Mary Cargill

"Rotunda", "Concerto for Two Pianos", "Odesa"
New York City Ballet
David H. Koch Theater
Lincoln Center
New York, New York
February 1, 2024

Tiler Peck’s new ballet “Concerto for Two Pianos” premiered in a program featuring ballets created in the twenty-first century; rather optimistically NYCB calls the program “New Combinations”. It also included Justin Peck’s 2020 “Rotunda” and Alexei Ratmansky’s 2017 “Odesa” (the updated spelling for “Odessa”).  All three were abstract, all three explored different

"Fancy Free", "In the Night", "The Four Seasons"
New York City Ballet
David H. Koch Theater
Lincoln Center
New York, New York
January 24, 2024

The Winter season of NYCB’s 75th anniversary is titled “The Evolution” and includes works of a selection of choreographers whose works presumably evolved from Balanchine, who was so gloriously celebrated in the Fall.  Three works by Jerome Robbins, who after Balanchine, is the choreographer most closely associated with NYCB, opened the Winter

"Somewhere in the Middle", "Eventide", "Esplanade"
Paul Taylor Dance Company
David H. Koch Theater
Lincoln Center
New York, New York
November 12, 2023 

“I love bugs!” Eran Bugge says Paul Taylor told her at her audition.  The audience at her retirement certainly agreed as she and Christina Lynch Markham, the most senior members of the company, both retired at the end of the Lincoln Center season to cheers and flowers.  Neither looked retirement

"Book of Beasts", "Le Sacre du Printemps (The Rehearsal)", "Black Tuesday"
Paul Taylor Dance Company
David H. Koch Theater
Lincoln Center
New York, New York
November 8, 2023 

This all-Taylor program showed the choreographer looking backwards, from the zany take on Medieval bestiaries (combined with satires of ballet dancers) of “Book of Beasts”, to the odd homage to Nijinsky in “Le Sacre du Printemps (the Rehearsal)” with its oblique references to gangster melodramas, and ending with “Black Tuesday”, Taylor’

"Echo", "Vespers", "Piazzolla Caldera"
Paul Taylor Dance Company
David H. Koch Theater
Lincoln Center
New York, New York
November 4, 2023 evening

This triple bill showed the Taylor Company expanding its repertoire offering a new work by Lauren Lovette (“Echo”) with an all-male cast and “Vespers”, choreographed in 1986 by Ulysses Dove for the Dayton Contemporary Dance Company with an all-female cast.  Both of these works got committed, fierce  performances, showing off the company's thrilling technique.  But,

"Dreamachine", "Eventide", "Esplanade"
Paul Taylor Dance Company
David H. Koch Theater
Lincoln Center
New York, New York
November 1, 2023

The Paul Taylor Company returned to its now traditional Fall Lincoln Center season with a mixture of modern choreographers and Taylor classics.  Lauren Lovette, the former NYCB dancer, was appointed the resident choreographer in 2022, has two premieres, and the season also includes works by Ulysses Dove, Amy Hall Garner, and Larry Keigwin,  It also includes

"Ballet Imperial", "The Dream"
American Ballet Theatre
David H. Koch Theater
Lincoln Center
New York, New York
October 26, 2023

ABT’s “Ballet Imperial”, familiar to New York audiences as NYCB’s “Tschaikovsky Piano Concerto No. 2”, uses scenery and costumes based on the original Rouben Ter-Arutunian designs for the 1964 NYCB revival of the 1941 ballet when it was still Imperial (the glimpse of old Russia in the background and the elaborate tutus were replaced in 1973 by a

"Concerto Barocco", "Prodigal Son", "Symphony in C"
New York City Ballet
David H. Koch Theater
Lincoln Center
New York, New York
October 7, evening 2023

The works danced on this program are some of the oldest in the company’s repertoire—Balanchine choreographed the youngest one, “Symphony in C”, in 1947.  They were also all originally created for other companies;  “Concerto Barocco”, 1941 for American Ballet Caravan, an early Balanchine company, “Prodigal Son”, 1929, for the

"Tschaikovsky Piano Concerto No. 2", "Apollo", "La Sonnambula"
New York City Ballet
David H. Koch Theater
Lincoln Center
New York, New York
October 8 2023

In a late shift, NYCB switched the program’s order and opened with “Tschaikovsky Piano Concerto No. 2” instead of closing with glorious exploration of Petipa—it was like having dessert before the main meal of “Apollo” and “La Sonnambula” but it was delicious all the same.  Unfortunately, the costume gremlins have been

"Western Symphony", "The Unanswered Question", "Tarantella", "Stars and Stripes"
New York City Ballet
David H. Koch Theater
Lincoln Center
New York, New York
October 3, 2023

The bright, generally upbeat program of Balanchine works choreographed to American music was conducted with a brisk, precise, and infectious verve by Andrews Sills, who made the folk songs of “Western Symphony” and the familiar marches of John Philip Sousa used in “Stars and Stripes” seem irresistibly fresh and infectiously bouncy.

“Western Symphony”, for

"Bourrée Fantasque", "Agon", "Slaughter on Tenth Avenue"
New York City Ballet
David H. Koch Theater
Lincoln Center
New York, New York
September 30, matinee 2023

There were a number of debuts in the strikingly varied all-Balanchine program which started with “Bourree Fantasque” a light-hearted and rarely seen bonne bouche, followed by the rigorous black and white “Agon” and ended with a trip to Broadway in “Slaughter on Tenth Avenue”.  “Bourree Fantasque”, choreographed in 1949 to music by the

"Western Symphony", "The Unanswered Question", "Tarantella", "Stars and Stripes"
New York City Ballet
David H. Koch Theater
Lincoln Center
New York, New York
September 26, 2023

It is odd to program two upbeat Americana closing ballets on the same program, but the audience didn’t seem to mind the lack of variety; only the brief, darkly mysterious “The Unanswered Question” interrupted the bouncy evening.  There were several fine debuts, including Roman Mejia, NYCB’s boy wonder, exploding as