New York City Ballet.

NEW YORK CITY BALLET NEW YORK STATE THEATER, NEW YORK, NY APRIL 26-JUNE 26, 2005

Jerome Robbins choreographed NY Export: Opus Jazz for his own company, Ballets USA, in 1958. Almost 50 years later, its NYCB premiere this spring overshadowed the company's other new ballets.

Robbins' depictions of mid-20th-century teen culture, from the innocent flirtations he explored in the 1945 Interplay and the aggressive tensions of warring gangs and musical styles in the 1957 Broadway musical West Side Story, are revisited in this meticulously crafted ballet, staged by Edward Verso. Robert Prince's upbeat score supports Robbins' venture into Latin and African rhythms. In generic colored sweatshirts and black pants by Florence Klotz and set against Ben Shahn's cityscapes, 16 adolescents register emotional tumult through the ballet's five sections, from the jazzy finger-snapping that punctuates explosions of physical vigor to the sparse but moving duet between two tentative lovers, Rachel Rutherford and Craig Hall. Who but Robbins would find romance in the nuzzling of Hall's sneakered foot against Rutherford's? And who but he would climax a taunting rooftop encounter between three boys and a girl by having her suddenly thrown into the wings (off the roof)? Danced with intensity and authority, NY Export: Opus Jazz enhances the repertoire.

New offerings also included a trio of pas de deux by company dancers Albert Evans, Edwaard Liang, and Benjamin Millepied. Millepied's Double Aria found a commanding and complementary partnership in the expansive dancing of Maria Kowroski and Ask la Cour and Daniel Ott's compelling score. Setting the violinist onstage and dividing the score with blackouts, Millepied enhanced the spatial arrangement further by positioning the dancers side by side each time they began anew. Their breaks into intense partnering, with la Cour manipulating Kowroski, evolved suddenly into rigorous simultaneous activity or a stationary port de bras. Dressed simply in brown unitards, they brought a workmanlike tenacity to their precarious endeavors.

While Evans and Liang did showcase their performers' talents, they also crammed their dances with too many incongruent ideas. Evans, in Broken Promise, exploited Ashley Bouder's thrilling dynamic range in choreography packed with risky maneuvers enabled by Stephen Hanna's partnering. But the duet never settled into coherence, and their final cuddle seemed gratuitous. Liang's Distant Cries showed that Wendy Whelan's physical dexterity is matched by a mysterious allure. A strange fractured folding and unfolding of limbs distinguished Whelan's and partner Peter Boal's powerful performances. That Boal was to retire during the season added to the pas de deux's poignancy.

Artistic director Peter Martins' new ballet Tala Gaisma, meaning "Distant Light" in Latvian and taken from the title of Peteris Vasks' score, was created for Jock Soto, Darci Kistler, Sofiane Sylve, and Miranda Weese. In Soto's repeated rounds of pas de deux with each dancer--the tender Kistler draped herself around him, the tempestuous Weese engaged in a physical tug of war, and the sensual Sylve stretched and contorted her body provocatively--nothing developed. Martins ran out of steam long before the haunting score with its penetrating violin solos did, so that other than exhibiting, once again, Soto's competent partnering skills (which his alternate, Jared Angle, performed with equal mettle at the premiere), the ballet fizzled out. On the other hand, Octet, Martins' new work from last season, emerged refreshingly lively with a cast led by Alexandra Ansanelli and Angle, Megan Fairchild and Joaquin de Luz. The two pas de deux, among Martins' best, develop emotionally from the intricacies and pacing of the choreography, complementing the exuberant dancing of the male corps de ballet.

Choreographer in residence Christopher Wheeldon tackled the "musical redux" genre once again, this time with An American in Paris. The ballet begins with Damian Woetzel musing over his painting--a huge scrim painted with the first of designer Adrianne Lobel's cubist takes on Paris. Viewed through the scrim, the corps de ballet enlivens every cliche of Parisian life--gamins and gamines, bicyclists, gendarmes, ladies of fashion, and even Degas ballerinas-and its upbeat pace takes its cue from Gershwin's delicious score. Wheeldon works wonders with playfully regimented comings and goings, finding the quintessential movement for each character. But the pas de deux between Woetzel and Jenifer Ringer, while lively and engaging, fails to provide sufficient magic to elevate the ballet beyond pastiche. It was last season's breathtaking, quietly sensual pas de deux in After the Rain, which Wheeldon created for Whelan and Soto (who also retired this season), that brought audiences to their feet.

In any NYCB season, the Balanchine oeuvre remains the touchstone. Even when casting is less than ideal the audience is drawn in, their senses engaged and their sensibilities enhanced. They cherish remembered moments and gasp with wonder at what has been forgotten, previously unobserved or is, for some, new. This enchanting spell is cast by the marching regiments in Union Jack or when the little girls from the School of American Ballet, fairies in A Midsummer Night's Dream, twirl endlessly. When dancers rise to Balanchine's challenge, so much the better. Ansanelli, dancing Columbine's second-act solo in Harlequinade, spun the dance as one bel canto phrase, her delicate pointe work weaving threads of exquisite gold. In the male solo in Divertimento From "Le Baiser de la foe," de Luz eloquently circled the stage, each leap yielding to a poignant kneel. In Symphony in Three Movements Bouder and Adam Hendrickson bounded in magnificent jumps with their parallel legs tucked tightly beneath them. And in one pas de deux after another, in endless evocations of love, the choreography transported the dancers and the audiences with them. Whelan, possibly at the peak of skill and artistry, found sublime tenderness in the divertissement from A Midsummer Night's Dream as she bourreed downstage, allowing Philip Neal's gentle pulses to propel her arms from below in gentle circles. With Evans she negotiated the strange configurations in Symphony in Three Movements with a physical appetite that was palpable.

With each pas de deux Balanchine reveals a love of dancing, of love, and of life, in a ratified form. Audiences may have their favorite dancers and dances, but it is experiencing Balanchine that teaches them the wonder of ballet.

For more information: www.nycballet.com