City Ballet Report: "2 and 3 Part Inventions" and "Apollo"

"E107" was my seat at New York City Ballet for $15, the student rate.  At first, I assumed I was in row 107, which made sense for the price of my ticket. Not so, as I found out later.

Out in the courtyard, the fountain I'd read about in The New Yorker was doing its magnificent display.  The water suddenly shoots up from its percolating resting position into patterns that suspend in the air for a second, then fall.  They were like fireworks made of water.  Soon the rain decided to join the show.

I headed to a Starbucks for dinner and bought a bistro box, a very nice pre-made lunch of prosciutto and salame, cheese, olives, lettuce, crackers, and a piece of chocolate for dessert.  Because of the rain, I chose the bistro box over something that might have been less expensive and farther away.  Standing room only in Starbucks.  I stood at the counter where people pick up their specialty drinks, like in the Italian cafés you hear about where people pay extra to sit.  What I refused to do was buy bottled water.

Back at Lincoln Center, I went to the bathroom where, to my surprise, there were stalls available, as a woman in black pointed out.  I told her I just wanted a drink, washed my hands, cupped them, and made up for not buying bottled water.  At intermission, the same woman was in the bathroom again telling people which stalls were available.  I took another drink.  She had a little white, ragged apron on, ragged like Apollo's tunic, and I realized then that Lincoln Center probably paid her to monitor the bathroom. The loo lady. 

When I got to my seat, I found that "E107" was fifth row, center.  I felt like a phoney, sitting there dressed up as if I had bought a very expensive seat.  Of course, I didn't pretend complacency but trumpeted my luck to people nearby.

To the ballet.  The first piece was "2 and 3 Part Inventions," choreographed by Jerome Robbins for a School of American Ballet workshop performance.  It's traditional to open a show with a white ballet, but in this one, the men broke dress code by wearing blue tights with their white undershirts.  A live pianist in her own spotlight played the inventions, in which the two hands play a duet with each other, taking turns with the melody.  In the ballet, pairs of dancers took turns at series' of steps.  The ballet seemed appropriate for a school performance in that the dancers really seemed to be playing with each other.  During one dance, two women slap their palms together, like in a handclap game, then shimmy up and down in that position.

This ballet was danced by very good company members, not principal dancers.  I was so close that I could see their smiles and the seams of their tights.  Each dancer had his or her own, unique part and individual flair to go with it.  Not at all a corps de ballet.  As a dancer starting out, City Ballet must be appealing for that reason (among others!).  By the way, one of most featured dancers had her hair not in a bun but in a French twist, another bit of individuality.

As a watched a dancer in white alone on the stage, I realized why dancers say that performing is freeing.  For so long, that concept evaded me.  Performing took what I could do passably well in the studio and made it ten times harder as my nerves took over.  Not freeing.

I realized last night, sitting in the packed house, how free the lone dancer was in so many ways.  She had space, time, and license to dance her heart out.  This dancer had the whole stage to herself in the middle of a crowded city.  She had the right to go up there and dance not her own steps but the choreography the way she wanted.   The whole audience was there to see her dance.  And unlike in rehearsal, there was no ballet master to stop her and tell her to do it differently.

In New York City, where else can you dance alone in such a big space?  You can't just start dancing on the sidewalk.  Before ballet class, everyone stretches, no one dances, and even if the big studio is there to dance in and leap across, it feels awkward to do so alone in front of everyone.  In class, you do the prescribed steps in a group.  In your apartment, you worry about making too much noise.  On stage, the dancer can go all out in a way she can't anywhere else.  She's free.

"Apollo," choreography by Balanchine, music by Stravinsky, surpassed my expectations, which were  a serious man in white tights and tunic dancing austerely.  No, it was a lighthearted ballet.  Apollo and his three muses danced and flirted in so many ways.  It seemed to me that the muses were vying for Apollo's attention and that he wasn't particularly interested in them.  At times, they seemed to be creating architecture with their arms and legs.  They made archways and went through each other and wove among themselves in the style of a folk dance. At the end, the dancers stagger their arabesques to create a stunning final pose.  It reminded me of that drawing of the supposedly perfectly-proportioned man whose outstretched arms and legs fit in a circle. 

One thing I didn't like about "Apollo" was the beginning, when Apollo pretends to strum a mandolin-like instrument as a solo violin plays double-stops with a bow.  Incongruous.

I noticed that a lot of the dancers looked younger than I am.  An odd realization.  Not only am I not good enough/not cut out to dance professionally "when I grow up," but I'm also getting old!   I'm still young enough to be taken seriously in classes.  Cherish it!

I didn't stay for the third ballet of the night.  I got my money's worth, and I'll be back again!