A Busy Springtime for Jerry

By Martha Duffy

Robbins finds inspiration in Fred Astaire and Philip Glass

When the curtain rises on Jerome Robbins' new ballet, Variations on I'm Old Fashioned, the audience sees a movie screen. A four-minute film clip from You Were Never Lovelier (1942) shows Fred Astaire dancing with the breathtakingly lovely Rita Hayworth, then 24. They start off slowly, pick up momentum, then get rambunctious, in an elegant way. Passing through the French doors at the end of the sequence, they even bump shoulders briefly before gliding off into one of the many mansions reserved for the gods of dance.

Can this be topped? No. Added to? Taken apart for demonstration? Spoofed? Hardly. But here is Jerome Robbins, an eminent choreographer and veteran theatrical wizard, presenting it all as a 35-minute classical ballet complete with toe shoes. In any serious sense he does not succeed. New York City Ballet, alas, does not have any girls as sexy as Rita, nor any boys who even set one thinking of Fred. The secret formula for the chemistry of Astaire's ballroom duets remains intact. Despite all this, Robbins, shrewd old romantic that he is, has come up with a diverting piece, a summer night's smile, evanescent, pretty, mildly seductive.

I'm Old Fashioned is mostly a medley of duets and solos for three couples. Some passages are soft and slithery; others, especially a pas de deux for Kyra Nichols and Sean Lavery, strike sparks. Gradually the number of dancers increases; at the end, the stage fills with formally dressed couples who dance gamely on as the dazzling film starts again. By curtain fall, only a few are left, raptly watching the screen. Along the way there are some hard nudges--too many bumping shoulders, for instance. Nor is the work well served by Morton Gould's empty variations on the Jerome Kern song. But when I'm Old Fashioned takes itself lightly, which is often enough, it becomes the fantasy of every man who has ever put on a dinner jacket and asked a woman to dance.

The Astaire ballet is almost a divertissement, basically more evidence of Robbins' obsession with the problems of partnering. His major work for City Ballet in this busy spring is Glass Pieces, a 26-minute work set to the minimalist compositions of Philip Glass. This ballet shows the bold side, the brainy city strutter in Robbins. Formal, clear and well structured, it is his strongest work in years. It begins with 33 dancers, dressed in multicolored practice clothes, walking briskly across the stage, each alone, no two taking precisely the same route. This traffic is directed by Glass's galvanizing Rubric: loud, brash music, pulsing like a motor. One could never join this crowd of pedestrians; anyone who has ever tried to move across a major artery, or even a busy sidewalk, in an alien capital knows how hard it is to catch the rhythm. Yet a series of three couples in pale unitards does invade the mob, finally clearing a space for their own brief dance and slightly skewing the renewed movement of the throng. Clearly this urban ritual could go on forever, but abruptly the bright lights are quenched.

The middle movement, to Fac,ades, is as serene as its predecessor is clamorous. A lyrical melody floats above a simple, slightly shifting rhythmic pattern. A shadowy frieze of girls, tracing small, varied steps, embodies the pattern; two dancers (Maria Caligari, Bart Cook) perform a sinuous pas de deux to the melody. This is a mesmerizing piece. The last segment, to a boisterous excerpt from Glass's opera Akhnaten, is what his fans call "very Jerry": arms up, fingers splayed, keep it moving, get it right the first time. Across, around, up and down the stage sweep cadres of long leapers. Despite its energy, this choreography does not have quite the impact of the first two sequences.

Audiences love Glass Pieces, and they are right. Despite all the talk about exotic influences, Glass writes likable music that is instinctively theatrical. His avant-garde operas (Einstein on the Beach) have a strong dramatic surge. Take material like that and entrust it to a magic man like Robbins, and you will get something better than Broadway, fresh as tomorrow.

--By Martha Duffy This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so viewer discretion is required.