A Night At The Museum

There is one theater this month where you can see performances by not only both of the city’s major ballet companies, but also Pacific Northwest Ballet and a major Spanish troupe that (like most international companies these days) rarely visits New York. All this high-class dance activity, not to mention a variety of other intriguing performances, happens in the intimate and welcoming setting of the Guggenheim Museum’s subterranean Peter B. Lewis Theater, home to the [Works & Process series]. The crowds ambling up and down the museum’s famed ramps during the daytime might not even realize that this space exists, but a loyal audience flocks there for these often-sold-out performances, which always conclude with a reception where they can meet the artists.

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.