Timothée Chalamet’s offhand comment that nobody cares about ballet led to public outrage. And while there was truth to what he said, there are, of course, people who do care. Exactly why they care is another story. After railing against Chalamet, Doja Cat admitted she had never been to a performance. The best possible scenario: Chalamet could actually drive people into seats.
Loving ballet isn’t tricky. It’s an extraordinary art form that also happens to be as slippery and unrecoverable as sand, and that’s more than good, it’s a relief. Ballet is truly of the moment. It forces you to pay attention, to live inside of something you could never do yourself — at least at such an extraordinary level.
Now, as New York City Ballet opens its spring season on Tuesday night, there’s a chance to do more than just defend ballet’s right to exist. This company — with its sophisticated repertoire, featuring treasures by its founding choreographer George Balanchine — is unparalleled, certainly in the city but also in much of the world.
Dancers hold this enterprise together, and at City Ballet what is most prized is individuality. Success is rooted not just in performing the steps with accuracy and musicality, but also in the dancers bringing themselves to their roles, so that a seemingly effortless radiance suspends time. You may find you love some dancers more than others. You keep watching. You change your mind. You start to follow casting, which is available about two weeks out, as someone who has skin in the game. Someone who cares.
What am I watching for this season? Dancers returning to the stage, including one coming back after having a child (Unity Phelan) and another making his way back from a harrowing onstage injury (Gilbert Bolden III). How has their offstage life affected their performing life? Take care to watch one dancer who will be retiring soon after 25 years: Megan Fairchild, who performs her farewell in May. She’ll be there on opening night in Balanchine’s “Symphony in C” likely dancing her heart out as she always does. It’s her last season, and she wants to have fun.
And if you’re new to ballet, “Symphony in C” is a perfect first work. The glittering finale, with lines of dancers performing superhuman feats with nothing more than their brains and bodies, is practically a protest dance against artificial intelligence.
Some dancers are rebounding off a winter season rich with debuts. And one got a deserved promotion: Ryan Tomash is now a principal. Tomash is self-possessed and unaffected, a natural partner and the kind of dancer who puts the choreography first. In doing so, his dancing makes ballet burn brighter.
In Jerome Robbins’s “Dances at a Gathering” and in “Flower Festival in Genzano Pas de Deux,” by August Bournonville, Tomash, a Canadian dancer on leave from the Royal Danish Ballet, showed how unselfconscious grace and relaxed spontaneity produce dancing that wakes you right up.
This week, Tomash is set to debut in the mysterious second movement of “Symphony in C” opposite Dominika Afanasenkov, who is more than a special dancer — a true ballerina in the making. Musical and lush, with lustrous technique, Afanasenkov has the drama of a free spirit. She dances without artifice; it’s clear even in a still photograph from “Dances at a Gathering.”
On Friday, Afanasenkov debuts as the Prince’s Bride in Balanchine’s “Firebird,” dancing opposite Preston Chamblee, another soloist. His simple and noble way of grounding the stage has made him a dancer of deep value, as he more than made clear as Gold in the “Jewels” pas de quatre from “The Sleeping Beauty” last season. In “Firebird,” he plays Prince Ivan. This fits.
Making a lavish Aurora debut in “Beauty” was Mira Nadon, an astonishing ballerina who this week debuts — along with Chamblee — in the second movement of “Symphony in C.” Glorious for both her opulence and abandon, Nadon also returns to “Diamonds” (it was mind-blowing last season) and makes a debut in “Agon,” a Balanchine-Stravinsky ballet from 1957 that remains the epitome of Neo-Classicism. With her cool glamour? Come on.
Roman Mejia, another young principal, made his debut in “Prodigal Son” last season, cementing his stature as a vital Balanchine interpreter. Full of boyish swagger, he lent the role real and raw urgency whether soaring in the air (his floating height!), being seduced by his Siren (a menacing Emily Kikta!) or crawling on bloody knees back to his father in exhaustion and humiliation (simply agonizing). Next week, he is scheduled to debut in the first movement of “Symphony in C,” and he is also cast in Alexei Ratmansky’s frisky “Concerto DSCH” — the same night Afanasenkov makes her debut as the lead. (See? She’s going places.)
Dancers in the corps de ballet deserve some attention, too. Kloe Walker, who dazzled with confidence and control in a divertissement from Balanchine’s “Raymonda Variations” and in another in Ratmansky’s “Paquita,” is growing beyond her technique. She can balance like nobody’s business. But the best part about watching Walker now is seeing her private delight as she tests the waters — playing with gravity, finding more freedom and surprising even herself. She dances a lead in Alexei Ratmansky’s “Voices” this week and next.
Ruby Lister will dance a lead role in “Voices” this weekend, and next week, they make a debut in Edwaard Liang’s “Distant Cries.” The magic of Lister didn’t suddenly make itself known during the winter season — I’ve been entranced by their exuberant dancing for years — but a performance of Robbins’s “Antique Epigraphs” sealed the deal. Lister, who uses they/them pronouns, glowed with a calm and mysterious prowess as they gently yet firmly lingered in the choreography’s sculptural shapes. Holding the stage with an understated elegance and a modern transparency, Lister has always been capable of greatness. Now there are opportunities to really show it.
Gia Kourlas is the dance critic for The Times. She writes reviews, essays and feature articles and works on a range of stories.
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