[Note – Performance photos will replace, or be added to, the photos below upon receipt.]
New Jersey Ballet
Mayo Performing Arts Center
Morristown, New Jersey
November 8, 2024
“Creative Forces” Program: Murder Ballades, In the Night, Not Our Fate
Jerry Hochman
Sometimes reviews write themselves. This is one of them.
With its first program of the ’24-’25 performance year, New Jersey Ballet presented two dances that were new to them, Justin Peck’s Murder Ballades and Jerome Robbins’s In the Night, and one they performed last year: Lauren Lovette’s Not Our Fate. It was the kind of program that NJB never would have attempted, much less presented, before Maria Kowroski became its Artistic Director, and they nailed it.
I’ll consider the dances out of order, because NJB’s execution of Robbins’s masterpiece (one of them), In the Night, was on par with any other performance of it that I’ve seen – and I’ve seen it many times. Staged by NYCB Repertory Director (and former NYCB Soloist) Christine Redpath, this performance had the “heart” that’s missing from many other renderings of it, particularly in the final pairing, which focuses on a tempestuous “mature” relationship. This segment was performed by Denise Parungao and Joshuan Vazquez.
True story. When I was invited to review this program, I first advised that it might not be worth my time, since I’d already seen NJB perform two of the three pieces on the program, including In the Night. I was quickly corrected – NJB had not previously danced In the Night. I wrote back apologizing for my error – but I also said I was certain that I’d seen NJB present it, and could even identify the dancers whom I saw perform it (in my mind): Parungao and Vazquez.
I’ve been at this too long.
Screenshot from New Jersey Ballet
performance video of Jerome Robbins’s “In the Night”
Photo Courtesy of New Jersey Ballet
Although at times I’ve heard different interpretations, to my eye In the Night represents three pairs of dancers at different stages in their respective relationships that the audience sees, but that are in private moments unknown to the other couples: new and deliriously happy – and passionate, more advanced and questioning – and passionate, and mature, resistant, and tempestuous – and passionate. [Looked at a different way, they might also be seen as three stages of one relationship, or two dancers “of distinct personalities,” as stated in New York City Ballet’s description of it.]
Regardless, any notion that this is just another relationship dance, multiplied by three, should be quickly dispelled. It’s a masterly choreographed dance, regardless of any generalized subject matter niche in which it may fit. Historically, it was choreographed between Robbins’s equally masterful Dances at a Gathering and Other Dances, and is yet another example of the sense of humanity that Robbins into his choreographic creations. As an audience member you feel for these characters.
New York City Ballet in a prior performance
of Jerome Robbins’s “In The Night”
Photo by Paul Kolnik
Composed to four of Chopin’s “Nocturnes” (respectively Opus 27, No. 1; Opus 55, Nos. 1 and 2; and Opus 9, No. 2), each with their own distinct characters, Robbins gives distinct “characters” to the three relationships portrayed, and the choreography examines and illuminates these three relationships. It becomes a story of sorts; a set of dramas – or melodramas. Aside from the pristinely conceived choreography, this distinguishes In the Night from other dances that may be similar. And although Robbins stuffs the many intricacies of a relationship into his choreography, he does so by using a minimum of extraneous movement. Every step is there for a reason; every combination speaks.
The first segment – the first relationship – takes place under a starlit sky. This pair is young and inebriated with happiness – and with the idea of being in love as much as the fact of it. Here, this relationship was portrayed by Risa Mochizuki and Michael Paradiso with all the energy and passion that these roles require.
Risa Mochizuki (center) and New Jersey Ballet,
here in George Balanchine’s “Rubies,” from “Jewels”
Photo by VAM Productions
I’ve commented about Mochizuki before. She’s a highly talented dancer – tiny, and seemingly boneless, but she can do whatever the choreography calls for. When she’s lifted, she appears so light that she gives the illusion that she’s floating on air. Paradiso partnered her impeccably, and clearly delivered the acting that the particular role calls for.
However, as wonderful a ballerina as she is, Mochizuki doesn’t come across as Paradiso’s equivalent in youthfulness. That’s not a criticism; it’s an observation, and perhaps only noticeable if one peers through binoculars. Depending on one’s point of view, literally and/or intellectually, that may not matter in the least.
Be that as it may, theirs was a beautifully executed performance in every respect.
The second couple is required to display more of a questioning attitude – the woman repeatedly decides to leave her lover/companion/husband, but always returns. Ultimately, they’re still unable to resist each other. Portrayed by Ilse Kapteyn and Felipe Valentini, this pair did exactly that.
Ilse Kapteyn, here with Guest Artist Chun Wai Chan
in New Jersey Ballet’s Nutcracker
Photo by VAM Productions
In some performances of this segment, I’ve noticed something of an off-putting “military” demeanor for the man, giving the impression that, while the dance segment focuses on the relationship, he’s on his way “to work.” But the costume design is attributed to the same person who designed them for In the Night‘s 1970 NYCB premiere – Sir Anthony Dowell, a former Principal and Artistic Director of The Royal Ballet, so I must be mistaken. But I didn’t see anything of the soldier in the male role here – nor for that matter did this, or any of the other segments, display the “stiffness” that sometimes infects other portrayals.
Kapteyn appears to be the company’s ballerina-of-all-trades, seemingly able to adapt herself to anything. That’s what she did here. Valentini’s performance here was appropriately impassioned with just a touch of appropriate haughtiness, and his partnering was enviable.
