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It was, as Robert Garland said from the stage, a momentous occasion for him. Greeting the crowd at his first New York City Center season as the artistic director of Dance Theater of Harlem, he spoke warmly of the company\u2019s co-founder: \u201cArthur Mitchell was my mentor, my hero, and he\u2019s watching down from upstairs saying, \u2018Get it right, Robert.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
The line earned laughs, but had the ring of truth \u2014 Mitchell<\/a> was an exacting director. And on Thursday, Garland showed that he was getting some things right: Dance Theater, now in its 55th season, has a vintage kind of glow. It isn\u2019t like it was in the robust old days, but it is refreshed. The company, along with its dancers, seems to be more sure of itself: It\u2019s growing into a sense of style.<\/p>\n Honoring Mitchell was a reminder of why Dance Theater, born after the assassination of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. in 1968, started in the first place. Along with showcasing the transformative power of ballet, Garland writes in the program, Mitchell used Dance Theater as a means for social justice in part by way of its repertoire: George Balanchine ballets were performed alongside works by Black choreographers like Geoffrey Holder. That considered, caring curation remains.<\/p>\n While there is no Garland premiere this season \u2014 he wants to get to know his dancers better before he creates a new ballet for them \u2014 Thursday\u2019s program featured his charming, upbeat \u201cNyman String Quartet No. 2,\u201d which braids social dance with classical ballet. Nyman\u2019s music still drones on, but since 2019, when the ballet premiered<\/a>, the dancers have found greater ease and stamina as they weave through in its jaunty combinations of dance forms. And it made an added impression sharing the program with \u201cPas de Dix\u201d (1955), Balanchine\u2019s homage to Marius Petipa and his three-act \u201cRaymonda\u201d (1898).<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n A company premiere, \u201cPas de Dix,\u201d set to Alexander Glazunov\u2019s lively score, was staged by the former New York City Ballet principal Kyra Nichols. Watching the dancers, a lead couple and an ensemble of eight, perform \u201cPas de Dix\u201d was, in its best moments, like seeing glimpses of Nichols gliding through space: technical and free with in-the-moment musicality. With such a tinny recording (none of the evening\u2019s music was played live), this was a feat.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n As a dancer, Nichols seemed to breathe through the music; in \u201cPas de Dix,\u201d her cast moves with gumption. Kamala Saara and Kouadio Davis, the leads, do well enough \u2014 especially Saara, whose command and control contrast beautifully with her expressive arms and hands, which frame her face while shaping the air. But the ballet is exposing, both in manner and physicality; organizing the body \u2014 soft and open on top and rock solid on the bottom \u2014 is a fierce balancing act.<\/p>\n These dancers need to perform it on repeat so that they find their individuality in it \u2014 essentially, wearing the ballet instead of letting it wear them. But it\u2019s a start. The original female lead was the formidable Native American ballerina Maria Tallchief<\/a>, a favorite of Mitchell\u2019s; her elegance and verve, even in photographs, are tremendous. \u201cPas de Dix\u201d is a meaningful follow-up to the company\u2019s performances last season of Balanchine\u2019s \u201cAllegro Brillante\u201d (1956), another bravura ballet that featured Tallchief.<\/p>\n Ballet can refer to many things in this day and age, but to perform Balanchine well is still what it\u2019s all about \u2014 especially for this company, which was known, particularly in its early days, for dancing his ballets and dancing them well.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n In the New York premiere of Robert Bondara\u2019s \u201cTake Me With You,\u201d<\/a> set to the Radiohead song \u201cReckoner,\u201d Amanda Smith \u2014 in tight black shorts with a white button-down tied in a knot above her waist \u2014 enters the darkened stage clapping her hands. Elias Re, costumed the same with his shirt untied, stands behind her, snapping his fingers before spinning Smith in his arms, sharply at first and then more gingerly.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n As the choreography flickers between sharp and dreamy, the dancers \u2014 sleek yet still somehow vulnerable \u2014 are swept along by the music. Bondara, a Polish choreographer, makes room for give and take. Even as the dancers roll on the floor or grab each other\u2019s limbs, you get the sense that this is a partnership.<\/p>\n When Smith bends over Re\u2019s chest and taps her fingers on his torso to the beat of the music, he doesn\u2019t flinch but arches backward. \u201cTake Me With You\u201d is both unstuffed and unsentimental: There may be darkness swirling around the world, but they have each other, strangely and endearingly like a modern-day Nick and Nora.<\/a><\/p>\n While long, Thursday\u2019s program had range. It ended with William Forsythe\u2019s \u201cBlake Works IV (The Barre Project),\u201d part of a series of dances set to the electronic music of James Blake. Created for Dance Theater in 2023, it features a ballet barre at the back of the stage, which operates first as a base and then as a launching platform for dancers, in gleaming purple, who perform contained barre exercises before peeling off into the stage\u2019s wider space. This Forsythe work, you can tell, has been good for them all. They wear it. They hear its propulsive beat, and they have made it their own.<\/p>\n Dance Theater of Harlem<\/strong><\/p>\n Through Sunday at New York City Center, Manhattan; nycitycenter.org<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n