JEWELS

Review by Celia Ipiotis

The shape of a dance phrase says as much about a ballet as the actual steps. In George Balanchine’s Jewels it’s all about the shape. Inspired by his love of rare jewels and contact with Van Cleef and Arpels, each section of the 1967 ballet — Emeralds, Rubies and Diamonds — reveals its own singular shape.

Mira Nadon and Ashley Laracey, were the featured dancers in the delicate, finely crafted Emeralds section set to Faure. Whereas both alighted excellently on the dance’s lyrical rhymes, Laracey transformed the choreography into the poetry of movement. An impressively tall ballerina, Emily Kikta, worked hard to wrangle her wonderfully long limbs around the quicksilver movement. 

Energized by the dynamic Stravinsky score performed by pianist Stephen Gosling, Rubies  demanded a light-hearted friskiness provided by Emma Von Enck and Anthony Huxley. They ran and pranced like ponies; mirrored each other’s multiple turns and leaps in a charmingly competitive exchange.

Elegantly designed, Diamonds bedazzled all with glittering garlands of white diamonds strung across the stage. Unity Phelan stretched into arabesques that compressed into sparkly turns to the grand music of Tschaikovsky.  Partnered by the up and coming Owen Flacke who managed his solo sequences with grace, Phelan teetered a bit in his arms during her high-backed arches and balances.

In the final processional, a stage full of regally poised dancers created a grand scale vision that evoked the gracious ballrooms of a long-gone era.

EYE ON THE ARTS, NY — Celia Ipiotis