Denise Parungao and Joshuan Vazquez,
here in Christopher Wheeldon’s “After the Rain” pas de deux
Photo by VAM Productions
The third segment is a bit more complex than the second, especially in the dynamics of the relationship it portrays. In this relationship, the internalization present in the second segment is now more external, and the emotion even more dominant. The relationship appears to have a deeper history, resulting in the woman deciding she must end the relationship, while the man far more stoically, but with obvious simmering passion, demands that she return. Eventually, the power of his almost gravitational pull impels her to return. The segment’s final moment is iconic – the man lifts the woman over his head, and then drops her precipitously, almost to the stage floor. It’s a dramatic way to end the segment, as well as the dance, and Parungao and Vazquez delivered it flawlessly – as was the case in my pre-performance vision. More importantly, the pair made the couple, and their intensity, believable (though I suspect that the precipitous drop is out of the question).
That third of three segments doesn’t end the dance. There’s a fourth segment that, perhaps, trumps (sorry about that) the earlier three. Couple by couple, all three pairs return to the stage (in the dance, outdoors, in the night), eventually meet, acknowledge each other, exchange pleasantries, and then go their separate ways. It’s far more complicated than that, but that’s its essence. Presumably, notwithstanding the mutual courtesies, none of the couples knows the nature of the other couples’ relationships, much less the private actions of the other couples in prior scenes. While not sad or concerning, it is somewhat melancholy. With the added component of Chopin’s music, and if the viewer has an occasionally agile mind, the ballet can be seen as not only about relationships in some form of environmental vacuum; rather, they’re emblematic of an atmosphere, a sense of interrelationships, that has since been lost.
The dance has one moment that some consider controversial: after trying to escape from the relationship, and subsequently recognizing that she can’t, the ballerina runs back to the man, and encases his body with her arms, gravitating downward top to bottom (the stage floor), and gently kissing him (his costume) along the way down. Then she sits at his feet. Obviously, it’s a sign of submission, which many these days find, at a minimum, distasteful. It should be understood, however, that this was a component of the relationship portrayed through the choreography on stage and in a particular time and place, not something Robbins necessarily advocated or considered either essential or appropriate. And unlike a brief moment in Robbins’s Fancy Free that has already been modified to fit current pressures, this action can’t really be changed without changing the impact of that segment of the dance.
Maria Kowroski and Russell Janzen
in a prior performance of Jerome Robbins’s “In The Night”
Photo by Erin Baiano
Those who’ve read my prior reviews know that I’m easy. As this performance ended, I had to choke back a tear – not that the scene necessarily demanded that kind of reaction, but because this performance was so beautifully executed by all three couples, and particularly by Parungao and Vazquez. That a company of dancers unknown outside its performance area could pull off a brilliant performance of this piece the first time out was a miraculous accomplishment. Credit to the dancers of course, to Redpath, and also to Kowroski, who danced in this ballet when she was a Principal with NYCB.
Lastly, I must recognize the on-stage piano accompaniment here by Barry Spatz, without which the dance wouldn’t have appeared nearly as fine as it did.
The evening began with NJB’s first take on Justin Peck’s Murder Ballades.
Murder Ballades is “early” Peck, and although it displays themes that Peck has repeated over the years, this particular dance has been around the block a few times since its 2013 Los Angeles Dance Project premiere in Lyon, France, including stints at BAM in 2014 and Jacobs Pillow in 2015, and when LADP appeared at The Joyce in 2017.
Although the program is silent as to Peck’s intent, the accompanying score of the same name by Bryce Dessner is based on folk songs that relate to real or imagined murders taking place during colonial or westward expansion. I’m not familiar with the songs, but my understanding is that the original songs include lyrics that are not a component of Dessner’s score.
Be that as it may, the music as it is does not bring to mind folk songs relating to murder or anything else. The score simply comes across as a compendium of music without focus – which is also an apt description of the dance to which it’s choreographed.
When I first viewed the dance, I thought that the opening moments of the piece, when dancers race onto the stage from the wings to inhabit sneakers that had been strewn on the stage floor (a nice, very Peck-like opening image), might have been intended to direct the audience to view the dancers about to perform as “standing in the shoes” of the murder victims, but nothing that I could discern in the piece thereafter supported that.
The dance is roughly divided into relatively seamlessly flowing segments reflecting the movements of the composition. But I saw nothing on stage that visualized any sort of connection from one to the other. Following the opening moments when they find their sneakers, the six dancers assemble as pairs, lay on the floor, get up, whirl around, coalesce again into pairs or groups or for an occasional brief solo, but there’s nothing unusual here; it’s certainly a characteristic Peck sneaker dance, but none of Peck’s sparkle or staging ingenuity is present. That being said, Peck’s exuberant choreography was wonderfully executed by all six dancers here: Kapteyn, Catherne Whiting, Emily Barrows, Valentini, and Julian Goodwin-Ferris. They all did fine work with this exuberant dance.
New Jersey Ballet in a prior performance
of Lauren Lovette’s “Not Our Fate”
Photo Courtesy of New Jersey Ballet
The evening concluded with a repeat performance of Lauren Lovette’s Not Our Fate. And again the ten NJB dancers (led by Se Hyun Jin and Vazquez, with Barrows, Raleigh Bedford, Eunice Saba, Yuiko Honda, Aram Hengen, Vinicius Freire, Lopena, and Brian Sevilla) delivered a superb rendition of it. My only complaint has nothing to do with the dancers’ execution or Lovette’s choreography. As I believe I wrote when NJB first presented the piece, at its premiere with NYCB the program note referenced an eponymous poem by follow NYCB dancer Mary Elizabeth Sell that inspired Lovette, titled “Not Our Fate.” It’s unfortunate that the NJB audiences don’t have an opportunity to read it.
All in all, this program, under the umbrella title “Creative Forces,” was in nearly all respects a New York-quality performance. I look forward to more of the same in the future.
The post New Jersey Ballet – In the Night: Miracle in Morristown appeared first on CriticalDance.