\n<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was pandemonium,\u201d Maria Tallchief wrote in her memoir about her \u201cFirebird\u201d debut, in 1949. \u201cThe theater had turned itself into a football stadium, and the audience was in a frenzy.\u201d<\/p>\n
The only thing that went wrong was that they hadn\u2019t rehearsed the curtain calls.<\/p>\n
Tallchief was New York City Ballet\u2019s first star, a thrilling dancer and a part of why the company rose to become the most important in the country. This season, City Ballet paid tribute to Tallchief\u2019s centennial with a program of ballets that George Balanchine created for her: \u201cScotch Symphony\u201d (1952),\u201cSylvia: Pas de Deux\u201d (1950) and \u201cFirebird.\u201d<\/p>\n
Tallchief, of Osage descent, was a force, a testament to what American ballet could be. As the company\u2019s associate artistic director, Wendy Whelan, said in a curtain speech, \u201cHer discipline, musicality, power and integrity will forever be our north star.\u201d<\/p>\n
Throughout City Ballet\u2019s winter season, there were performances that inspired real celebration, if not quite pandemonium \u2014 especially Alexei Ratmansky\u2019s \u201cPaquita,\u201d<\/a> a valiant experiment pairing Balanchine\u2019s 1951 \u201cMinkus Pas de Trois\u201d with his own restaging of the Grand Pas Classique, the final act of \u201cPaquita.\u201d Ratmansky rejuvenated ballet while pushing his dancers to become better versions of themselves.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n To witness each cast, especially the formidable Mira Nadon in the ballerina role, was enlightening <\/span>because the dancing was so alive \u2014 a fresh take on how a ballet, even a historical one, could be progressive. The season\u2019s other new offering, Justin Peck\u2019s \u201cMystic Familiar,\u201d<\/a> was hardly that \u2014 its quest for innovation landed it in a place as earnest as its title.<\/p>\n I could have lived without the photographer Elizaveta Porodina\u2019s banners and prints<\/a>, presented as part of the company\u2019s Art Series, which turn dancers into blurry, interchangeable beings. But the range and beauty of City Ballet comes from the individuals that make up its ranks, including two glamorous talents who were promoted to principal dancer this season: Miriam Miller, a towering, willowy blond<\/a>; and Gilbert Bolden III, whose exceptional partnering and exuberant dancing make him indispensable. He is an artist who always gives his all.<\/p>\n The winter season wrapped up Sunday with \u201cSwan Lake.\u201d Here are some highlights.<\/p>\n \u2018Scotch Symphony\u2019<\/p>\n Indiana Woodward, as a soft, floating sylph, and Jovani Furlan, the man she encounters in a misty Scottish forest, had a sweet lavishness in \u201cScotch Symphony.\u201d Woodward, with exquisite detail and musicality, shone from her beautiful, open face to her finely etched arabesques and traveling bourr\u00e9es, in which she drifted across the floor untethered by gravity.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n The pairing of Mira Nadon and Miriam Miller in Balanchine\u2019s 1941 classic set to Bach\u2019s Double Violin Concerto in D minor \u2014 the lead women, in a display of vivid syncopation, illustrate the violins \u2014 was a ray of sunshine. The two dancers, with Miller making her debut, performed with shining ebullience. The smiles! The camaraderie! As dancers in the corps de ballet, Miller and Nadon always performed with a joyful warmth; here, together, they turned the heat on high.<\/p>\n \u2018Sylvia: Pas de Deux\u2019<\/p>\nIndiana Woodward and Jovani Furlan<\/h2>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
Megan Fairchild and Joseph Gordon<\/h2>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n