At City Ballet, Alexei Ratmansky can let his imagination run wild
The First Art Newspaper on the Net    Established in 1996 Wednesday, December 4, 2024


At City Ballet, Alexei Ratmansky can let his imagination run wild
Russian choreographer Alexei Ratmansky at the American Ballet Theater in New York, May 8, 2019. On Thursday, Jan. 5, 2023, it was announced that Ratmansky, one of ballet’s greatest choreographers, would join New York City Ballet as its artist in residence in August. (Karsten Moran/The New York Times)

by Gia Kourlas



NEW YORK, NY.- When it was announced in December that choreographer Alexei Ratmansky would be parting ways from American Ballet Theatre as its artist-in-residence after 13 years, my first reaction was regret followed swiftly by hope. Would New York City Ballet, where his choreographic imagination has the fortitude and space to run breathtakingly free, lure him across the Lincoln Center plaza?

How often does a year start out with good news? On Thursday, it was announced that Ratmansky, one of ballet’s greatest choreographers, would join City Ballet as its artist-in-residence in August. Ratmansky, as he said to The New York Times, “wanted a change.”

Throughout his tenure at Ballet Theatre, he made dances for other companies, including City Ballet, where his imaginative works had a way of enhancing the dancers — bringing out qualities you didn’t know they had — just as they gave his choreography a crystalline boldness. It’s a symbiotic relationship.

What sprang to my mind was a podcast conversation between Ratmansky and City Ballet’s associate artistic director, Wendy Whelan — a former principal who danced leading roles in four of Ratmansky’s works, and magnificently at that — in advance of Ratmansky’s ballet “Voices” in January 2020. Set to a score by experimental composer Peter Ablinger, featuring recorded speech, “Voices,” full of texture and vivacity, was not the kind of dance he was making at Ballet Theatre — or anywhere.

As Ratmansky told Whelan, he knew it would be a challenge and that “City Ballet would be a good place to challenge myself, because of the support of the dancers and the atmosphere in the studio and their readiness to jump into anything.”

Other parts of that conversation jumped out, too: his love of dancing works by George Balanchine, City Ballet’s founding choreographer; the imagination and individuality of the City Ballet dancers — “they are themselves,” he said, “and they will shape your steps according to their own ideas”; and his palpable excitement at such a bold choreographic undertaking. “The new feeling for me,” he said, is that “I don’t have a sense of how it’s going to work, and I’m grateful to the dancers.”

Really, the courtship between Ratmansky and City Ballet — a new New York City Ballet under the leadership of its artistic director, Jonathan Stafford, and Whelan — was in plain sight. In the podcast, Whelan, with her easygoing grace, spoke about the mutual respect between Ratmansky and the dancers in the studio, calling it a “fueling of both sides.” Ballet Theatre was lucky to have Ratmansky for 13 years, but his real home always seemed to be with City Ballet. It’s in the dancing.

The six ballets he has created for the company are like dances unfurled from dreams, each with an ease born from daring, starting with the first, “Russian Seasons” (2006), a fresh, rich merging of idioms: classical, folk, pedestrian. There was also mystery, humor and musicality — a complete point of view present from the start. But each of Ratmansky’s works for City Ballet is so full, so abundant that it’s hard to believe there have been only six.

“Concerto DSCH” is as galvanizing and mysterious a dance as there ever was. Ratmansky’s inventiveness soars in the whimsical, enchanting “Namouna, A Grand Divertissement”; the painterly, emotional “Pictures at an Exhibition”; and the dark, enigmatic “Odessa,” set in the Ukrainian city after the Russian Revolution — a ballet that deserves a second life with careful coaching and a new cast. “Voices” is back for the winter season and not to be missed.




The artist-in-residence position pairs him with dancers hungry for a purpose beyond the already vital one that they have: keeping the repertory of Balanchine and Jerome Robbins alive. City Ballet is rare in that it has such a powerful foundation. At a time when many major ballet companies feel rudderless — programming meandering contemporary works, badly choreographed classics or new, mediocre story ballets in the hopes of boosting ticket sales — the appointment of Ratmansky has a big-picture resonance.

As City Ballet ushers in a new generation of dancers — unaffected, quick, musical, game — Ratmansky won’t be yet another choreographer circulating in and out. He will play a part in nurturing their artistry, in giving them a reason to keep pursuing their dancing dreams. And he will give marvelous veterans such as Sara Mearns and Megan Fairchild a reason to stick around, a bright light for a company that has had its share of rocky moments recently — the resignation of former director Peter Martins among accusations of sexual harassment and physical and verbal abuse; a photo-sharing scandal among principal men; and a generational shift caused, in part, by the pandemic.

For dancers, the residual tension must be exhausting. And for a critic, so is the idea of sitting through any of Martins’ ballets. Here is another hope: that City Ballet will replace his version of “Swan Lake” with Ratmansky’s. It glows, it’s urgent, and its pathos and fantasy don’t feel so removed from the present moment.

