But that wasn’t all. This was one of many times Tanowitz and company hinted at classical concepts of arcadia. There were passages that suggested ancient deities or pagan satyrs and nymphs, much like in the mythical section of Disney’s Fantasia, which is also set to Beethoven’s 6th. To be sure, stately posing features into many of Tanowitz’s works; I thought especially of “Untitled (Souvenir)”, made for the Martha Graham Dance Company in 2019 (and which also featured music by Shaw). But this time the imagery was wondrously overladen. The swatches of greenery on the pillars and floor referenced landscaping, but the white-walled staging alluded to a museum. Thus, in the same instant, the dancers appeared to be marble sculptures on manicured grounds or in an antiquities exhibit, as well as the legendary figures themselves just hanging out on Mt. Olympus.  

Yet, although Tanowitz compressed many timelines and realities into “Pastoral,” the stage was also a world unto itself. With white panels sealing off the stage’s side exits, one sometimes got the impression that the dancers were moving through the countryside of a specific universe. One neat passage had the terrific Christina Flores soloing in front of a large floral panel to pulsing music, though she was not dancing on the meter. The vegetation lifted to expose a group chugging perfectly along to the beat, as if they had been doing their own thing back there for a while. This surprising reveal suggested the existence of vistas beyond the visible. Were they bugs in the trees, a herd in a pen or a faraway field? On one hand the dancers were boxed in like zoo animals, but on the other Tanowitz teased ideas of contemporaneous activity in other zones, realms, and eras. 

Another clever moment had Marc Crousillat emerging from behind a central scrim and sautéing boldly around the stage before pausing in a corner. He had no discernable motive, which was refreshing because most men who travel the perimeter of a stage alone in a ballet are princes expressing angst and wanderlust. Crousillat was more of a detached, yet excitable, flaneur. Perhaps an impulsive, wiggly child or a goat frolicking in a pasture. After he exited, other dancers repeated his aimless, skipping solo loop, like deer bounding across the same lea at different times of day. 

A lot of “Pastoral” toyed with the un-sentimentality of wildlife like this—particularly in the pas de deux. In so many pieces Tanowitz dissects ballet partnering in a way that questions its relationship to procreation, intimacy, and anatomical geometry (as in the dispassionate, porno-adjacent finale of her “Song of Songs”). She often uses animalistic twitterpation to get her point across (I thought, again, of Mark Morris’s hilarious bird flocks in L”Allegro, il Penseroso, ed il Moderato”). But here, to Beethoven’s cuspy Romanticism, Tanowitz’s duets were among her least romantic. The pairs communicated through flash and imitation, as in animal mating rituals, and mechanically fit themselves together (the jumping of a woman onto a man’s body in a shotgun position, for example). This also made me think of Balanchine’s B&W’s, with their interlocking, puzzle-piece pas de deux. But Balanchine’s duets are always slightly erotically charged, perhaps because of the icy glamour of their delivery. Also, the non-costumes are still gendered and broadcast heteronormativity—leotards for the women, white tops and black tights for men. Reid Bartelme’s unisex, ombre pantsuits helped Tanowitz cast off one more layer of balletic convention. The costumes’ bright coloring became camouflage in Crowner’s stylized foliage, yet it also popped against the white walls.