Arts & Entertainment
Masterworks in MotionPhoto Credit: NJ Ballet
By MaireFrances Psomas-Jackloski
Published March 22, 2025 at 8:28 PM
MORRISTOWN, NJ - Masterworks in Motion : Balanchine, Martins and More performed on March 15, 2025 at the Mayo Performing Arts Center in Morristown NJ, was a lovely compilation of four pieces intertwined with flitting and weightless art through movement that held the audience in a warm embrace. Showcasing three choreographers' works within the talented company of the New Jersey Ballet, the audience was taken on a trip through movement and imagination.
The first piece, Concerto Barocco, choreographed by George Balanchine with Music by Bach, opened with two perfect parallel lines of dancers dressed in all white rippling through movements as the piece commenced. As cited by Balanchine himself, the ballet “has no ‘subject matter’ beyond the score”, which gave the audience permission to add their own storyline to the piece, individualizing each viewer’s imagination within the movement. The airy coupes and lifted arms reminisced of flowers swaying through the wind. The plié adapted to the feeling of the dance by contradicting the down movement with an upright body heightened to the sky. The duet, or pas de deux, within the dance, exemplified the effortless lifts by two male dancers of their female partners further showing the imagery of a petal sailing through the wind, quietly beautiful. The arabesques were gorgeously lengthened, reminding the viewer of a growing plant, strong and tall, reaching to the sky. The weaving and threading of the dancers moving through one another with playful hits of the heel or toe, with a tondu on a bended supporting leg, and fourth position arms, created a beautiful presentation for the dancers to enter and move through. The synchronicity of the movements throughout the piece also played to the likeness and uniformity nature also gives to us. This piece overall gave the audience a glimpse of what Mother Nature could look like, translated into dance.
The following piece, Tarantella, a 1964 work choreographed by Balanchine and the Music Grand Tarantella for Piano and Orchestra, OP.67 composed by Louis Moreau, showed juxtaposition to the previous work of weightless grace, high energy and delight. This pas de deux exploded with movement and a flurry of bright colors. The costuming images of what could be a Russian Doll and a Pirate were clear from the moment the dancers came on stage. The gusto and enthusiasm translated by movement continued with tambourines that were brought out in the second half of this performance. Using these tambourines to cite the vivacious jest, brought even more excitement to the viewer. The sass of the mischievous dancer was exhibited through a second position with an accentuated bent knee and a smirk of the face. This piece was packed with the energy moving faster and faster like atoms in boiling water. I could only imagine the dancers being out of breath each time they had an opportunity to be off stage. It was truly an incredible feat of energy and endurance. Ending the dance with a playful pirouette battle, the male performer on bended knee hits the tambourine towards the ballerina’s turning ankle as she completes consecutive turns. As the pas de deux exits the stage, it ends with a playful kiss on the cheek by the male performer as the female performer gasps in excitement, with the audience erupting in good willed laughter and grand applause.
The Purcell Suite was perhaps the most intricate and extensive performance of the entire night exemplifying technicality, musicality, emotion and stamina. Choreographed by Harrison Ball with Music by Henry Purcell and Costumes by Zac Posen, a former Project Runway Judge, the Purcell Suite opened on twelve dancers in long silk-like blue and black dresses with a dark staged background giving the initial mood a somber feel. Bound together by a seemingly invisible force, dancers were alway pulled back together no matter how far they strayed from this group. This quiet pulse of the dancers, immersed in what presented as existential crisis and lamenting, was perhaps, the most prominent of themes that resonated throughout the eight combined movements. The resolution of the numerous extension of their arms to the sky and down to the ground, with yearning expressed through their hands and elongated necks, showed the pain within the movement longing for peace in the narrative of the dancer. In what I found to be the most entrancing part of the entire piece, was the ominous shadowing as the ensemble rejoined the nucleus of the group. A deeper dimension to their pain and suffering was showcased by a powerful lamenting aria. The last few minutes of the piece pictured a semi-circle of dancers standing tall and still as one soloist moved through what could be seen as struggle, pain and agony as she reached towards the sky, encircled her own body with a turn, with her dress leaving a long exposure of movement behind her. This arrangement continues three to four times more with each soloist bringing a new image of agony and strength to the stage, almost resembling the life and hardship that a woman might experience in loss.
The last and final piece of the performance was the Hallelujah Junction, choreographed by Peter Martins. This piece started with individuals back and white costumes, bringing forth the idea of contrast and duality. The piece, although full of soloists and pas de trios, or three dancers, had a heavy influence of pas de deux, or duets, within the piece. The dancer's flexibility and stamina was exemplary within this piece, increasing the energy as they went on. The tendu, or a pointed leg, and grand battement, or large kick, were as sharp and as crisp as the staged four cornered arrangement of dancers. A singular soloist danced through the space in a way that reminded me of an actualized run of musical notes on the treble clef. There was an incredibly impressive pique turning sequence around the stage by a male performer ending in a grand pose that made many in the audience take an audible breath or comment at the astounding feat of the dancer. The ending of the piece paired up each of the dancers again, showing the true contrasting of the colors while the movement painted a vivid picture of joy and energy through a pirouette sequence and elevated bodies.
Each of these works were the encapsulation of emotions and stories within the classical ballet vocabulary. Filled with highs and lows, even encouraging the audience to look deeper into the meaning of the movements, it gave the viewer the opportunity to escape on a trip of wonder and awe.