TV REVIEW : PBS’ ‘Accent on the Offbeat’ a Look at a Creative Mismatch

A fascinating study in creative misalliance turns up tonight on the PBS “Dance in America” series. Documenting a collaboration between composer Wynton Marsalis and choreographer Peter Martins, “Accent on the Offbeat” highlights the loose, improvisational creative process Marsalis encourages in his ensemble of jazz musicians versus the more rigid working methods that Martins enforces at New York City Ballet.

But be warned: This telecast is a third shorter than the version released on home video last year by Sony Classical. You won’t seen the complete Martins-Marsalis ballet “Jazz (Six Syncopated Movements)” at the end--only two sections. However, they are enough to confirm that Martins was the wrong choice for this project.

As he confesses in an interview segment, Martins was initially confused by Marsalis’ commissioned score, and as we watch him struggling toward creative certainty, he begins stifling the jazz impulse by insisting on inflexible tempos, exact repeats--a locked-down approach that refuses to yield to jazz mutability.

As a result, some of the New York City Ballet dancers look far more authentically jazzy warming up offstage than in the congenitally old-hat dances that Martins constructs for his new work.

Dancers Heather Watts, Nikolaj Hubbe and Wendy Whelan cope artfully with what they’re given--but it scarcely suggests the statement about American diversity that Marsalis builds into his score. Nor can Martins’ ballet compare in depth or originality with “Griot New York,” the Marsalis/Garth Fagan collaboration seen earlier this season on “Dance in America.”

* Albert Maysles’ documentary “Accent on the Offbeat” airs at 10 tonight on KCET-TV Channel 28 and at 9 p.m. on KVCR-TV Channel 24.