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On the Outside, Looking In New York City Ballet
May 14, 2010 -- David H. Koch Theater, Lincoln Center, New York, New York Remember when you were a kid and you used to play with a ‘Slinky’ toy? For the deprived, a Slinky toy is a helical metal spring (now also offered in plastic, unfortunately) that could be stretched and bounced up-and-down. Most famously, the Slinky could climb down stairs end-over-end, expanding and contracting, seeming to move its steel skeleton wavelike as it did. What seemed to distinguish the Slinky toy from an ordinary coiled spring was its fluidity of motion, combined with a crisp edge that would allow it to change direction or velocity in an instant depending on the force applied. As a child, you could be absorbed in it for hours, watching the Slinky stretch its form in seemingly myriad ways, and then return to its original shape. I thought of the Slinky toy as I watched the movement of the dancers in Wayne McGregor’s world premiere performance of “Outlier,” one of the seven new dances being presented by NYCB at this season’s “New Choreography and Music Festival.” “Outlier” clearly is a work of creative intelligence, though equally clearly it is a work of a different kind of creative intelligence than New York ballet-going audiences are used to seeing. McGregor is no novice – he founded his own company, Wayne McGregor|Random Dance in 1992, when he was 22. To say he’s taken the dance world by storm is an understatement. He has an astounding creative output consisting – based on one internet source – of some 93 dance performances, as well as theatre, opera, film and television. He has choreographed pieces not only for his own company, but also for the Stuttgart Ballet, the Australian Ballet, the Paris Opera Ballet, the English National Ballet, Nederlands Dans Theater, and San Francisco Ballet. Since 2006, he has been Resident Choreographer of The Royal Ballet, and his 2007 piece for the Royal, “Chroma,” won the Laurence Olivier Award for Best New Dance Production, and the Critics Circle National Dance Award.
“Outlier” is choreographed to “Concerto for Violin – Concentric Paths” by Thomas Ades. The concerto is an austere work, but not monochromatic, giving a sense of otherworldly serenity periodically punctuated by jagged musical edges. It pulsates, as if driven in different directions by different energy forces. “Outlier” is also driven by energy forces. In near-constant motion, the bodies move through space while seemingly being controlled by forces both external and internal, but the space through which the bodies move seems to be some sort of magnetic field that surrounds and inhabits each of them. The bodies interact, mostly in pairs, sometimes with each other, sometimes pushing and pulling each other, sometimes enveloping each other, and in the process providing a glimmer of emotional undercurrent amid the sense of intense austerity that permeates the piece. But in a sense the bodies also move against each other and separate from each other– outside each other body’s universe. Considered in that respect, "Outlier," which in a general sense means something that exists away from a main body or expected place, is an appropriate title for the piece. ["Outlier" also has a mathematical connotation, relating to numbers in a sequence that do not fit the pattern of other numbers in the sequence. It would not surprise me, given McGregor's well-known interest in science, that there is a mathematical component to the title that is reflected in the positioning of the bodies in relationship to each other, but I cannot say that I saw that on first viewing.] But although McGregor’s piece was intellectually interesting, the bodies that provided the structures on which McGregor's fluid angularity found expression delivered the excitement. Each of the eleven dancers in the piece (Ashley Bouder, Sterling Hyltin, Maria Kowroski, Tiler Peck, Wendy Whelan, Adrian Danchig-Waring, Joaquin De Luz, Robert Fairchild, Gonzalo Garcia, Craig Hall, and Amar Ramasar) was a virtuoso of movement. With the seemingly ultra-thin leotard costomes that looked like tissue-paper on the women and coverings on the men that looked either like briefs or clingy pajama bottoms adding emphasis to the physicality, one rarely sees the concept of a body as an instrument executed as clearly, or as successfully. And because the dancers are each exceptional ballet dancers, they (particularly Ms. Korowroski and Ms. Hyltin) bring a sense of lightness and airiness to choreography that otherwise seems pulled inward as if by gravity. All this is not to say that I loved the piece. Linear works – and even plotless works can have a linear quality – are like comfort food. “Outlier” is not a comfort ballet. Befitting the music, McGregor’s piece is circular, and it doesn’t seem to end as much as stop moving. Although it is not ‘euro-angst,’ it still appears relatively ‘cold’ – particularly compared to the Balanchine pieces that bracketed it. It is an easy work to appreciate (seeing bodies move like choreographed slinkys is, in a way, a treat), but it’s not an easy work to like. On the other hand, the balance of the program displayed ballets that are easy to like. Balanchine created “Serenade” in 1934 and it had its official premiere in 1935 (NYCB premiere in 1948). It is as fresh today as it ever was. I never tire of it; it is comfort food for a ballet-lover’s soul. But seeing it invigorated by fresh faces gave it a fresh glow. It came as no surprise to me that Megan Fairchild and Jenifer Ringer were both superb successors to dancers I’ve seen in those roles before. But Kaitlyn Gilliland was extraordinary. It is simply remarkable for someone so young (she’s still in the corps – and has only been a corps member since 2006) to have such presence and command. [I know she doesn’t look at all like either of them, but watching her from the back of the orchestra, I kept thinking of a cross between Darci Kistler and Maria Calegari.] The evening concluded with a scorching performance of Balanchine’s “Cortège Hongrois.” I’ve seen “Cortege Hongrois,” as well as “Raymonda,” the 1898 Petipa ballet from which "Cortege Hongrois" is derived, done by-the-numbers. Space and time prevent a more thorough discussion, but the company did the passion as well as the steps. Sara Mearns devoured the ballerina role, and Rebecca Krohn danced a most sensuous Czardas, both of them bringing what I often see performed as a museum piece to wonderful life.
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by Jerry Hochman
McGregor, physically, is tall, thin and, based on the descriptions of others, unusually flexible. His style has been described as a combination of angularity, speed, and fluidity, which fittingly, if narrowly, described the movement in "Outliers." Without the fluidity, what one sees is not unlike much other European-based post-modern choreography. With the fluidity, however, it’s a different choreographic animal.