New York City Ballet

The experience of watching New York City Ballet performance at Lincoln Centre is probably the first time that I have fully allowed myself to immerse in the contemporary ballet kingdom. Movements have never been so powerful and intriguing to me. The four choreography works by New York City Ballet, Opus 19/The Dreamer by Jerome Robbins, The Shaded Line by Lauren Lovette, Lineage by Edwaard Liang, and Symphony in C by George Balanchine, lend me a chance to appreciate how dance is more than just perfect technique. In a dance, all things matter: the combination of movements, the music, the costume, the cast, the audience. When all things synchronize and are put into one performance, it’s a very interesting job for the audience to try to interpret the thoughts behind the dance since they are concealed in body languages.

When reviewing the whole performance in my mind, I found it fascinating that the four choreographies, though not performed in such sequence, could form a sequence in terms of how it represents time. This means that if we put the dances in a particular order, they seem to present the passage of time from the past to the present. For me, dance an “art of the past” means an art that holds the clues from the past such as clear pointe technique, while dance as an “art of the present” weaken the rigorous principles for technique but emphasize more on body language and story telling. In this sense, Symphony in C, Opus 19/The Dreamer, Lineage, and The Shaded Line are in sequence from the past to the present. And this essay is mainly going to talk about the two pole: Symphony in C and The Shaded Line.

Watching Symphony in C by George Balanchine and thinking about the critique by Lynn Garafola in Dance for a City, I have started to understand why Balanchine is commented as “haunted by the past” and was trying to hold that vanquished golden world. It is because the whole work is a distinct homage to the past in terms of its choreography, composition and costume. During the whole performance, the dance has always reminded me of Swan Lake. For example, the white tutu worn by dancers strongly evokes my memory about swans’ fluffy white tutu(Appendix A&B). And for male dancers, their black velvet costume reminds me the Prince Siegfried’s classic, noble velvet black costume(Appendix C&D). Moreover, the idea of how there are usually three to four dancers as a group dancing a combination of certain movements, and then another group with the same number of dancers dancing the exact same combination in the opposite direction is very similar to the choreography of Dance of Little Swans, Dance of Four Swans and some others in Swan Lake Act two(Appendix E&F). The repetitive and synchronized footwork seem to me as symbolic and typical classical ballet movements. The orchestral composition is another element that unitedly harmonize with the dance in a traditional way. The composition still have distinct adagio and coda sections that correspond to the adagio and coda dance. This has therefore reinforced the idea of how the choreography is somehow still strongly influenced by classical ballet choreography pattern, and thereby present an “art of the past.” As Swan Lake is such an indisputable masterpiece in the classical ballet world, the resemblance of Swan Lake or any other inspirations such as Giselle or La Bayadera in Symphony in C is a tribute to the traditional art of ballet. However, it’s interesting that such resemblance of classical ballet in its own nature is very important for the neoclassic ballet, meaning that neoclassicism is known for its incorporation of both classical and modern choreography. There are also movements that are very bold such as directly crossing one leg over another in the choreography, which is impossible to see in classical works like Swan Lake. Therefore, Symphony in C in its majority leaves me an impression of being nostalgic to the past while it’s also trying to step into the bold, new, modern ballet world. It’s a piece that is in-between the past and present but leaning more toward the past.

The choreography I like the most is The Shaded Line by Lauren Lovette. It’s the mix of everything—the story, the costume, the dancers’ appearance, the lighting—that let me experience a passage of time and how the past and the present could be incorporated in one piece. The impression of how the work is trying to represent the past and the present is, firstly, by the costume. It’s unforgettable that the soloist was wearing a white shirt, black pants and a pair of black pointe shoes. Such choice of costume could be deduced to reflect a contemporary world because it’s just a normal outfit people would wear everyday, so it seems like this dancer presents the concept of being present. The opposite side to this dancer are dancers wearing corsets and pinky tights, which again remind me of classical ballet attributes because corset itself is symbolized for the past. These dancers, therefore, present the idea of past. As the dancer in white shirt and black pants is often surrounded, or more like besieged, by the dancers in corsets, I feel like the choreography is trying a tell an idea of how our present is always shaped by our past. Who we are today is because of who we were before. I remembered one scene when the woman in shirt was standing in the very front of the stage and she was in shadow, while all the group dancers in the back were standing in line and in light. It’s obvious that the choreographer is trying to say something by using this contrast in lighting. And for me, it feels like the present figure is communicating with the past and she’s finding herself in a much more vulnerable sate. What I also like about the choreography is the marvelous composition it chose. The composition by TanDun is very powerful and tensed from the very beginning where the drum beats strikingly, drawing the audience attention to the stage. Such untraditional composition adds another layer to how the choreography is imaging and presenting the future of dance.

To sum up, it’s very interesting to see that from the four choreographies of New York City Ballet, there’s a clear sequence of dance developing from the past to the present. Dance has changed its mission of presenting elegancy to actually help people present their present ideas. The performance shows me a brave new world. Modern ballet frees both the choreographers and the dancers from the principles of presenting strong technique, lending them a chance to dance more of what people think rather than restricted by the dance principles.