Kings Of Dance
The intriguing Kings of the Dance program, which visited Los Angeles in February, assembled a dream team—American Ballet Theatre’s Ethan Stiefel, the Bolshoi Ballet’s Nikolai Tsiskaridze, Johan Kobborg of Britain’s The Royal Ballet and ABT’s Angel Corella—showcased in mostly new choreography.
As principal danseurs, all four spend large chunks of time maneuvering around a ballerina’s tutu with a few brief moments to strut their stuff. Not this time. The four masterful dancers, all at their peaks, enjoyed a boys’ night out.
The opening performance at the Orange County Performing Arts Center was still incorporating program changes. Sadly, classical variations were replaced with videotaped rehearsal excerpts. Other rehearsal footage cleverly segued into Christopher Wheeldon’s For 4, set to Schubert’s Death and the Maiden Quartet. This new pas de quatre emphasized camaraderie punctuated by overlapping solos and duets choreographed to individual strengths: Stiefel’s control and intelligence, Tsiskaridze’s stage-devouring grands jetés, Kobborg’s impeccable batterie and artistic depth, and Corrella’s endless spins and general joy in dancing.
Act II involved a problematic selection, Fleming Flindt’s The Lesson, where a demented ballet teacher torments and then brutally kills a young student. Guest artist Alina Cojocaru brilliantly embodied the doomed bunhead and Zenaida Yanowsky (both Royal Ballet principals) oozed as the pianist and accomplice. The four kings were slated to alternate as the teacher, but Stiefel demurred and Kobborg took on the extra duty. These fellows usually portray princes and rarely have the chance to get in touch with their inner psychopaths. Corella revealed seldom displayed dramatic and demonic depth.
But some young audience members and their parents were shell-shocked after watching an eager, young ballet student assaulted by her teacher. With the show’s focus on expanding opportunities for male dancers and reaching beyond the usual ballet audience, no one seems to have considered how this ballet could offend.
Things were back on track with Act III’s glorious solos. In Nils Christie’s Wavemaker, Stiefel moved from isolated finger twitches into waves of movement that propelled him into the air and onto the floor. Roland Petit edited his Carmen into a theatrical hoot, as Tsiskaridze portrayed three different characters with onstage costume changes and then, after becoming Don José, killed himself as Carmen. In Tim Rushton’s Afternoon of a Faun, Kobborg was an ethereal creature in mysterious, fog-shrouded semidarkness. Captivated by three shafts of light, he reveled in the sheer, tactile pleasure of their warmth in that dark, damp netherworld. Stanton Welch paid homage to Twyla Tharp in We Got It Good, with Corella gleefully larking about between crowd-pleasing athletic displays.
Each night, to standing ovations, the quartet cut loose with a semi-competitive barrage of pyrotechnics, like kids unwilling to leave the playground. But the image of Kobborg frolicking in a magical forest remained the most haunting.
Ann Haskins writes about dance for L.A. Weekly and Dance Spirit.
