Ballet Twists on Style

New York City Ballet Wendy Whalen with fellow members
of the company in "Opus 19: The Dreamer" on Tuesday.

 A dancer extends a leg forward above hip-height, then, keeping that leg outstretched, starts to fall forward in the direction it is pointing.

Yet when men wearing formal tunics and women in tutus do it to Mozart, in rhythmically melodic phrases that also include small steps both intricate and precise, we feel how much Balanchine transformed classical style.

The ballet in question is "Divertimento No. 15" (1956), one of the quintessential statements on classical ballet and one of the most subtly subversive.

When that transfer of weight happens with legs parted more than 90 degrees, the thighs have a casually heroic quality.

The company was beginning the third week of a season that has been almost all Balanchine, and the dancers have kept rising to meet one challenge after another.

The concerto ballet is a genre in which most choreographers pay homage to Balanchine anyway; it was he who definitively established the three-movement concerto structure in terms of male-female chivalry, having it reach its most intimate moments in the central movement.

Mr. Martins deftly shuttles the four or five tiers of his ensemble (23 dancers in all) on and off stage until, eventually, a series of pas de deux provides what little heart this ballet has.

Get the article in full: Three Twists on Classical Style, in Movement and in Character