The times run. The title of the choreographic piece that the American Justin Peck has created for the New York City Ballet, the company that George Balanchine founded in its day and that is called to keep the essences of its incomparable neoclassicism, already says it. With that Times are racing, the New York troupe momentarily freed itself from those duties and delved into the rhythm, energy, enjoyment and joie de vivre that marked the time of the eighties, when the legendary Mikhail Baryshnikov was willing to put his classic technique at the service of other pop styles.
The zenith of all this was the premiere of the film Noches de sol with which Baryshnikov recreated his own experience as a dancer defecting from the former Soviet Union, and exorcised an eventual forced landing that returned him to the nightmare of repression in Saint Petersburg. The wonder of having him on screen alongside tap dancer Gregory Hines displaying savoir faire under the orders of choreographer Twyla Tharp is one of the fabulous appointments and tributes to the world of dance that Peck does with the New York City Ballet.
The audience at the Teatro Real has had an enthusiastic reaction this week, in each of the performances. Those who understood ballet were able to detect not only that quote but many others linked to the language of Maurice Béjart that produced such an impact in the second half of the 20th century. The New York City Ballet allowed itself to leave the headquarters and travel beyond the pond as something unusual in its career. “We are not a company that rotates,” commented its artistic director, Jonathan Stafford during the drink after one of the functions. “It has been due to the commitment of the Teatro Real that we have finally decided to debut in this Madrid square”.
Indeed, the only presence that is remembered of the mythical company of the Lincoln Center, which faces the most international American Ballet Theater, is its visit to the Gran Teatre del Liceu in the fifties, when it had not been five years since It had been founded by George Balanchine, the incomparable Russian choreographer who had fled the revolution with Diaghilev’s Les Ballets Russes. His work would go down in the annals for its refined and innovative neoclassical style. On this occasion at the Real, they performed ‘Serenade’, based on Tchaikovsky’s score, and ‘Square Dance’, with music by Corelli and Vivaldi.
The company’s elegance, however, is conditioned by the double training of its dancers, who in the 21st century have to interpret both Balanchine’s historical repertoire and new dances and hip hop. In this sense, the port-de-bras of the dancers lack at times the subtlety and poise required by the work of the Russian creator, although it vibrates in that The times are racing that Peck created in 2017 when Donald’s rise to power Trump inspired him with a kind of rebellion and a look at the fresh past.