Throughout Ratmansky’s ballets, his references might not be direct, but his work is in conversation with modern times, for better and worse. (A former artistic director of the Bolshoi Ballet, Ratmansky grew up in Ukraine, where he still has family. He has vowed not to return to Russia while President Vladimir Putin is in power.) He isn’t just another choreographer bouncing from one company to the next; he’s engaged with the larger world.

At the same time, he hasn’t exhausted the possibilities of classical vocabulary; like Balanchine, he instills steps with a crisp and sweeping musicality. And at City Ballet, he will be part of an artistic team that includes Stafford and Whelan, along with Justin Peck, the company’s resident choreographer and artistic adviser. Just as Ratmansky was ready for a change, City Ballet is in the middle of its own.

Who loses here? Ballet Theatre. Even with a new full-length ballet by Christopher Wheeldon, the company’s summer season at the Metropolitan Opera House — the last programmed by its outgoing artistic director, Kevin McKenzie — seems like a rehash of the past: “Giselle,” “Romeo and Juliet” and “Swan Lake.” (And no Ratmansky.) Under its new artistic leader, Susan Jaffe, the company may blossom while preserving its roots, but for now, its repertory confines Ballet Theatre to another time.

That is not to say that City Ballet hasn’t had misfires in its recent commissions. But with Ratmansky’s new position, suddenly, the ballet world — or one part of it — doesn’t feel so stuck. Beyond his choreographic output, Ratmansky, who will create at least one ballet a year as well as rehearsing his existing repertory, could become a stabilizing force. He knows what he wants and he pushes to get it, but he also has an indelible rapport with dancers. You get the feeling they’re willing to fight for each other.

What happens when a dancer goes to the limits for such a choreographer? In a behind-the-scenes video about Ratmansky’s “Concerto DSCH,” principal Mearns describes a lift in which she is held above her partner with one leg extended to the side. “He said, ‘You need to look up to the sky like it’s the heavens, and then I want you to actually close your eyes,’” she says. “So I do, and it’s amazing and so magical.”

He didn’t just guide her body, he led her spirit. These are the moments when ballet becomes more than ballet. Dancers shape the music, the air and, as Ratmansky said, the steps to reveal — I like to think — something about themselves. With Ratmansky at City Ballet, the future seems bright, effervescent. It’s like what Balanchine used to say to his dancers: There is only now. I love the idea of now.

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.










Today's News

January 8, 2023

Looking for elbow room, Louvre limits daily visitors to 30,000

CURE3: Tracey Emin leads major international arists supporting Parkinson's

Air de Paris announces the passing of Dorothy Iannone

Works by German artists Bernd & Hilla Becher now on view at Fraenkel Gallery

Katherine E. Fleming named to the French Legion of Honor

Paula Cooper Gallery exhibits recent sculpture by Robert Grosvenor

Jeanne Vicerial's first gallery show in Paris opens at Galerie Templon

Phillips presents a pop-up exhibition of works by Brett Crawford coinciding with ART SG

Jenkins Johnson Gallery extends 'Bloodchild' through January 28

Daniel Barenboim, titan of conducting, to step down in Berlin

François Ghebaly presents Hoof on Bone, London-based artist Jessie Makinson's newest exhibit

At City Ballet, Alexei Ratmansky can let his imagination run wild

Collage art that constructs the present & repairs the past at Morton Fine Art

'Elsa Gramcko: The Invisible Plot of Things' on view at the James Cohan Gallery

Getty exhibition examines 40-year career of artist Uta Barth

Friedman Benda to present Italian designer and architect Andrea Branzi's third solo exhibition 'Contemporary DNA'

'Ohio State Murders,' starring Audra McDonald, to close on Broadway

Paul Revere silver pitcher, a Carl F. Bucherer watch and 3 Charles Schulz Peanuts Strips to be sold by Weiss Auctions

The Bass announces the appointment of James Voorhies as curator

Immersive exhibition celebrating California mid-century design and culture

Michael Snow, prolific and playful artistic polymath, is dead at 94

Martin Wicksträm's first exhibition in Germany opens at Galerie Leu

Review: 'Are We Not Drawn Onward to New Era' stages a disaster in reverse

The Most Interesting Card Games with Indian Origins




Museums, Exhibits, Artists, Milestones, Digital Art, Architecture, Photography,
Photographers, Special Photos, Special Reports, Featured Stories, Auctions, Art Fairs,
Anecdotes, Art Quiz, Education, Mythology, 3D Images, Last Week, .

 



Founder:
Ignacio Villarreal
(1941 - 2019)
Editor & Publisher: Jose Villarreal
Art Director: Juan José Sepúlveda Ramírez
Writer: Ofelia Zurbia Betancourt

Royalville Communications, Inc
produces:

ignaciovillarreal.org juncodelavega.com facundocabral-elfinal.org
Founder's Site. Hommage
to a Mexican poet.
Hommage
       

The First Art Newspaper on the Net. The Best Versions Of Ave Maria Song Junco de la Vega Site Ignacio Villarreal Site
Tell a Friend
Dear User, please complete the form below in order to recommend the Artdaily newsletter to someone you know.
Please complete all fields marked *.
Sending Mail
Sending Successful