Neo-ballet

Sumie Kaneko, Catherine Hurlin, and Jarod Curley after “Neo,” at American Ballet Theatre

Half the fun of "Neo," Alexei Ratmansky's chic new pas de deux, performed tonight at American Ballet Theatre, is its score: a solo for shamisen (a kind of Japanese banjo) by the Japanese composer Dai Fujikura. Its insistent patterns are both suggestive of step patterns and also full of a kind of solemn wit, like the sound of Gertrude Stein’s voice reciting absurdist poetry. At ABT this season the shamisen is being played onstage by Sumie Kaneko. Throughout, its twanging sound is the third character in the dance, originally created for Isabella Boylsotn and James Whiteside during the pandemic as a video short produced by The Joyce in 2021. Seeing it live now, the dance's witticisms stand out all the more: flat-footed stomps and pawing and shuffling for the feet, wave-like movements of the arms. The two dancers, Catherine Hurlin and Jarod Curley here, engage in a funny repartee that is at times competitive, at times friendly, at times completely silly. At one point, Curley "plays" Hurlin's leg like the string of an instrument, plucking it as if to produce a sound. Or the two dancers swing their legs like metronomes, illustrating the loops in the score. She droops in his arms like a noodle, then re-constitutes herself and pushes him down to the ground. The technique is often extreme—in many ways, with its giant battements and leg circles and stretches, “Neo” is like a Forsythe pas de deux, though more playful and less mannered in affect. In fact, it's a sort of companion piece to Ratmansky's 1998 "Middle Duet," which derived its inspiration from Forsythe while softening the Forsythian edges. But where "Middle Duet" was sly and sleek, "Neo" is cheeky and light, full of quick, skittering steps and careening combinations that fly across space. The swish of Hurlin's long pony-tail, knotted high on her head, is part of the game. The Japanese music and flexings of the wrists and feet are also reminiscent of another early Ratmansky ballet, "Dreams About Japan," an abstraction of a series of Kabuki plays that Ratmansky made for Nina Ananiashvili’s touring ensemble. Ratmansky has a longstanding fascination with Japanese culture. It’s clear that this music frees his imagination and releases some of his zanier tendencies, which is all to the good.

You can listen to the music here: