NEW YORK — There are certain New York City Ballet performances that have a way of making you feel you’ve danced yourself, even as you sit, quiet and still, in your seat. On Tuesday, George Balanchine’s “Jewels” — a visceral journey through three schools of dance, from the French romanticism of “Emeralds” to the jazzy, American tour de force of “Rubies” to the Russian majesty of “Diamonds” — did just that.
This 1967 work, said to have been inspired by a visit to the jewelers Van Cleef and Arpels, opened City Ballet’s fall season at the David H. Koch Theater with its glittering display of choreographic architecture and temperament. Despite Peter Harvey’s sometimes unfortunate scenery — the blue-tinged “Diamonds” set reminds me of an ocean scene in a Disney cartoon — the company’s production is one of those New York City luxuries that’s just steps from the subway.
But the secret weapon of this ballet — the real jewels — are its dancers.
Unity Phelan in “Emeralds” and Emily Kikta in “Rubies” were invincible in different ways. Kikta, in what’s known as the tall girl role, was authoritative and smoldering, gulping up space with her long legs and expansive wingspan. Holding indelible balances with a glittering sense of self, she was sensuous, and powerfully so, like a modern ballerina who has grown up in the era of #MeToo and learned a thing or two.
And with her voluminous arms and lush sense of suspense, Phelan floated across the stage in dreamlike walks that made her seem more sylph than woman. In one exit, she held an arabesque and tipped forward, not by muscular force, but as if a breeze had pushed her softly into the wings.
In “Rubies,” Sterling Hyltin and Andrew Veyette, as the lead couple, were transformed from just a year ago in these roles: Instead of vamping, they used the accents of the Stravinsky score to leaven their steps with a blend of jazzy abandon and sharpness. It was light and fresh, like a game between friends. And Maria Kowroski, opposite Tyler Angle, gave “Diamonds” a gleaming sophistication, though it was their power as a couple that mattered most: They looked into each other’s eyes, they breathed the steps.
It’s no secret that City Ballet has had its fair share of turmoil in recent times. The current period seems to be one of transition even as reminders of the past persist. It was jarring to see Amar Ramasar cast as a lead in “Emeralds,” the first ballet of the new season. After he was fired for allegedly sharing explicit photos of a female colleague, an arbitrator for the dancers’ union ordered City Ballet to reinstate him. (He returned to the company in the spring.)
“Emeralds” wasn’t the right fit for Ramasar or his partner, Abi Stafford, whose clipped dancing lacks the flow that this ballet is all about. Ramasar, known for his boyish verve, couldn’t find a place in the soulful world of “Emeralds.” There’s a varnished, distant quality to his dancing now; at times, his sunny smile feels like a shield.
A better fit for Ramasar came Wednesday with the return of Christopher Wheeldon’s “DGV: Danse à Grande Vitesse,” set to Michael Nyman’s propulsive score, “MGV (Musique à Grande Vitesse),” written in honor of the inauguration of the high-speed French train commonly referred to as the TGV. With Jennifer Tipton’s stark lighting and Jean-Marc Puissant’s sleek costumes and scenery — including a sculptural wall of undulating steel — “DGV” offers a handsome visual statement. It moves; it just isn’t particularly moving.
Four couples are highlighted in pas de deux that demonstrate a body’s capacity to swoop and dip, even if they offer little depth. On Wednesday, there were revealing flashes: the lucid harmony between Sara Mearns and Taylor Stanley; the breathless abandon of Phelan; and the lashing legs and dangerous beauty of Kowroski dancing, once again, with the heroic Angle.
But the dance’s choreographic pathways and unison phrases — like background movement — become increasingly formulaic, and the lifts, in which the women of all ranks are hoisted into the air to stretch like taffy, are out of control. Created for the Royal Ballet in 2006, “DGV” was of its time, but now it has little urgency.
Wednesday’s program began with Balanchine’s “Raymonda Variations,” held together by the luminous phrasing and crystalline technique of its principal couple, Megan Fairchild and Anthony Huxley. Weaknesses came to light in the series of classical variations, which often hamper City Ballet dancers — their musicality is the first thing to go. But Sara Adams made an impression with her crisp, traveling hops on point along a diagonal. She seemed — what’s that word again? — rehearsed. Clearly, the others need some coaching.
But the most remarkable sight of the night was Mearns, an intrepid dancer who has become known for exploring outside the ballet box with deliberate and vivid results. Here, she brought her inventive luster to a decidedly odd role: In Balanchine’s “Variations Pour Une Porte et Un Soupir” (“Variations for a Door and a Sigh”), Mearns plays the Door. Daniel Ulbricht is the Sigh. Once you listen to the score — a sonic spell of creaks and human sighs by Pierre Henry — it makes sense, hauntingly and hilariously so.
Emerging from the back of the stage in a white unitard and an enormous black skirt billowing from the floor to the ceiling is the steely and precise Mearns, the eventual captor of Ulbricht’s comically limp and apathetic Sigh. As he skids and rolls on the floor in contortions, Mearns, bewigged in a black bob, positions her arms and legs in stark angles that become more brittle and anxiety-inducing as they mirror the squeaks and slams of the score. Like Kikta in “Rubies,” this is another side of female power.
While “Variations” has reminders of Balanchine’s “Prodigal Son” and Jerome Robbins’s “The Cage,” the guiding force of Mearns, and her direct, unfettered dancing, allows it to exist inside its own haunted house world. Here, ugliness becomes a kind of precarious beauty and yards of fabric suddenly transform an ordinary stage into a spiky mountain range or the furious waves of the ocean.
It’s from 1974, but it could have been made today. Or 100 years ago. For all of its oddness, “Variations” is timeless. Mearns, in her final bewitching image, bends her knees in a deep plié, straddles Ulbricht’s body and finally swallows him up in her skirt. How could a conventional contemporary ballet like “DVG” stand a chance on the same program as that? There was no getting through the Door.
This article originally appeared in
.