Bonnefoux's "Two Birds with the Wings of One"

“Donizetti Variations”, “Two Birds with the Wings of One”, “Fancy Free”
New York City Ballet
New York State Theater
New York, NY
May 25, 2006

The New York City Ballet continued its Diamond Project with the premier of Jean-Pierre Bonnefoux’s “Two Birds with the Wings of One”, to the music of Bright Sheng (“Two Poems from the Sung Dynasty” and “Chi Lin’s Dance”), sung by Lauren Flannigan. The very helpful critic’s notes explained the background of the poems, and provided translations; the public only got the unrelated poem from which Sheng derived the title. Though the ballet was not a literal illustration of the poems, the extra information certainly helped understand the mood, and it is too bad it was not in the program.

The poems deal with loss and grief, both for a loved one and for a war-torn nation. The music was expressive and atmospheric, and the choreography striking. It featured a couple, Sofiane Sylve, and Andrew Veyette, who replaced Sébastien Marcovici, with a corps of six women and six men. The feeling is vaguely Chinese, but there is no sense of a pastiche or an imitation, more of a reflection of some timeless feeling. There is a sense of ritual in the choreography, with its massed corps, and inward expressions — unlike so many newer dances, the performers didn’t stare blankly at the audience, nor did they have vacant smiles. They used their eyes as if they were listening to some secret meaning in the music, as if they were looking at something we couldn’t quite see.

We could see Sylve, who was magnificent, using her long, expansive limbs and her weight unfurl through the choreography. Veyette and the male corps's dances had a slightly military feel, and Veyette had a solo full of push and pull. There was no specific story, but he presumably represented the poem’s husband who died fighting the Mongols. He returned for a pas de deux, the least successful part of the piece, for me; for someone who was dead, he did a lot of heavy lifting, and the choreography verged on the generic, with echoes of “The Firebird” combined with various pretzel poses. There was little of the mystery and powerful economy of the other sections. The final scene, though, returned to the simple architecture of grief, with the corps offering Sylve a white coat for mourning.

This was the second ballet; the first was the infinitely more cheerful “Donizetti Variations”, Balanchine’s salute to Bournonville. The Bournonville trained Nikolaj Hübbe replaced Veyette, and he was completely at home in the choreography, with its quick, small jumps, and changes of direction. But he also was completely at home on the stage, playing with the humor, and looking at the corps as if those girls were the most wonderful beings he had ever seen. And Elizabeth Walker, with her modest generosity and beautifully shaped dancing, was certainly worth looking at. The male corps, too, Vincent Paradiso, Aaron Severini, and Christian Tworzyanski, was extremely crisp and clean. Yvonne Borree was crisp as well, but unfortunately looked brittle and unmusical; the luxurious playfulness of the choreography was simply beyond her.

The evening closed with Jerome Robbins’ “Fancy Free”. It seems that my favorite cast is the one I saw last, but this one, with Joaquin De Luz, Tyler Angle, and Damian Woetzel, was really terrific. In an interview, Peter Boal said that when Robbins coached him in “Prodigal Son”, Robbins insisted he know what the Prodigal ate for breakfast. In this case, the audience, as well as the dancers, could imagine what the dancers ate for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. They were distinct, individual, and focused on each other, seemingly ad libbing their steps. The girls, Amanda Hankes with the pocketbook, and Jenifer Ringer, were equally individual. Hankes had quite a gleam in her eye when she first spotted the sailors, but shifted now and then into a prim little walk that clearly said “I am not one of those goils.” The pocketbook scene was underplayed, just in fun, in part because the opening had so clearly established these boys assuch fun loving characters, it was impossible for them to be truly threatening.

Jenifer Ringer was sweeter and more innocent than some of the pas de deux girls, really impressed at Woetzel’s bragging, and seemed swept away by him. This doesn’t quite work, because if this was going to be the love of her life, she wouldn’t have had such trouble in the Judgment of Paris scene. But she came across as slightly flighty, which had its own charm.

The men’s solos were, as always, the highpoint, very well danced (De Luz dropped into his splits with astounding ease, and Tyler Angle, as the shyer sailor, has a beautifully lyrical upper body), but also very well acted, and the audience roared. It was a wonderful performance all round.

copyright ©2006, Mary Cargill