Ballet galas are a special species of performance, as much about schmoozing and speeches and gowns as about the dancing. Ballets made for such occasions tend to fall into certain patterns and formulas: usually upbeat and often emphasizing opportunities for dancers to show off. As with any genre, a gala-style piece can be done in a rote or fresh manner, and at New York City Ballet’s spring gala on Thursday, the two premieres were fresh enough.
In their connections to the company, the choreographers presented a contrast. Justin Peck, City Ballet’s resident choreographer and artistic adviser, was contributing his 24th work for the troupe. Amy Hall Garner, a midcareer, newly in-demand choreographer, was offering her first. But these dancemakers were similar in what they delivered: the usual, with a twist.
Following George Balanchine’s “Rubies,” Peck’s piece came first. His formula was the taking-turns, challenge-dance pas de deux; his cast, the reliably marvelous team of Tiler Peck and Roman Mejia. The main twist was the choice of music: Vijay Iyer’s “Dig the Say” — which gave the dance its title — is inspired by James Brown. It takes a string quartet (here the PUBLIQuartet) and makes it funky.
A challenge-dance duet is home territory for these performers, well equipped with the firepower to pull off escalation. But the dynamic was playfully emphasized here with another twist: a ball. Trading off, the dancers passed it, sometimes bouncing it off the back wall — he had a ball, she had a ball, and they had a ball together. It was cute.
Brandon Stirling Baker lit the piece with elegance, his scenic design putting stenciled numbers on the wings that suggested a warehouse or maybe an old gym. Humberto Leon dressed the dancers in gray and black. It was their skill, though, that made the performance more than cute.
Tiler Peck is famously musical (and Roman Mejia is no slouch). Her extraordinary control makes her a master of time, and the choreography took advantage of this. It used her ability to change speed or stop at will to catch the percussiveness of funk, but it also slowed down to stretch over the groove. The duet ended traditionally, with the standard climax of fouettés and grand pirouettes, yet even these had a slightly altered rhythm. Not exactly a brand-new bag, but a fun variation on a classic model.
Garner’s piece, “Underneath, There Is Light,” was also unusual in its choice of music. Garner likes suites, usually in mixtape form — four or five recorded tracks by different artists that she orders for a desired flow. But for this commission, she had use of City Ballet’s orchestra and came up with a kind of orchestral mixtape: five unrelated pieces or movements, each by a different composer, none of them the usual suspects.
The first was Jonathan Dove’s “Run to the Edge,” and the dancers did run, hurriedly crossing the stage in both directions. What followed, while dotted with brief solos and duets, was very much an ensemble piece, featuring dancers across rank. (Taylor Stanley did not perform because of an injury. Gilbert Bolden III and David Gabriel valiantly shared Stanley’s parts.)
Garner’s recent high-profile commissions have been for modern dance troupes, like Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater and the Paul Taylor Dance Company. “Underneath” proved that she knows ballet. The choreography had fluency and some snap.
Apart from a few twisty steps for Miriam Miller, who bent her knees precariously while balanced on pointe, there wasn’t much invention in vocabulary or small-scale distinctiveness. Where Garner excelled was in overall flow and drive, in collective design in motion — three couples joined by a soloist, soon joined by a partner, all of them soon to be replaced by three more dancers moving in canon pattern and so forth. (The hanging sails of Mark Stanley’s set, which counted down the work’s sections in reverse by rising out of sight one by one, did not move so smoothly.)
Garner’s choreography picked up on the Latin tinge in part of William Grant Still’s “Danzas de Panama” and mirrored the fugue form in Aldemaro Romero’s “Suite for Strings.” At the end, the work shifted into a dreamier mood, the dancers changing from sparkly black costumes (by Marc Happel) into sunny yellow dresses for the women and awkward gray unitards for the barelegged men.
Now the music was from Respighi’s “The Pines of Rome,” a lush piece of old-fashioned nocturnal romance that includes a recording of a nightingale. Risking mawkishness, the work took on a hushed shimmer. Gently tweaking convention, Garner made an accomplished debut. Not bad for a gala.
New York City Ballet
Through June 2; nycballet.com.
