TERRY TEACHOUT
Dance Chronicle: Blasts from the Past
New York City Ballet is currently celebrating the fiftieth anniversary of its
founding with a two-season-long review of its vast repertory, the bulk of
which is by George Balanchine, the century's greatest choreographer, and
Jerome Robbins, the first important American-born classical choreograph–
er. The programs have been mostly splendid-one can scarcely go near the
New York State Theater without seeing a gem or two on display-and
whatever one thinks of the overall state of the company these days (and
opinions vary sharply, especially among New York's more outspoken
dance critics), the solo dancing is often spectacular.
NYCB has also been presenting an assortment of more recent ballets,
some by Peter Martins, Balanchine's successor as ballet master in chief, and
others by lesser figures variously associated wi th the company. These range
in style from Richard Tanner's comfortably derivative "Variations on a
Nursery Song" to William Forsythe's determinedly postmodern "Herman
Schmerman" ; as for Martin's own efforts, they wander allover the stylistic
map, though never straying far from the gospel according to Balanchine,
whose neoclassicization of the movement vocabulary of nineteenth-centu–
ry ballet remains central to the company's es thetic. Indeed, these widely
varied works have only one thing in common: most of them aren't very
good.
Regular balletgoers are all too aware of the difficulty Martins has had
in adding works of lasting interest to the company's repertory. He has, to
be sure, made many dances in his sixteen years at the helm, and commis–
sioned nearly as many more. A not-inconsiderable number of these works
have been taken into NYCB's working repertory and are revived at regu–
lar intervals, just as if they were by Balanchine or Robbins. Yet with rare
excepti ons, they have proved to be forgettable, though the fact that the
company continues to dance them means they are by defini tion impossi–
ble to forget. As it happens, some of Martins's own exercises in dramatic
abstraction have been genuinely striking; "Poulenc Sonata" (1985), for
instance, is a work of real quality, as was last year's "River of Light."
Others, though, are downright embarrassing ("Stabat Mater" is now
known to irreverent balletomanes as "Stab Your Mother"), while most,
including "Walton Cello Concerto," premiered in January, are competent
but uninteresting.
