Kings of the Dance.

KINGS OF THE DANCE NEW YORK CITY CENTER, NYC FEBRUARY 23-26, 2006

If you could get past the documentary film that aggrandized each of the four "kings"--American Ballet Theatre's Angel Corella and Ethan Stiefel, The Royal Danish Ballet's Johan Kobborg, and the Bolshoi's Nicolai Tsiskaridze--you had a treat in store.

Flemming Flindt's stylized The Lesson (1963) is both funny and horrifying. It depicts a musty studio run by a furtive, tyrannical teacher who torments his eager student. Corella was terrific in the role; his fingers crawled over his face and chest, not quite concealing a murderous impulse. (Kobborg and Tsiskaridze played the role on subsequent nights.) His student, Gudrun Bojesen (from the Royal Danish Ballet), had a perky exuberance, and Deirdre Chapman (from The Royal Ballet) as the pianist/accomplice projected an uptight authority from her first stiff-legged walk.

Each of the four stars performed a solo created for him that deliciously undermined the concept of royalty. In Wavemaker by Nils Christe, Stiefel, his back to us, started with hand jitters that grew to full-blown, luscious despair.

Kobborg was sensational in Tim Rushton's Afternoon of a Faun. Impulsive and sensual, this faun enjoyed his own body and the ground beneath him. With head cocked, he listened to the air around him for signs of danger or pleasure. He flicked a hand or leg into a pool of light as though it were water.

Tsiskaridze danced both the male and female roles in specially tailored variations from Roland Petit's Carmen. At first, watching his dramatic gestures with a cape, one couldn't tell if he meant to be funny. But when he hid behind a fan and snapped it coyly, there was no question about the camp factor.

Corella came back with We Got It Good, a jazzy number by Stanton Welch. He was Mr. Smooth, sneaking up on outrageously multitudinous pirouettes and melting back again into "oh-it's-nothing" cool. We ate it up.

The opener, Christopher Wheeldon's piece d'occasion For 4, allowed the four men to ride the nuances of Schubert's Death and the Maiden with a soupcon of wit and playfulness. But the piece was curiously sterile considering Wheeldon's usually breathtaking partner work for men and women. Here only an occasional nod of camaraderie warmed up the symmetrical patterns. However, For 4 introduced the Royal Four with a curtain of clean, lyrical dancing, beyond which each dancer would go in his solo.