Nacho Duato’s “White Darkness" / Photo by Fernando Marcos
Works & Process, currently marking its 25th anniversary, has amped up
the diversity and range of its programming. The season opened last fall with a
risk-taking program, commissioning two contrasting choreographers, Larry
Keigwin and Peter Quanz, to create dances to the same Steve Reich score. The
more tried-and-true type of W&P dance programs, such as the one ABT offered
earlier this month, allows a company to offer a sampling of its repertory,
usually through excerpts, and often in advance of an upcoming season. Paul
Taylor’s company has followed this format with success on several occasions—managing
to perform his space-devouring works on the theater’s less-than-spacious stage.
The W&P schedule seems to get busier and more interesting each year.
This week and next, the focus is all on dance. Balanchine’s Petipa promises to be a particularly informative and
enlightening program, as designed and presented by the ballet scholar Doug
Fullington. Eight leading Pacific
Northwest Ballet dancers will perform a generous selection of George Balanchine
and Marius Petipa highlights that illustrate the continuum between these two
seminal choreographers, how Balanchine paid homage to Petipa while also
translating his predecessor’s innovations into 20th-century terms.
Fullington reconstructed the Petipa selections from the Stepanov notations
dating from between 1894 and 1906, which he researched in the Harvard Theater
Collection. “We’ve used the notations
that were made right around the time Balanchine was born,” he explains. “That
gets us closer to the steps that he would have seen in Russia when he was young.
We’re bypassing a lot of the changes that were made to Petipa’s choreography
during the Soviet era, trying to get on the other side of that, to get a more
clear lineage from Russia to the U.S. through Balanchine. We’re not trying to
give these dances a particularly old look. But we’re trying to do the steps and
the timing as they were written down.”
Among the program’s
rarities is an excerpt from Petipa’s The
Awakening of Flora, which was recently reconstructed for the Kirov Ballet.
“It gives an example of what allegro dancing was like at the very end of the
19th century in Russia,” he says. The evening also juxtaposes an excerpt from
Petipa’s Raymonda (1898) as well as
two examples of Balanchine’s ongoing exploration of that ballet’s Glazunov
score over the years—Frederic Franklin’s reconstruction of a variation from
Balanchine’s 1946 production, and a solo from the more familiar 1961 Raymonda Variations.
Spanish choreographer Nacho
Duato’s works are in the repertories of many American ballet companies, and he
has created two works for ABT. But his Compañía Nacional de Danza
has not performed in New York for years. Since the company is in this country
to appear at the Kennedy Center, W&P’s indefatigable founder and producer
Mary Sharp Cronson snagged them for two appearances next week. These evenings
will feature excerpts from some of Duato’s most recent dances, and the
choreographer will discuss his work.
NYCB will close the spring W&P season with New Dance/New Music, which focuses on
Benjamin Millepied’s latest work for the company. The choreographer will
discuss his collaboration with French composer Thierry Escaich, who will also
be present, along with NYCB’s music director Fayal Karoui.
The series thrives thanks
in large part to Cronson, who admits to being “passionate about dance,” has
been on the board of NYCB and is active with other dance organizations.
Through her determination
and connections, she finds the money to make the W&P programs a reality.
“Hardly a day goes by when we’re not out trying to fundraise,” she says, and
notes that she is already putting together next season’s programs. Companies
have come to trust her and enjoy the opportunities to be seen in the intimate
venue. “Happily, after 25 years, they realize they will be treated with respect
and admiration,” she says. “We have a very loyal audience. And if there’s
something they don’t like, I get to hear about it!”
Balanchine’s Petipa, May 14
&15, Nacho Duato, May 17 & 18, New Dance/New Music, May 23 & 24, Peter B. Lewis Theater,
Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, 1071 5th Ave. (at E. 89th St.), 212-423-3587;
7:30, $10-$30.






