Dance Reviews : McKerrow, Chapman in ABT ‘Sleeping Beauty’

American Ballet Theatre turned mid-season to Sir Kenneth MacMillan’s familiar staging of “Sleeping Beauty” but mustered only a low-voltage performance Tuesday in Shrine Auditorium.

Amanda McKerrow was the lucid, precise Aurora, demonstrating consistent, some might say implacable, fineness of line, placement and balance.

But with her sharp attacks, her unmodulated, on-the-beat, narrow phrasings, McKerrow always seemed as if she had but a single, allegro conception of the role, no matter what the tempo. One missed repose, amplitude of gesture, variety and blossoming of line.

Her steely attacks eventually proved infectious, and Wes Chapman, her pallid Desire, exaggerated them into stiffly mechanical port de bras and clock-work terminations in his variation, though earlier he had seemed more concerned with princely elegance.

Neither expressed credible motivation; in that sense, the evening was all of a piece.

Christine Dunham made a cool Lilac Fairy, husbanding her resources and having initial problems of placement, but always seeming to inhabit her own emotionally distant orbit.

Michael Owen was a subdued, unthreatening Carabosse.

Robert Wallace danced the Bluebird with vaulting impulse, bounding jumps, occasionally smudged beats and frequent, reckless disregard of finish.

John Gardner danced his first Gold Variation effortfully and without sufficient control in turns.

The corps looked neat and precise in the Garland Waltz.

Jack Everly led a well-staffed pit orchestra with elan.