Three's Company

This brief (six performances) fall presentation by the company is worlds removed from the elaborate full-length ballets that dominated its eight weeks at the Metropolitan Opera House. Moving across the Lincoln Center Plaza, ABT is performing for the first time ever at Avery Fisher Hall, which has neither an orchestra pit nor a standard proscenium stage with wings. Each of the three new works is set to a chamber-music score, with the musicians placed on stage.

One of Three, set to Ravel’s Sonata for Violin and Piano, features a cast of 11. Each of its three movements is led by a different ballerina—Gillian Murphy, Misty Copeland, Paloma Herrera—and the rest of the cast is all-male. “I wanted it to be an ensemble piece, because I wanted everyone in it to be a soloist,” she explained last week, from the train going up to Bard College, where ABT performed the program over the weekend.

Barton said that that working on the ballet “was really challenging for me, especially creating the communication. Dancers in ballet companies are used to being directed and told what to do at every moment. A lot of them, especially the young dancers, haven’t experienced the collaborative process.” She knows what she’s talking about, having attended the National Ballet of Canada’s school and then joined the Toronto-based company. 

Early on, she felt drawn to choreography as well as performing, and found her way to New York, where she began performing with small companies and assembling her own group of loyal, trusted dancers. Along the way, she found a strong supporter in Mikhail Baryshnikov. His Arts Center has provided her with residencies, and she choreographed a work for his Hell’s Kitchen Dance, a touring ensemble.

It certainly was not her master plan to come full circle and be working with major ballet companies—including the one Baryshnikov used to direct. But her insight into the classical vocabulary, joined with her adventurousness and engagingly collaborative nature, has made her an in-demand choreographer in recent years. Two years ago, she made a charming work for ABT II, and now she has moved up to the big time.

She spoke of getting to know the ABT dancers and introducing them to her process. “I don’t want to come into the studio with a fixed plan. I’d be cutting myself short of getting to know them. I leave a lot of the decisions up to the dancers, in terms of bringing themselves to it emotionally. My goal in general is to create a really positive and safe atmosphere for them. So that’s been interesting and a lot of work, in terms of bringing them to a point where they trust themselves completely. And it’s been amazing to look at that, because they’re all really open now.  It’s been really great.”

At a full rehearsal of her work last week, Barton had the dancers turn away from the mirror as they ran through the completed ballet. They eagerly applauded each other’s efforts, and engaged in some soccer moves with a miniature ball during a break. It was clear that Barton had tapped into the dancers’ individuality, as well as the intriguing range of moods and tempos in Ravel’s score.

Barton has had to juggle her ABT rehearsals with her ongoing work on a major new piece for the National Ballet of Canada that has a November premiere, as well as Busk, her latest work for her troupe Aszure & Artists. It opens in Florida, as part of the new Ringling International Arts Festival, the next day after ABT opens, so she’ll be on a plane hours after taking her curtain call. Her next New York project is a commission for the Juilliard Dance Division’s December performances.

One of Three

Oct. 7-10, Avery Fisher Hall, Lincoln Center (W. 65 St. & Broadway), 212-721-6500; $20-$135.