Breaking down barriers: New York City Ballet reaches out; shrewd programming and lecture-demonstrations are building new audiences for City Ballet.

Shrewd programming and lecture-demonstrations are building new audiences for City Ballet.

With the launch of its New Generation Series last January, New York City Ballet boldly opened doors to yet another potential audience sector, the twenty-something crowd seen more commonly in Manhattan's downtown clubs than on the Swan Lake circuit. The success of this enterprise - which visibly increased the amount of black leather in the lobby during certain intermissions - was due to shrewd programming from the company's opulent repertory and its interactive approach with spectators. Both of these concepts were hallmarks of the vision for ballet in America articulated by the ensemble's cofounders George Balanchine and Lincoln Kirstein at the very outset of their aesthetic adventure.

On the surface, the New Generation Series looked quite different from, say, a special matinee of The Nutcracker, that transforming and universal introduction to ballet for young viewers. Yet the operating principles for both are very nearly the same: present works with music that speaks immediately and with intimacy to a particular group and focus on dance as the integrating element among several art forms. Making a special invitation to a young audience was the brainchild of NYCB's ballet master in chief Peter Martins, and his mix of programming brought just the right blend of avant-garde atmosphere, new music, and sex to the winter offerings.

The first program in the series offered Richard Tanner's Sonatas and Interludes, danced to John Cage's kinky Sonatas and Interludes for Prepared Piano; Balanchine's Symphony in Three Movements, to one of Stravinsky's most exuberant, accessible scores, and his Variations pour une Porte et un Soupir, and Martins's Jazz (Six Syncopated Movements), with Branford Marsalis and a hot bunch of jazz musicians jamming during the preceding intermission (a bonus for the audience, who had mushed through a snowstorm to attend). Casting featured smart-set twentysomething members of NYCB such as Monique Meunier, Albert Evans, Yvonne Borree, and Ethan Stiefel.

Most fascinating was the new perspective given to the always intriguing Variations. Pierre Henry's musique concrete composition, consisting entirely of amplified creaks and sighs, accompanies the Louise Brooks-style seductress as she stalks her prey in a cape that covers the entire stage, eventually engulfing the lone male who writhes worshipfully through much of the piece. Spectators were startled at its premiere in 1974 and were no more comfortable during a 1988 revival. Last spring, as part of NYCB's Balanchine Celebration, Maria Calegari gave what may well be the definitive performance of the siren to audiences who were curious and respectful. Enter the new generation of Anne Rice readers. Not only did these hip viewers respond to the supernatural and feminist aspects of this unique pas de deux, but they cheered Diana White and Tom Gold at their curtain calls.

Music, experimentation, and eroticism were also the themes Martins used for the other two New Generation programs. Balanchine's Agon (the sexiest ballet in the world no matter what Maurice Bejart may tell the media) was seen with William Forsythe's irreverent Herman Schmerman and Martins's Fearful Symmetries, which has a score by John Adams, known best for his work in other venues besides ballet. Finally, Martins offered three of his own ballets - The Chairman Dances, Ash, and the new Symphonic Dances - as a surround for Balanchine's sensuous sexual ritual, Bugaku. Like present explorations of the boundaries between Asian and Western sensibilities, Bugaku probes the line between an icy bonding ceremony and passionate abandon.

Knowing full well that the twentysomething crowd is not rolling in discretionary cash, City Ballet inaugurated the Fourth Ring Society in 1991. One joins by paying a fifteen-dollar fee, which entitles members to buy tickets in the Fourth Ring of the New York State Theater for any performance for ten dollars and to receive a free NYCB souvenir book and Fourth Ring T-shirt, along with a coupon for complimentary cappuccino during one intermission. A friend can come along too, with the purchase of another $10 ticket, and there are also special invitations to preperformance First Position discussions at the theater and discounts at participating neighborhood restaurants. Billed as "an easier way to get to the top," the Fourth Ring Society gives a 1990s cachet for a section of the theater that was specially recognized by Balanchine. Adamant in his belief that ballet was not an elitist art form, and sympathetic to the fact that not everyone can afford to buy tickets in the center of the Orchestra, he periodically made dances that reveal special nuances when seen from the vantage point of the "gallery gods." Among these is Union Jack, which has intricate floor patterns that are best examined from the upper rings.

Neither children nor their parents are left out of NYCB's efforts to bring all parts of the community into the ballet circle. Under the direction of Michelle Audet, the New York City Ballet Education Department operates a variety of programs that fall roughly into two categories; the first is in-school lecture demonstrations that reach an average of 18,000 area youngsters each year, and the second is special performances at the theater. The latter includes the winter Family Matinee, where in January the audience was treated at two intermissions to demonstrations on the Promenade of the interaction between jazz and swing by pianist Marcus Roberts and members of the Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra. Viewers watched performances of Jerome Robbins's Interplay, the "Rubies" section from Balanchine's Jewels, and Martins's Jazz (Six Syncopated Movements). This year's popular Spring Student Matinee will be held on June 10.

Students from NYCB's affiliated School of American Ballet are also involved with the aggressive reach outward to share the wonders of ballet. These young preprofessionals are part of the lecture-demonstrations, are seen onstage at Avery Fisher Hall with the Little Orchestra Society, and are on view in educational videos, such as "Bart Cook: Choreographer," which explores the choreographic process and is one of many teaching tools provided to the public schools that are partners in City Ballet's educational programs. Among these have been the Nutcracker Project with the Poetry Workshop, as well as Partners in Dance, which has extended the company's reach beyond the geography of New York to implement an in-school ballet program in other states. Says Audet, "All our efforts are to create a |before and after' context for the youngsters' performance experience and to bridge the gap between real life and art."

One of the keys to NYCB's success with reaching new audiences is showing youthful viewers their ballet peers. The very youngest spectators enjoy The Nutcracker, Coppelia, and The Sleeping Beauty, all of which boast cast members drawn from the youngest students. High school spectators see demonstrations by SAB dancers who are of the same age, and the New Generation Series features the young professionals whom Martins is grooming for tomorrow's principals.

Adults were the focus of Balanchine's efforts to extend the enjoyment and appreciation of classical dancing since the 1946 founding of Ballet Society, NYCB's immediate predecessor. Today, the Education Department presents preperformance programs for this group during the winter season, and Audet is on the faculty for the workshops offered by the Lincoln Center Institute's Summer Session for Aesthetic Education. The latter is attended primarily by public school teachers from across the country.

In NYCB's all-inclusive outreach, no aspect is more important than overtures to the dance community itself, and the inclusion of professionals is epitomized in the upcoming Diamond Project. The New Generation Series for the spring season will be selected entirely from these ballets, which always bring fresh perspectives to City Ballet and its audiences [see page 54].

Central to all these activities are the concept of sharing and the notion that creating a special window into performances at NYCB for a particular group will encourage individuals and families to explore other aspects of what is called the richest classical repertory in the world. The imperial nineteenth-century jewels are preserved with the freshness of present-day technique. Offerings from the Diaghilev era retain their revolutionary impact. Balanchine ballets made to celebrate the wild energies and appetites of his adopted homeland sparkle and resonate for the wide spectrum of today's theatergoers. And it is Balanchine's vision that continues to empower all these efforts. Rather than a dead language to be revered, classical dancing was to him a dynamic vocabulary, capable of joining the present with the future - a potent force for unleashing humanity's imagination.