Ratmansky and the Choreographic Process
“The Choreographic Process”
with Alexei Ratmansky
Studio 5
New York City Center
April 16, 2018
When “the” is inserted in front of phrases like “the creative process” or “the choreographic process,” the implication is that there is only one process, to which artists conform. In fact, there are as many such processes as there are artists. How an artist approaches his or her medium is deeply personal and likely to be as unique as handwriting or fingerprints. American Ballet Theatre’s resident choreographer, Alexei Ratmansky, discussed his own ways of working Monday as part of City Center’s Studio 5 series, which is being presented in collaboration with ABT. Oddly enough, though, Ratmansky didn’t speak about ballets he has choreographed for ABT, but rather for New York City Ballet. Accompanying him were a group of NYCB dancers headed by Sara Mearns and Adrian Danchig-Waring.
The format for the evening was both charming and insightful. The dancers were in charge, instead of acting merely as illustrators of the choreographer’s work. Danchig-Waring interviewed Ratmansky, with comments from the other dancers along the way. Then, at the end, instead of the usual audience Q&A, the dancers asked the questions. In addition to Mearns and Danchig-Waring, the group included Taylor Stanley, Tyler Angle, Sterling Hyltin, Claire Kretzschmar, Indiana Woodward, Joseph Gordon, Amar Ramasar, and Andrew Veyette.
The evening began with a look at Russian Seasons, the first ballet Ratmansky choreographed for New York City Ballet in 2006. Taylor Stanley danced a demanding solo from the work, then Danchig-Waring commented that, “you seem to see us with great clarity, and the potential we have that we don’t necessarily see ourselves.” How, he asked, did Ratmansky make casting choices? The choreographer replied that to some extent, casting for him is an intuitive process. For Russian Seasons he only had about an hour-and-a-half to do the casting. He didn’t know the NYCB dancers, but he was impressed with so many of them, he couldn’t choose among those he wanted to use, so decided to use them all. That influenced the structure of the piece, he said. He spoke, too, about how “making a ballet is such an intimate process — the human connection is super important and you have to try to sense who is right for the ballet.”
Danchig-Waring asked Ratmansky how he had felt about coming into a company that had a very particular neo-classical legacy, so different from the Bolshoi Ballet, where Ratmansky had received his training and later served as artistic director. Here Ratmansky noted that by the time he entered the Bolshoi, “you didn’t need to defect any more, you could go abroad freely,” which he did, performing both in Denmark and Canada where he danced in a broad range of western repertory, including works by Balanchine and Robbins. When he visited New York, which he did every year when he was with the Royal Winnipeg Ballet, he was especially impressed by the NYCB dancers’ speed and energy. “It was as if you had fire on your feet,” he said.
Mearns and Tyler Angle danced the lyrical central duet from “Concerto DSCH,” which Ratmansky choreographed for the company in 2008. Asked to comment, Ratmansky said “so many things don’t have names,” and the atmosphere of this dance, both poignant and soaring, seems to among them for him. The Shostakovich concerto, he said, was made after the death of Stalin, when “people could finally breathe — a huge pressure was suddenly lifted and there was a sense of great hope.” This, he said was his parents’ generation. In making ballets, he said, he is not only interested in who the dancer is as a dancer and as a person, but how the choreography and music together can lead the performer to another dimension.
Ratmansky created “Namouna, A Grand Diverstissement” for NYCB in 2010. It has a story, he said, but you don’t know it. It’s about a hero who must choose the right woman or something bad will happen. But he does choose the right one, so all is well. The ballet includes a solo made for Mearns that, she said, was terrifying. “I was testing you a little bit,” Ratmansky teased. He said he had heard so much about her and how sensational she was, he thought he would try to challenge her. He taught her the whole solo in an hour. “He actually showed me the steps, so I thought, if he can do it, I guess I can.” However, as the dance neared its end, and after executing a swooping fall to the floor, she was so exhausted she couldn’t rise for the final step. Ratmansky, she said, gave in and told her she could simply stay on the floor as an ending to the dance, which is how it remains to this day.
Mearns mentioned that Ratmansky came to rehearsals with a little book that contained notes for the dance. He explained that he always comes to the studio prepared with dances already created. He is not one to improvise, as some choreographers do. Of course, he said, what he originally has in mind doesn’t always work, then he looks for solutions, but in general he prefers to give the dancers material he has already thought through.
“Pictures at an Exhibition,” which Ratmansky choreographed in 2014, was also discussed. He said he tries to find music that absolutely inspires him, and in the case of the Mussorgsky score, there were two intriguing possibilities, one for full orchestra and one for piano. Ratmansky insisted on the piano score because, for one reason, it gave him the opportunity to work with NYCB’s highly respected pianist, Cameron Grant (who was also on hand to play for the dancers on Monday evening).
Among the excerpts performed was a duet set to “The Old Castle” segment of the score. Ratmansky said he desperately wanted Wendy Whelan for the dance, but she was retiring a month after the ballet’s premiere. Nevertheless he sent her a text asking her if she would join the cast. She agreed, and “came every day, giving 150% to every rehearsal,” dancing a role that she would never perform again. On Monday the duet was shown by the original male lead, Tyler Angle, and by Sterling Hyltin, a very different ballerina from Whelan, who nevertheless made the dance her own.
Danchig-Waring then asked Ratmansky to conduct a rehearsal for another of the dances from “Pictures at an Exhibition,” this one set to the section of the score entitled “Ballet of Unhatched Chicks,” which in the ballet is an amusing dance for five men. Ratmansky’s corrections to the men were minutely detailed — the position of a foot, the turn of an arm — but even we in the audience could see how such tiny adjustments added clarity to the movement.
Yet another dance from “Pictures at An Exhibition,” featured Amar Ramasar as the witch Baba-Yaga. Ratmansky said that Ramasar is such a kind person, he wanted to cast him against type, giving him a chance to be bad.
Once the evening was turned over to the dancers to ask questions, the queries were many and invariably interesting. Among Ratmansky’s most revealing responses came from a question by Tyler Angle, who noted how Ratmansky’s choreography, as he expressed it, “shades every part of the body.” He asked if there was a particular person who had given him an awareness of such finely tuned nuances. Ratmansky said he thought it came from his schooling, where he never felt his body to be ideal. It was, he said, a constant search to find angles of presentation to make up for what he saw as his physical and technical shortcomings. In this sense, his focus on a detailed analysis of the body came from a negative impulse; it prevented him, he said, from enjoying his time on stage. However, in the end, that very impulse seems to have served him well as a choreographer.
He was also asked about how it felt to see his work on the stage. He admitted that it makes him nervous, especially on opening nights, when he is never sure, if everything will work. “It would be easy if we knew in advance what will work and what won’t. At some point though, the ballet is yours [the dancers’]. You own it. It’s no longer mine. I want to switch off my ownership, although it’s not always possible.”
Throughout the evening, Ratmansky emphasized how for him choreography is indelibly linked to music. Music is where initial inspiration most often resides, and it is in the melding of music and dance that he aims to transport the dancer to what Danchig-Waring called “a fully realized universe.” However, after being asked if he had a favorite fairy tale that had inspired him, Ratmansky quickly replied, “Alice in Wonderland.” “I always thought of it as my ballet. But then Chris (Wheeldon) did it!” Disappointing, perhaps, but there is no reason why there can’t be another “Alice,” one that reflects the particular sensitivities of this inventive and generous choreographer.
copyright © 2018 by Gay Morris
