Faster, Higher, Stronger

"La Bayadere (Pas D’Action),” “Variations For Three,” “An American in Paris,” “Saudade,” “Cornbread,” "Cerulean Skies," “Grand Pas Classique,” “The Weeping Willow,” “Bernstein in a Bubble”
ABT Studio Company
The Joyce Theater
New York, NY
May 13, 2026

In a program of varied works, the ABT Studio Company showed a bench of talent ready to outjump, outturn and technically eclipse the main company’s roster.  The artistry and emotional range of these young dancers still need work, but the refinement of movements and interpretive instincts, coupled with solid athletic framework, prove the foundation for great things is firmly in place.

The program opened with the wedding pas de deux from “La Bayadere,” with Kiera Sun as Gamzatti and Daniel Guzmán as Solor.  Sun was a pleasure to watch from her entrance, with a radiant presence, acknowledging smile, and an upper body and hands moving in a fully inhabited, thought through way. Her variation had scale: big jumps, sustained relevés, and a sense that she understood the space she was moving through. When she returned later for the New York City premiere of Katie Currier's solo “Saudade,” she moved through contemporary vocabulary with the same ease and purpose, giving flavor to the angular poses of the steps, all confirming a promising range of facility in both classical and modern work. Guzmán danced with similar technical precision throughout, though beside Sun, a little more willingness to take up the room and the music would have helped him.

Skewing more modern, the New York premiere of “Variations For Three” – a 2025 Tiler Peck commission to music by Niccolò Paganini – gave Geonhee Park, Younjae Park, and Xavier Xué a similarly well-suited technical vehicle. The choreography moved between synchronized and offset execution of the same vocabulary, arabesques and pas de chats recurring throughout, but the three men found the warmth in it and focused on making the camaraderie in between the technical feats feel genuine rather than performed. Geonhee Park's jumps in particular had arresting ease and elevation.

The evening's first real falter came with the pas de deux from “An American in Paris,” where Audrey Tovar-Dunster and Maximilian Catazaro never quite found the playful charge the piece asks for. Her flirtation seemed that of a young girl just exploring attraction, and his interactions suffered with little to feed off of — a casting question as much as anything else. But they wasted little time proving they are artists worth watching: before intermission, in Brady Farrar's neo-classical “Cerulean Skies,” both were noticeably more relaxed, with lyricism and feeling of the music in full flourish.  The work gave two other couples a chance to shine as well: Delfina Nelson-Todd, Sooha Park, Guzmán, and Younjae Park danced this New York City premiere with budding individuality.

After an intermission, Twyla Tharp’s complex “Cornbread” was a more difficult fit, and the evening’s second stumble rooted in expression. Mak has real physical gifts, but the work asks for something beyond technique. Although she didn’t miss a single mark, the looseness and rhythmic ease the work demands didn’t quite arrive. Geolina was similarly contained, and the piece needed more from both of them in terms of responsiveness to one another and to the music.

“Grand Pas Classique” – the Daniel-François Auber showpiece – seems to be in particular favor with ABT these days, the main company having performed it just last fall at Lincoln Center. Which makes it all the more puzzling that no one has addressed the costumes, which remain tired and unflattering, doing nothing for either dancer. Here, Sooha Park and Geonhee Park brought genuine technical firepower – his jumps were sky high, and both had the turns – but the work may simply have been the wrong pick for them at this stage. Trying to layer on the smiles and the presentation while also executing some of the most demanding steps in the classical vocabulary proved one task too many: her upper body stayed cautious when it needed to open and flow, the height difference between them stood out in this staging, and a wobble on a balance disrupted what should have been a seamless sequence of effects. The academic foundation was solidly there, and in a school context this would have been a strong performance, but this pas de deux doesn't reward effort – it rewards ease, which was absent.

Kayla Mak returned for Kyle Abraham's “The Weeping Willow,” backlit in orange, in a solo built mostly from sharp, disjointed movement. It was another contemporary opportunity for her, and this time she held the stage – expertly navigating sometimes overlayered sequencing in the choreography. It set a good tone for what closed the evening: Alexei Ratmansky's “Bernstein in a Bubble,” a cheerful piece with flashes of the odd timing and physical wit that distinguishes his work – a moment where a dancer is passed from one pair of arms to another had exactly the right lightness. Nelson-Todd and Tovar-Dunster were particularly good in the livelier passages. Sun, Matteo Curley Bynoe, Ptolemy Gidney, Younjae Park, and Xué completed the cast.

If there is one thing that can be said about the current roster at the main company, it is that few have the remarkable physical range that past generations had.  What was on the Joyce stage this evening suggests that is about to change. The pipeline is full, and if ABT is paying attention, with the right nurturing of these dancers, the next few years of promotions could quietly shift what the main company is capable of.

copyright © 2026 by Marianne Adams