Brahams-Haydn Variations
Black Tuesday
Gong
American Ballet Theatre
Metropolitan Opera House
May 1, 2001

American Ballet Theatre premiered Gong, a new work by Mark Morris, on 1 May 2001 at the Metropolitan Opera House of Lincoln Center in New York City.

I liked the mystery in this piece. It wasn't present in the brightly-lit, loudly-orchestrated sections, but when Morris shifted gears, presenting two dimly lit duets in silence, I was quite taken by the mystery and unexpected spots of humor. These silent sections kept one riveted in spite of the audience's best imitation of a TB ward.

Morris kept the piece rich in variety by blending liquid movement with mechanical actions, as well as moving through a plethora of moods and tempi: always long enough to draw one in, but never long enough to bore.

I recall discovering, in the midst of a robotic ensemble, a lone, Art Deco-esque figure, languidly luxuriating in a pose with one hand on the shoulder and the other arm outstretched, reminiscent of Le Corsaire. As I savored this pose, I realized why Mark Morris is so good at juxtaposition. Usually things are juxtaposed to produce contrast, but Morris sometimes chooses to do this more subtly, gently, and with less starkness.

A.B.T. did an excellent job with this work. The men, sometimes called to do pirouettes in canon, were always centered and solid, but never in a sterile, textbook fashion. Morris had a number of entrances for the women who, lanky and beautiful, slid into them with watery arms.

The craft of Michael Chybowski, lighting designer, was also in evidence. Throughout the beginning, if you could tear your eyes off the dancers (and I only did for the sake of this review), you would notice the slowly, constantly-changing hues of the cyclorama, which tended to linger, if only briefly, on the color of the costume of whoever was leading the dance at that moment. At times, the lighting cast giant shadows of the dancers on the backdrop to good effect.

Usually I find detail gets lost in a theatre the size of the Met, but somehow, the first section of dancers-cum-shadows retained it all: feet would point, feet would flex, feet would lap at the floor in three-quarter point. All this detail stood out, in spite of the distance and the mesmerizing shadows on the backdrop.

The cast was costumed in saturated colors by Isaac Mizrahi. The men sported tiny, sparkling earrings; the women had pancake-style tutus. While these tutus might be construed as gong-shaped, I could discern little else to justify the title.

"Tabuh-Tabuhan", the music by Colin McPhee, was premiered in 1930 but stood up to its age without sounding dated. The American Ballet Theatre Orchestra did a vibrant job of rendering it under the direction of conductor Charles Barker, who, by the way, knows how to take a bow when surrounded by 15 dancers. It's always curious, after so much technically-refined movement, to suddenly see someone moving naturally again, but Barker's pedestrian movements are never without grace.

Also on this program was Twyla Tharp's "The Brahams-Haydn Variations" and Paul Taylor's "Black Tuesday". Taylor's work was very well performed and received. In a lengthy article from the New York Times (4 March 2001, Arts & Leisure section) he is quoted as being a "non-believer in ballet", and yet I'm not sure that A.B.T. isn't an excellent custodian of his works, along with all the other pieces from modern choreographers that hang in its repertory.

Certainly Taylor has his own company, but large ballet companies tend to enjoy more reliable funding, and ballet dancers are not the specialists they once were, back in Taylor's heyday, when there was such a separation between ballet and modern camps. More and more I see gifted dancers with a solid ballet foundation who also have the modern and jazz skills to interpret contemporary works. I hope interesting, hybrid works like those presented on this program will find homes in companies that are capable of performing and preserving them.