by Dance historians often notice that George Balanchine worship women. Sure: Henry VIII. The Russian-American choreographer was also very married, and his creative jumps were often stimulated by a new muse. Adoration did not make him a good husband for his five women or a friendly director for the dancers he had hidden – but it affected his choreography. His work takes ballerinas and makes her shine.
This appealing triple invoice at the dance reflection festival is booked by Ballerina-Tastic ballets and fills the stage with tutu and tulle. Serenade (1934), which hovered on Tchaikovsky, was Balanchine’s first American work. Initially tailored to students with mixed skills, it remains a lot of tempting.
Serenade has no story – but feels like she should. Traces of the romantic ballet shimmer in what Balanchine described as “dance in the moonlight”. Neck motifs and gestures seem to be freight. Increased arms and folded wrists propose a sluggish semaphore; The man who was led by a ballerina to meet her hand over his eyes to meet another mysterious woman could be a prince of the fairy tale.
In the exuberant setting of the Royal Ballet, dancers wash out of the wings, while Lauren Cuthbertson and Mayara Magri release a floating, even extravagant vertebrae. The final picture of Cuthbertson, which was borne into an unknown fate, is another response, but insoluble mystery.
Balanchine could tell stories if necessary, but it wasn’t his jam. The lost son based on the biblical parable is a stubborn story of a man who goes wrong and then crawls home.
It was created for Diaghilev’s ballet Russes Russes in 1929 and played out with Prokofievs Brassy Score and Georges Rouault’s lively designs. Cesar Corrales’ Vimfuler son beats frustrated fists against the air and then starts the world. He comes up with boys on the eyelash, all shaved bonces and rag cings. Corral ‘blusious beam is not siren for her or for Natalia Osipova’s towering siren, which reveals an imposing Hoochie kooch.
The ballet moves when dancing stops: confused and broken, the son shuffles home on his knees and snuggles up in his father’s arms. A tedious ballet finally finds grace.
Symphony in C (1947) is all grace. The dancers of the royal dancer bring the Brio to a piece that is primarily about the joy of making dance. Balanchine clearly loved playing with patterns and sparing swirling bodies too saved, diagonal and daring.
Bizet’s score inspires a happy music box with precision dwarling, four sets of dancers who combine in an irresistibly floating finale. On the opening evening, Fumi Kaneko’s Filagree manual and a Bravura Vadim Muntagirov were in the jagged opening as well as an exquisite Marianela Nuñez, which runs through the stage like a spoon that runs through velvet gelato.
It will not be doubtful about the extraordinary clarity of Balanchine’s dance brain – all of these bodies in an inspired geometry of weapons and legs. It might not have been fun to marry him – but it is happy to see how he made abstract dance so important.
