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Balanchine Preservation Initiative Workshop Performance
The Suzanne Farrell Ballet
Terrace Theater, Kennedy Center
Washington, DC
February 23, 2007

by Leigh Witchel
copyright ©2007, Leigh Witchel

The Balanchine Preservation Initiative is The Suzanne Farrell Ballet’s project to present unseen or rarely seen Balanchine works to the public. On Friday the company gave a workshop performance of some of these rarities in a free performance at the Kennedy Center. The performance wasn’t given full-dress treatment; Farrell herself dubbed it a “working rehearsal.” She spoke briefly in front of the curtain, saying that she felt very aware of the line between ‘preserve’ and ‘preservation’. To her, “preserve” was passive and “preservation” is active, which gave her license to adapt and rework. As she went on, it was clear she wasn’t talking about wholesale changes, but tailoring each work to the current dancer as Balanchine himself might have. That said, at this performance, one of Farrell’s best known changes to a Balanchine work, the addition of a “shadow dancer” behind a scrim in “Variations for Orchestra”, was not done.

The program began with the Adagiofrom “Concierto de Mozart” danced by Ashley Hubbard and Matthew Prescott. The work was originally done in 1942 for the Ballet of the Teatro Colon in Buenos Aires, and was staged in the United States for the first time by Tulsa Ballet in 1987. The adagio was simple and clear in the undistorted style Balanchine used to mirror Mozart. The dance used mirroring as well; the man often doubled the woman’s movement in a way that felt more equivalent and less supportive than other classical Balanchine pieces. It also featured a memorable series of partnered finger turns that opened each time to arabesque croisé. Hubbard was pleasant and secure; Prescott a bit too flowery. When he knelt down on the floor with his leg stretched out in front of him it looked too much like “The Dying Swan.”

The Contrapuntal Blues Pas de Deux from “Clarinade” to Morton Gould’s “Derivations for Clarinet and Jazz Band” followed. The ballet’s place in history was that it was Balanchine’s first work to have its premiere at the New York State Theater in 1964, as Nancy Reynolds notes in “Repertory in Review,” it was “less than worthy of the occasion,” though it’s instructive to see the works Balanchine chose not to revive. Right down to Benjamin Lester’s non-costume of white socks and black jazz shoes, the work has a sense of “cool” that’s of that period; though both Elizabeth Holowchuk and Lester tried mightily, they can’t find the context. In some ways it’s the same jazzy sense of cool that’s disappeared — to its detriment — from “Agon.” However, “Agon” isn’t explicitly about that attitude, so the attitudes of other times can fill the vacuum. 

“Glinka Pas de Deux Brillante” is a fluently classical pas de deux that was originally part of the 1967 “Glinkiana,” a portmanteau name for four unrelated short ballets usually presented together, though often with one or more missing. By the end of its first season only “Valse Fantaisie” remained in repertory. Patricia MacBride and Edward Villella were the original dancers; Bonnie Pickard and Neil Marshall performed it here. This was only a workshop performance, but Farrell has not always used dancers who could do principal work on a national level. Pickard is an exception; she’s developed the presence and authority. Marshall was fleet in batterie and with a masculine upper body, an attractive if slightly tentative partner.

“Variations for Orchestra” to Stravinsky’s score looked better without the added dancer behind the scrim, but Shannon Parsley is still miscast in the role. Even though the piece s nominatively the last one Balanchine choreographed in 1982, assisted greatly by Farrell when she was almost 37, the role still paradoxically calls for a dancer who’s a nymphet — or can act like one. There’s a moment where the soloist comes forward, looks wide-eyed out to the audience, puts her hand over her mouth and gives us an “oopsie” look that’s pure Humbert Humbert in its fantasies.

The performance ended with an extended series of divertissements from the “Pas Classique Espagnol” in the first act of Balanchine’s “Don Quixote.”  Added to the ballet in 1972, in one of Balanchine’s attempts to fix the ballet, Farrell presented four out of six divertissements including a female trio and a duet. Mentioning that Barbara Horgan, Balanchine’s personal assistant and now of the Balanchine Trust, had presented her with a video with the added dances, Farrell decided not to put them in her production of “Don Quixote”, but to present them separately and get two ballets for the price of one. Parsley returned for a solo and looked much more interesting in a role that allows her maturity. Natalia Magnicaballi and Kirk Henning were a fitting close to the performance in a pas de deux; Magnicaballi is among the best dancers Farrell has. The recorded music sounded as if it was played on a synthesizer rather than by an orchestra, a disadvantage for music that needs the best presentation it can get.

Volume 5, No. 9
March 5, 2007

copyright ©2007 by Leigh Witchel
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