\n<\/p>\n
Putting a program of ballets together is like composing a delicious meal. An enticing beginning, something more substantial to follow, and a finale that leaves \u2019em wanting more. Creating that perfect menu is one of the most central and difficult tasks for a ballet company\u2019s artistic director, who must also consider how the mix of works will develop and challenge the dancers technically and artistically.<\/p>\n
\u201cI love thinking about all this,\u201d said Robert Garland, the artistic director of Dance Theater of Harlem, which will perform at New York City Center<\/a> from Thursday to Sunday. \u201cNo one really talks about it, but it\u2019s one of the most important parts of the job.\u201d<\/p>\n Garland, who danced with Dance Theater of Harlem from 1985 to 1998, was the company\u2019s resident choreographer before taking the helm in 2023<\/a>. For his second New York season, he has programmed George Balanchine\u2019s \u201cDonizetti Variations,\u201d William Forsythe\u2019s \u201cVertiginous Thrill of Exactitude,\u201d a new work (\u201cPassage of Being\u201d) by Jodie Gates, and two of his own pieces, \u201cThe Cookout\u201d and \u201cReturn.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n His intent with the programming, he said, goes back to his first experience of seeing Dance Theater of Harlem as a young boy in Philadelphia in the 1970s. \u201cThere was \u201cForces of Rhythm\u201d by Louis Johnson<\/a>, which mixed ballet and funky movement, and then the \u201cCorsaire\u201d pas de deux\u201d \u2014 a swashbuckling display of balletic virtuosity. \u201cI was just blown away that you could move from one to the other.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n He added, \u201cWhat I always want is for the works to speak back and forth; to have a conversation within the dancers\u2019 bodies.\u201d<\/p>\n Balanchine is always part of that conversation at Dance Theater of Harlem, Garland said, since Arthur Mitchell, who founded the company with Karel Shook, was the first Black principal dancer at the Balanchine-led New York City Ballet, and brought many of his mentor\u2019s ballets into the repertoire.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n And besides, Garland said, \u201che is my choreographic hero.\u201d<\/p>\n For this season, Garland decided on the effervescent \u201cDonizetti Variations\u201d (1960) set to music from the opera \u201cDon Sebastian.\u201d The ballet, in 13 sections, is essentially a long string of enchanting divertissements, asking for an unobtrusive allegro virtuosity from a principal couple and an ensemble of six women and three men.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n \u201cIt\u2019s a really challenging ballet,\u201d said Kyra Nichols, a former principal dancer with New York City Ballet<\/a>, who staged the work on Dance Theater of Harlem. \u201cIt\u2019s fast, with a lot of jumps and technical difficulties that aren\u2019t obvious. And it must look effortless and fun.\u201d<\/p>\n A challenge for the dancers, Nichols said, was to move with speed and attack but also know how to \u201cvary the texture; it can\u2019t all be the same intensity.\u201d<\/p>\n Kouadio Davis, who is performing in all the ballets over the course of the three-day City Center run, said he hadn\u2019t initially understood why Garland had chosen the very classical, prettily balletic \u201cDonizetti.\u201d But after learning the work, \u201cit just clicked,\u201d he said. \u201cIt\u2019s the perfect Balanchine piece for us right now, technically challenging in a way we are ready for.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n The choice of Forsythe\u2019s \u201cVertiginous,\u201d set to the finale of Schubert\u2019s \u201cSymphony No. 9,\u201d was a way of building on skills the company had developed through dancing his \u201cBlake Works IV (The Barre Project)\u201d last year. Forsythe, an American choreographer, has explored ballet\u2019s principles and techniques in a way that has helped to shape classical dance over the past few decades.<\/p>\n \u201cI really appreciate the way Mr. Forsythe and Mr. Balanchine use rhythm and syncopation; it\u2019s a very American approach to musicality,\u201d Garland said. \u201cForsythe really opens up the Schubert score to the ear of the dancer; it teaches them a kind of freedom within the constraints.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n \u201cVertiginous\u201d was originally choreographed in 1996 for three women and two men. But for Dance Theater, Forsythe asked Gates to create a new version, using six women alongside the male pair. A sparkling display of the traditional properties of ballet \u2014 classical technique, tutus, pointe shoes, a friendly display of formal manners \u2014 \u201cVertiginous\u201d is also notoriously tricky.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n \u201cOne ballerina said she would rather go through childbirth again!\u201d Forsythe said of a previous staging. \u201cIt has such high technical demand in the musicality, the detail and coordination, and it shifts dramatically from step to step at such high speed that not only is your body challenged, but your mind, too.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cIt was time to kick it up a notch,\u201d Garland said.<\/p>\n