Entrances and Exits

Mozartiana, Concerto DSCH, and other ballets at NYCB

Mira Nadon, Peter Walker, and Sebastián Villarini-Vélez after Mozartiana

(Oct. 8, 2024) Spectacular night at New York City Ballet. For starters, this was such a good program: Mozartiana, one of Balanchine's most filigreed, sophisticated, detailed works; the Balanchine diptych composed of Monumentum pro Gesualdo and Movements for Piano and Orchestra, both set to Stravinsky; and Alexei Ratmansky's Concerto DSCH, which has maintained its vim and freshness through cast after cast. Tonight, the corps member Victor Abreu débuted in DSCH, revealing new and unexpected sides of himself: an almost heroic attack, wit, speed amazing precision in the feet. Sara Mearns was at her most expansive and lyrical in the slow movement, which sustained a dream-like tone from beginning to end. (Bravo to the pianist Stephen Gosling, for keeping the music’s raucous wit and forward motion at a high tilt.) Tonight, Monumentum and Movements were performed by different casts, contra tradition. It turned out to be an inspired choice, because Miriam Miller was touchingly vulnerable and poetic in the first, while Dominika Afanasenkov and David Riccardo danced the latter with impressive style, jazziness and attack, playing with the notes of the piano score (played by Alan Moverman) as if they were in a battle of wits. Mira Nadon was débuting in the ballerina role created by Suzanne Farrell in Mozartiana. It's a ballet brimming with steps, steps that play with and around the music; each step matters, just as every note does. Often it's like a game of cat and mouse. Nadon and Peter Walker are still getting the steps fully into their bodies. Walker's footwork isn’t quite as crisp as the role requires. But Nadon, despite a fall toward the beginning, danced with her usual boldness and go-for-broke attack. When she fell, she had been balancing at a precarious angle, taking a risk. Her willingness to take those kinds of risks is part of what makes her such an exciting dancer. Her performances always have a whiff of freedom. She never looks constrained by the steps. So it was with Mozartiana. I loved the simplicity with which she executed the opening section, or prayer, which can sometimes verge on mawkishness. And then, in the theme and variations, a few bars in, you could see the moment she started to have fun. Fun doesn't mean she has completely conquered the choreography, but it's the beginning of what promises be a fascinating relationship between dancer and dance. Can't wait to see her in Mozartiana again.

The casts of Monumentum pro Gesualdo and Movements for Piano and Orchestra.

The cast of Concerto DSCH, with the pianist Stephen Gosling on the left.