It was, as Robert Garland said from the stage, an important occasion for him. Greeting the crowd in his first season at New York City Center as artistic director of Dance Theater of Harlem, he spoke warmly of the company’s co-founder: “Arthur Mitchell was my mentor, my hero, and he’s watching from upstairs saying, ‘Get it right, Robert.’
The series earned laughs, but it had the ring of truth – Mitchell was a demanding director. And on Thursday, Garland showed he got some things right: Dance Theater, now in its 55th season, has a vintage sheen. It’s not like it was in the rugged old days, but it’s refreshed. The troupe, along with its dancers, seems more self-assured: It’s growing in a sense of style.
Mitchell’s honor was a reminder of why Dance Theater, born after the assassination of Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. in 1968, he started from first place. Along with demonstrating the transformative power of ballet, Garland writes in the program, Mitchell used Dance Theater as a means of social justice in part through its repertoire: ballets by George Balanchine were performed alongside works by black choreographers such as Geoffrey Holder. In view of this, the care of custody remains.
Although there is no Garland premiere this season — he wants to get to know his dancers better before creating a new ballet for them — Thursday’s program included the charming, upbeat “Nyman String Quartet No. 2,” which combines social dance with classical ballet. Nyman’s music continues to run, but since 2019, when he premiered the ballet, the dancers have found greater ease and endurance as they weave the joyous combinations of dance forms. And it made an added impression sharing the program with “Pas de Dix” (1955), Balanchine’s tribute to Marius Petipa and his three-act play “Raymonda” (1898).
A company premiere, “Pas de Dix,” with live music by Alexander Glazunov, was staged by former New York City Ballet principal Kyra Nichols. Watching the dancers, a lead couple and an ensemble of eight, perform “Pas de Dix” was, at its best, like catching glimpses of Nichols gliding through space: technical and free with musicality in the moment. With such a small recording (none of the evening’s music was performed live), this was quite a feat.
As a dancer, Nichols seemed to breathe through the music. in “Pas de Dix,” her cast moves with gusto. Kamala Saara and Kouadio Davis, the leads, do quite well — especially Saara, whose command and control contrast beautifully with her expressive arms and hands, which frame her face while shaping the air. But ballet exposes, both in manner and physicality. Organizing the body—soft and open on top and firm on the bottom—is a tough balancing act.
These dancers have to do it over and over again, so they find their individuality in it — in effect, wearing the ballet instead of letting it wear them. But it’s a start. The original female lead was the the formidable Native American ballerina Maria Tallchief;, a favorite of Mitchell’s; Its elegance and shine, even in photographs, is immense. “Pas de Dix” is a substantial follow-up to the company’s performances last season of Balanchine’s “Allegro Brillante” (1956), another bravura ballet that featured Tallchief.
Ballet may mean many things these days, but Balanchine playing well is still the point — especially for this company, which was known, particularly in its early days, for dancing its ballets and dancing them good.
At the New York premiere “Take Me With You” by Robert Bondara, set to Radiohead’s “Reckoner,” Amanda Smith—in tight black shorts with a white button knotted above her waist—enters the darkened stage flapping her arms. Elias Re, dressed in the same uniform with his shirt undone, stands behind her, snapping his fingers before twirling Smith in his arms, abruptly at first, then more grimly.
As the choreography flickers between sharp and dreamy, the dancers—elegant but still somewhat vulnerable—are swept away by the music. Bondara, a Polish choreographer, leaves room for give and take. Even when the dancers roll on the floor or grab each other’s limbs, you get the sense that this is a partnership.
When Smith leans over Re’s chest and taps her fingers against his torso to the beat of the music, she doesn’t flinch, but leans back. “Take Me With You” isn’t bloated and unsentimental: There may be darkness swirling around the world, but they have each other, strangely and lovably like modern Nick and Nora.
While long, Thursday’s program had scope. It ended with “Blake Works IV (The Barre Project)” by William Forsythe, part of a series of dances set to the electronic music of James Blake. Created for Dance Theater in 2023, it features a ballet barre at the back of the stage, which acts first as a base and then as a launch platform for dancers, in glowing purple, who perform barre exercises before peeling off into the wider area scene. space. This Forsythe play, you might say, was good for everyone. They wear it. They hear its propulsive beat and have made it their own.
Dance Theater of Harlem
Through Sunday in downtown New York, Manhattan. nycitycenter.org.