ABT, Past, Present, and Future

The final program of American Ballet Theatre’s fall season, titled “Innovations Past and Present,” featured the world premiere of Juliano Nunes “Have We Met!?” as well as two company gems: Alexei Ratmansky’s “Serenade after Plato’s Symposium” and George Balanchine’s “Theme and Variations.” All three were innovative, though Nunes’s opener was perhaps too much so in its decision to raise the curtain with the house lights still on and the orchestra still tuning. I didn’t understand how that figured into his short story ballet. It mostly caused audience confusion. Luckily, some of the scenic innovations to come in “Have We Met?!” were stronger.

Performance

American Ballet Theatre: Juliano Nunes's “Have We Met!?,” Alexei Ratmansky’s “Serenade after Plato’s Symposium,” and Balanchine’s “Theme and Variations”

Place

David H. Koch Theater, Lincoln Center, New York, NY, October 25, 2025

Words

Faye Arthurs

Isabella Boylston and Joseph Markey in “Have We Met?!” by Juliano Nunes. Photograph by Nir Arieli

The scrim that was exposed well before the show began read “1928.” Later, there would be another one to signify a jump in time to 2038. These date drops lifted to reveal two impressive bridge sets by Youssef Hotait (who also designed the costumes and co-wrote the book with Nunes). The first was the Manhattan Bridge, darkly lit and imposing. The second was an airy take on the Brooklyn Bridge, made of fringe. They nicely framed the reincarnation plot of “Have We Met!?,” which was like a boiled down version of David Mitchell’s novel Cloud Atlas. The souls of two lovers—first portrayed by Chloe Misseldine and Joo Won Ahn, later Isabella Boylston and Joseph Markey—connected in different bodies a century apart.

Well, a century and a dime. I see why Nunes and Hotait didn’t pick 2028: the souls’ blissful reunion occurred amid the throng of a future populace dancing atop the Brooklyn Bridge to Luke Howard’s incessantly optimistic music. Curiously, they all wore color block unitards that read as half Grecian, half space-age. Boylston’s braided updo was Princess Leia chic. None of this seems likely to transpire less than three Trumpian years off. Though I’m afraid Nunes and Hotait should’ve gone much further forward in time; it doesn’t seem plausible 13 years from now either. Premature curtain and titular interrobang notwithstanding, the biggest misstep of “Have We Met!?” was its insanely roseate vision of the very near future.

I’m also not sure why the relatively peaceful interwar year of 1928 was chosen to begin with. Were the ballet’s combat sections flashing back a decade to WWI or lurching a decade plus into WWII? It was unclear. But the bleak first half of the ballet was more effective than the whimsical latter half. Under the hulking bridge, Nunes capably used his large cast of twenty (here decked in inky tweeds) as a menacing, militant block. Trafficky scenes set to heavy brass and chimes in Howard’s score were exciting, as was the way that the lead couple’s lifts soared above the crowds like dolphins cresting on waves. A two-note oscillation was neatly paired with the corps performing an endless jog-leap sequence in place. Best of all was the gorgeous, expressive dancing of Misseldine, whose stunning, drop-waist halter gown evoked the famous green dress in Ian McEwan’s Atonement.

American Ballet Theatre in “Serenade after Plato’s Symposium” by Alexei Ratmansky. Photograph by Steven Pisano

Coincidentally, the second ballet on the program, Ratmansky’s “Serenade after Plato’s Symposium,” also employed color block toga draping (by Jérôme Kaplan). But this time the garb was conceptually fitting. Following the tonal innovations in Leonard Bernstein’s score of the same name, in this dance Ratmansky ingeniously uses ballet vocabulary to approximate Socratic debate. The cast of seven men and one woman (Sunmi Park, beautiful though somewhat superfluous) echo each other’s step motifs with slight alterations in execution and timing. The effect is often like popcorn, with everyone chiming in with their unique interpretation of a passage in a scattershot way. At times, one man tangentially breaks off into a variation on another one’s theme. There is occasional consensus too, brilliantly conveyed through unison and affirmational canon. The choreography gets a little weedy here and there, though that mirrors real argument.

I saw the youthful second cast, all of whom were terrific. Luigi Crispino and Carlos Gonzalez were excellent foils: the former was poetically fluid while the latter was brightly powerful. Jose Sebastian was elegant in his solo. And Jake Roxander was a marvel in the role made for Herman Cornejo. Somehow, the way Roxander breezed through the tricky manèges and turns wasn’t nearly as impressive as how he controlled the stillness between his difficult feats. As sometimes happens in real conversation, he was able to speak volumes through silence.

Catherine Hurlin in “Theme and Variations” by George Balanchine. Photograph by Yoon6Photo/GS Arts Center

The program closed with Balanchine’s “Theme and Variations,” innovative in its simple steps arranged with musical and patterning complexity. (And way ahead of its time in its same-sex partnering, which was one of the main signifiers of modernism in Nunes’s 2038 scenes. Everyone tends to forget that Balanchine had women partnering each other—both on pointe and off—quite a bit in “Theme” in 1947!) There are many surprising differences in ABT’s version of “Theme” and the one danced just last month by the New York City Ballet, including the accent and use of plié in the opening tendu theme step. But even in the passages that matched up, the ABT dancers were resistant to Balanchine’s timing games. And in the finale, the corps often looked confused about the counts. Demi-soloist Sierra Armstrong did the best job of staying on Balanchine’s offbeats.

Principals Catherine Hurlin and Isaac Hernandez were technically accomplished throughout this incredibly challenging ballet, though they mistook rushing for phrasing. Musical play is encouraged in Balanchine’s works, but one must only toy with his musicality while remaining inside of it (see Tiler Peck, in anything). Hurlin and Hernandez often sped through the beginnings of their variations only to slow way down to focus on the hard endings. And the tempo for Hernandez’s pirouette-tour gantlet was so slow that it was boring.

By ignoring Balanchine’s syncopation, the work became ho-hum, more conventional than innovative. Not only was the wit gone, but the leads’ solid turn finishes were less impressive because they were so belabored. This seems like a fixable issue of coaching, however. The talented Hurlin and Hernandez, along with Misseldine, Roxander and several soloists on this program and elsewhere this fall season (including Park, Armstrong, Crispino, Gonzalez, Sebastien, Michael de la Nuez, Sung Woo Ahn, Andrii Ishchuk, Léa Fleytoux, Jarod Curley, Yoon Jung Seo, Takumi Miyaki, and Madison Brown) showed that even as ABT looks to the past in celebration of its 85th anniversary, its future looks bright.

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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