Ballet : Fearful Minimalism From New York

Peter Martins’ “Fearful Symmetries,” which the New York City Ballet introduced to the West Coast at the Orange County Performing Arts Center on Friday, isn’t fearful at all. But it is rather doggedly symmetrical.

It also is fast, bright, primitive and energetic--to a fault. Eventually, it strikes at least one viewer as crude and dull. Martins’ relentless symmetries seem to celebrate little beyond the art of the repetitive grind.

This plotless ballet keeps its virtuosic dancers very busy. They run on, leap, twist and run off, often mechanically and usually in strict diagonal lines. Sometimes the lines crisscross methodically and metronomically. The breathless principals eventually meet in duets that thrive on mirror images and frantic yet neatly measured competitive brio.

For all its frenzy, the choreography develops nothing. It has nowhere to go. Martins seems to value the painfully obvious. Subtlety is not his forte.

This makes him a faithful translator of John Adams’ quasi-minimalist score. In the noisy pit, simplistic melodic gestures, dittoed motives and stubborn motor rhythms chug and bump in static harmony, onward but seldom upward. The sonic impulses are blurted with brazen resonance by a conventional orchestra equipped with trendy electronic obbligato.

Martins obediently provides a movement for every chug and a gesture for every bump. His choreography is nothing if not literal.

When Adams emits a mighty beep, a muscular male on the stage executes a matching jete. When the band pounds out a motoric ostinato, the frantic corps musters a staccato step for every beat.

To clarify the elementary structure, Martins dresses his cast in color-coded work costumes by Steven Rubin. To underscore the dynamic aggression of the musical impulse, Martins devises fussy switch-and-swap duets--Merrill Ashley and Alexandre Proia aggressively counterbalancing the inevitable Heather Watts and Jock Soto. The women, not incidentally, tend to get brutalized by the men.

Hints of neoclassical repose are allotted a third couple--Margaret Tracy and Albert Evans--but they are not allowed the luxury of honest lyricism. Martins tries to fake it instead at the very end with a tender pose for the central foursome--a silent study of entwined rapture. In context, it seems no more than an irrelevant, possibly even cynical afterthought.

The performance was splendid. Martins’ dancers gave him everything he demanded, and they gave it with dashing, daring conviction.

Ironically--and sadly--they seemed less comfortable, and less persuasive, in the noble neoclassicism of Balanchine’s “Chaconne,” which opened the triple bill. Created in 1976, this expanded suite from Gluck’s “Orfeo” used to focus the taut yet effortless fluidity of the Balanchine idiom. The performance on Friday looked anything but effortless.

The corps articulated the intricate ensembles with laissez-faire opera-house manners. Replacing the originally announced Maria Calegari in the exacting duties of the central ballerina, Merrill Ashley seemed uncharacteristically insecure. Adam Luders, a knowing veteran of many Balanchine wars, partnered her with style compromised by strain.

The evening ended with the razzle-dazzle of Balanchine’s “Stars and Stripes,” spiffily performed and--no surprise--ecstatically cheered.

Katrina Killian and Teresa Reyes tippy-toed with sassy elegance through their mock-military campaigns. Gen Horiuchi flew with elfin glee and demonic precision through his thunderous-gladiator routines. Melinda Roy brought muted glitter to the climactic escapades of “El Capitan,” partnered with breathtaking, heroic cheek by Damian Woetzel.

The circus bravura was elegantly served. So was the unblushing patriotic kitsch.