Bravura Moves for an Old Crowd Pleaser

<First published online in the New York Times on June 23, 2007>

BECKET, Mass., June 21 — Some ballets, alas, are fragile. Others, alack, are indestructible. I have often wished Petipa’s tutu-Spanish “Don Quixote” were more frail than it is: It’s the kind of ballet-as-circus event that seldom turns into art, but its virtuosity and its music’s razzmatazz are such that you can eliminate the title character and the plot, interleave individual dances from earlier acts into the grand pas de deux from Act III, cram it all onto a small stage to taped music, and still it’s “Don Q,” that whiz-bang crowd-pleaser.

Witness the “Don Quixote Grand Divertissement” arranged (originally in 1993) by Nina Ananiashvili and Frank Andersen and currently presented at Jacob’s Pillow by Ms. Ananiashvili and her State Ballet of Georgia: It’s a cheerily glamorous potpourri of bravura for 11 dancers (four of whose names end in “ashvili”).

Two ballerinas get to dance the heroine’s famous 32 fouetté turns side by side (one of them stays on the spot, the other travels forward), and four men simultaneously get to spin in the hero’s spectacular pirouettes. Though three of the men spun to the left, and one to the right, this was recognizably the old war horse, with dancers being as proudly mock-Hispanic as point work, pirouettes and music by Ludwig Minkus will allow.

It’s meant to showcase its dancers, and more or less succeeds. Ms. Ananiashvili’s Georgians prove to be accomplished and stylish. They can’t turn this into art, but they suggest that they could be artists in a range of other ballets.

Ms. Ananiashvili, partnered by Sergei Filin, confined her appearances to the opening and closing sections: the adagio and the coda of the grand pas de deux. She knows how to pull off the big moments effectively and with a winningly wide-eyed semblance of freshness.

This was, of course, the program’s finale. Interestingly, the Jacob’s Pillow audience seemed to prefer its centerpiece, Trey McIntyre’s “Second Before the Ground.” Created in 1996 for the Houston Ballet (and staged for the Georgians by Alexei Fadeyechev), this work, to a Kronos Quartet arrangement of African music, is apparently based on an African legend about a person recalling life’s happiest and most important moments just before death.

“Second” is as determined to win its audience with effects of bright dance charm as “Don Q” is by sheer virtuosity, and in the small Ted Shawn Theater the spontaneity it gives its dancers is appealing. Again, you see how skilled these dancers are: the sheer polish of the men is striking, with brilliant definition of beaten jumps and ready assurance in lifting women high overhead.

The fragile item is the opener, Balanchine’s “Mozartiana” (1981). Though anyone used to seeing this on a big opera-house stage will be fascinated to see how its choreography changes on a small one, the exposure that its exacting Theme and Variations finale places on its leading man and woman is intense. Nino Gogua and Lasha Khozashvili, both handsome, were far too guarded and dignified to reveal the choreography’s astounding wit.

This triple bill, though unsatisfying for connoisseurs of choreography, demonstrates how much has been achieved in Georgian ballet. Ms. Ananiashvili, who took over this company in 2004, must have inherited dancers who were already good, but she has established a high standard of achievement. Under her leadership the company has acquired 24 ballets, including two by Ashton and seven by Balanchine.

Put these dancers on a big stage with live music and they can do Georgia proud. Right now they start Jacob’s Pillow’s 75th-anniversary season with an international buzz: bright, strong ballet from afar amid the far-from-the-madding-crowd green shade of Massachusetts.

@New York Times, 2007