist and more modern. While Balanchine puts his dancers on a pedestal, Ratmansky lets his knock each other off. He employs folksy accents, slomo sequences, and gag jokes. And in the exquisite second movement andante of “DSCH,” the relationships between the leads and the three supporting couples feel simultaneously ancient and contemporary. I can envision this octet as peasants in a long-ago Ukrainian village, or as young adults with a group text chain. This one-night only program didn’t have a name, but from the promising student “Serenade,” to the pronounced imagery of succession in “Mozartiana,” to Ratmansky’s shared values and time-traveling sorcery in “DSCH,” it made a strong case for the continued promulgation of Balanchine’s ideals.

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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