American Ballet Theatre: Exploring New Bounds

by Theresa Herron

            Though ABT has been timid in the past in exploring new choreographic styles, this season at City Center produced some refreshing twists. The company challenged itself with diverse movement in the premieres of two works, “Jabula” by Natalie Weir and “Weren’t We Fools?” by Christian Holder, and with presentation of “Meadow” (1999), a ballet created for the company by Lar Lubovitch. All three of these works were performed the evening of Sunday, November 5.

            “Jabula,” meaning “joy,” was originally made for the Queensland Ballet Company and thus was full of the athleticism for which Australian dance companies are well-known. Utilizing stunning and forceful Afro-aboriginal music and vocals by Hans Zimmer from the original score, “The Power of One,” the flow of energy never stopped from one scene to the next. Staccato, angular postures, modern dance and tribal vernacular moves evoked a drama that could have been a rite of passage or a ritual ceremony celebrating spring. Yet the dance could be appreciated for pure abstraction in and of itself. Floor work was often entailed with much sweeping and sliding across the stage. Eroticism was quite blatant in the couplings of women and men full of feral attack. This was in sharp contrast to the usual classical ballets the same dancers oft perform. Though the choreography was not always original, the dancers expressed their full-force, athletic puissance, certainly enough to keep up with the Australians.

            “Weren’t We Fools?” by choreographer Christian Holder was a pure ballroom, ballet and popular song crowd-pleaser. The dancers performed to music and songs by Cole Porter, sung live by vocalist Lynne Halliday, as she smoothly wove in and out of the drama onstage. The narrative often reflected the themes of the love songs: the longing for love, the disillusion with a current love, the longing for a passionate love of the past, and the exultation of lost love re-found. Dancer Julie Kent was exquisite. She possessed the most sensitively expressive countenance and long limbs, and can definitely be described as one of the best female dancers in ABT now. Kent was well-partnered with Angel Corella and his warmly exuberant style. Both dancers well-highlighted the poignant dramatic nuances of this work.

            Lar Lubovitch is the king of craft for sweeping, curved, full-bodied modern moves. He has deeply ingrained in his work a unique sense of following the course where body energy will naturally travel. In “Meadow,” created by him for ABT in 1999, he drew a lush, mysterious atmosphere with misty, dark lighting. Groups of dancers formed various revolving, voluptuous curvatures, sweeping throughout the stage. Some traveled to the floor, others were lifted in the air, yet all were cohesive in the grand, giant, curved scheme they all formed. The image was reminiscent of the natural order of constellations spinning through a solar system. A sense of “birding,” or one dancer leading the group like a flock of birds in flight, was continuously present in the adagios.

            Dancer Yan Chen possessed an embryonic, ethereal quality in her sensuous duet with Angel Corella in a section of “Meadow” entitled New Star. She first appeared being held in the air, limbs reaching upward, perhaps a symbol of a fallen star or of birth itself. Every variation of how a woman’s legs could be extended about her partner was explored in this mesmerizing pas de deux. The section ended with Chen magically being whisked up and away, like an ephemeral spirit snatched back to heaven.

            ABT is laudable for its presentation of these newer works but could be encouraged to stretch even further with more cutting edge material.