With Satire and Respect

Before any dancing took place at the Civic Theatre on Friday, American Ballet Theatre artistic director Kevin McKenzie told the audience of his initial “trepidation” at presenting a ballet titled “Black Tuesday” just three days after a Tuesday brought so much tragedy to America.

He changed his mind, he said, because Paul Taylor’s one-act suite--premiered in New York long before terrorism gave its title a painful new meaning--represents “an affirmation of the American spirit” in adversity.

Maybe, but maybe not, for Taylor’s approach remained resolutely double-edged. Named after the day in 1929 that saw the collapse of the stock market, his eight-part ensemble piece used pop recordings from the Great Depression to show how looking on the bright side can be one more big lie sold to us by the entertainment industry.

Wearing monochromatic chic-but-shabby costumes by Santo Loquasto, Taylor asked 14 ABT dancers to behave like musical comedy performers on overdrive. Relentlessly, obnoxiously cheery, they depicted the homeless as an irrepressibly colorful chorus line complete with Rockette-style kicks; an abandoned pregnant woman as a slap-happy charmer; a trio of prostitutes menaced by their pimp as just another high-spirited urban diversion.

Obviously, so many show-biz projects have sentimentalized poverty that Taylor had to push very, very hard for us to see his satiric point. But, by the end, it proved unmistakable.

Here, images of despair, violence and hopeless need dominated the piece, with the broken, off-balance phrases of Erica Cornejo’s solo (“Boulevard of Broken Dreams”), the casual gunning down of the cast by Marian Butler (“I Went Hunting”) and, most of all, Ethan Stiefel’s furious virtuosity (“Brother, Can You Spare a Dime”) leading inexorably to a spotlighted panorama of hands reaching out of the darkness for help.

On Friday, moreover, our two black Tuesdays unexpectedly merged in a final image that Taylor never choreographed: Stiefel holding up an American flag during the curtain calls. With plane travel forbidden, it took a 30-hour bus ride to get the company to San Diego from Kansas City on Friday. As a result, cast and program changes left their mark on the three-part performance. Instead of Mark Morris’ “Gong,” for instance, the company danced Natalie Weir’s “Jabula,” a plotless, propulsive showpiece set to a strident world music score by Hans Zimmer.

It started strongly with eight men, bare-chested above wide, burnt-orange culottes, suddenly emerging onto a smoky, backlighted stage for rhythmic, quasi-gladiator maneuvers. The arrival of Stella Abrera and, later, a women’s corps in more culottes but, of course, demure tops, multiplied the choreographic possibilities, yet somehow caused Weir to lose the through-line of her concept.

Increasingly, her choices looked arbitrary, her use of the ensemble spatially clotted. Everyone danced devotedly but only the tireless, superbly expressive Abrera and the fearless, spectacularly buoyant Herman Cornejo managed to make the result more than mere resume fodder. And nearly all the men had trouble with Weir’s demanding lifts--even the authoritative Sascha Radetsky.

The execution of lifts also plagued Clark Tippet’s “Bruch Violin Concerto No. 1,” a familiar 1987 essay in hand-me-down neoclassicism that lost its planned live accompaniment in San Diego because ABT’s conductor was stranded in New York City.

Among the four sets of leading couples, Irina Dvorovenko gave a technically faultless but oddly mannered performance opposite the refined Maxim Belotserkovsky in the opening section, but Elizabeth Gaither and Gennadi Saveliev looked overtaxed as their foils or counterparts. Midway through, Julie Kent and Marcelo Gomes exemplified noble lyricism, though no special rapport took their partnership beyond the steps.

Best of all, Xiomara Reyes and Joaquin de Luz had enough fun with the bravura in the finale to make dancing to tape in front of a ragged corps seem inconsequential. Tippet (who died in 1992) had been an ABT principal, and knew how star power and technical flair camouflages the faults of standard-issue choreography. “Bruch” isn’t really distinctive enough to be his monument, but it recycles durable formulas expertly and leaves its stars ample chances to glitter.