The logjam wasn’t the only issue. Rosenberg also announced that this was, “the most international festival we have ever produced. We are truly bringing you the world’s best.” Indeed, the three companies represented on the program were all foreign, hailing from Canada, the Netherlands, and Argentina. Many of the dancers were from other countries yet, like Olga Smirnova (Russia) and Jacopo Tissi (Italy), massive stars who defected from the Bolshoi in protest of the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Rosenberg spoke with pride, but after Donald Trump kicked off the UN week with a speech about the failure of open borders, it was hard to feel anything other than dread. Multicultural events like this are currently at risk. 

Ballet BC, based in Vancouver, opened the program with the NY premiere of Bobbi Jene Smith and Or Schraiber’s “Obsidian,” which was very much a “world’s best” showcase. It was the best Smith and Schraiber piece I’ve seen, with a terrific cast and a fabulously folksy piano score—by George Gurdjieff and Thomas de Hartmann—played beautifully onstage by Perri Lo. Smith and Schraiber’s vocabulary consisted of finnicky gestures, violent layouts, sensual floorwork, and tense ballroom holds, as usual. In many of their works, the choreography gets so specifically gestural that it becomes impenetrable. In “Obsidian,” however, the hand jives were well integrated and they suited the peasant themes in the score—which included song titles like “Kurd Shepherd Dance,” “Song of the Fisherwomen”  and “Struggle of the Magicians.” 

Trios held hands high and performed riffs on the hora. There were traditional heel digs, thigh slaps, and grapevines. But there were also quirkier moves, like a dance for two men—Joziah German and Orlando Harbutt, both excellent—in which they audibly brushed their hands against each other’s shoulders, legs, backs. This interesting duet, set to a laid-back march, was half affectionate and half combative. Some of their brushoffs and blocking moves resembling taekwondo. Eduardo Jimenez Cabrera, wearing a suit, entered and joined hands with them in a huge frog leap that sank to the floor and back up smoothly. It was wonderfully arresting. Later, Cabrera ditched his jacket and performed a snaky, nonstop solo. But he could be sharp when he wanted to be, as when he aggressively grabbed his crotch to hoist himself off the floor in a seated pike.

An emotional, flinging pas de deux for Vivian Ruiz and Harbutt opened the work. Ruiz lovingly caressed Harbutt’s butt before yanking his leg so hard he was pulled up from the ground. At the end, they circled their pelvises while joined at the hipbones. Then they drifted apart while still gyrating. Stellar performers both, they sold the idea of a relationship that was more of a physical addiction than a spiritual connection. This pas and a few other sexually raw, but wry, moments reminded me of Pina Bausch, as did the casual separates and simple dresses (also by Smith and Schraiber) and the social interactions in silence.