Martins is up a tree, and that’s an uncomfortable spot from which to run a ballet company. Under its founding choreographer, George Balanchine, the NYCB set the standard for the rest of the ballet world, with Balanchine’s masterworks forging a radical new classicism that recharged a sleepy art form and sent it skyrocketing through the second half of the century. After his death in 1983, the leadership passed to Martins, then a splendid dancer as well as a fledgling choreographer. But his dutiful ballets have never caught fire. He can put the steps together, but there’s no conviction behind those good-looking phrases. So the search was on: who would be the next Balanchine? Or, more realistically, who could create new work worth dancing for this unparalleled company?
You have to give the guy credit: Martins has looked just about everywhere. He’s tracked down choreographers at other ballet companies, he’s raided modern dance, he’s plucked ambitious beginners from the ranks of the NYCB itself. When the work proves god-awful, he hangs in there and gives some of these hopefuls a second chance. He can’t be blamed for what is widely acknowledged to be an industrywide drought in choreographic talent; he’s trying. What he doesn’t seem to understand (or won’t admit) is that he’s failing. Instead of dumping these miserably inadequate experiments, he’s actually keeping some around to pad the repertoire. So we find Richard Tanner’s bland exercise in partnering, “Ancient Airs and Dances,” programmed alongside Balanchine’s glorious “Western Symphony,” as if the two inhabited the same artistic universe. lsIf this isn’t hypocrisy, it sure is wishful thinking.ls
Of course, Jerome Robbins continues his long association with the NYCB; his “West Side Story Suite” was last year’s biggest hit. And some of the newcomers–Kevin O’Day, from Twyla Tharp’s company, and Robert LaFosse, an NYCB principal–are choreographers to watch. But most of the new works seen since Balanchine’s death should never have gotten as far as the main stage of the State Theater. They belong in workshop performances, informal settings where choreographers can make all the mistakes they need to. For the ballets that will keep the NYCB repertoire alive and growing lsuntil the drought lifts,ls maybe Martins should look in the only uncharted territory left to him–the past.
Heresy alert: Balanchine wasn’t the sole genius ballet ever produced. There’s Frederick Ashton (1906-1988), who presided over British ballet and made works of the greatest charm, clarity, intelligence and musicality. (Ashton actually made a couple of long-forgotten dances for the NYCB back in the ’50s.) Or August Bournonville (1805-1879), the deity of Danish ballet, whose signature style has a warmth and zest that still enraptures audiences. Martins, who is Danish-born, grew up on Bournonville, and the NYCB staged a Bournonville ballet in 1977. Yes, yes, it’s unthinkable, it’s all wrong. Balanchine’s company was founded to create; its mandate has always been to dance way out on the edge of possibility, not back in some other country’s tradition. But Balanchine himself never flinched at tossing aside eternal verities that didn’t make sense anymore. Let’s get radical: if the new can’t hack it, long live the old.
