Choreography Goes Back To School

Can the craft of choreography be taught? It’s a tough question, and it sparked a feisty debate at a panel discussion hosted by the New York Choreographic Institute last week.This five-year-old organization, an affiliate of New York City Ballet, has a name that makes it sound like a think tank. It is, however, very much about taking ballet forward – not just thinking about taking ballet forward. So whether or not the art of making dances can be taught, the institute is giving choreographers the chance to get in the studio.“Our mission is to help develop classical choreographers,” the managing director, Ellen Sorrin, said.Each year since the institute’s founding, it has invited eight to 12 choreographers (out of 120 to 130 applicants) for two-week stints in New York. During that time, the artists create new work with dancers from NYCB and the School of American Ballet. Not only do they work in the studio with dancers, they also go to performances and museums and study factors that will affect their work, such as stage lighting and dancers’ contracts.“As they’re going along their way in the world, these are things they will need to know about,” Ms. Sorrin said. “We try to give them as much as possible to stimulate their minds.”Now the institute is expanding its reach by giving $15,000 grants to four companies to encourage new choreography. The grants are not intended as subsidies to works in the pipeline; the purpose is to give the choreographers “laboratory” time flesh out ideas and dancers the experience of having new work made for them.“We are very clear that this is not a means to presenting something on stage. If something promising comes out of it, maybe at some point it might be presented,” Ms. Sorrin said.To win a grant, a choreographer and a company’s artistic director must apply together and present their intentions for the creative time. And they have some leeway in how they do so.“Some wrote with ideas in mind. Some came in with scenarios. Others were more interested in the process itself,” Ms. Sorrin said.The recipients of the first round of grants are: Carolina Ballet (choreographers Timour Bourtasenkov and Tyler Walters, artistic director Robert Weiss); Pennsylvania Ballet (choreographer Matthew Neenan, artistic director Roy Kaiser); Texas Ballet Theater (choreographer Peter Zweifel, artistic director Ben Stevenson); and the Washington Ballet (choreographer Brian Reeder, artistic director Septime Webre).What set the winners apart from the rest of the applicant pool? The institute was keen to reward artistic directors who have been nurturing new choreographers – and choreographers who expressed their interest in the process.In the case of the Washington Ballet, the artistic director’s attitude toward the end result made a good fit with the institute’s intentions. “If it turns out to be interesting material, I would consider asking [Brian Reeder] to turn that into something to put on stage,” Mr. Webre said.As Mr. Webre describes it, the grant is a major boost. “We are so strapped for time and money. We could never have afforded to have a choreographer like Brian just come in and play,” he said.The $15,000 will go directly (and entirely) to giving Mr. Reeder time with the eight dancers in the Washington Ballet’s second company. He has worked with the company before, but this project allows the dancers to be free from rapidly learning and rehearsing a ballet to perform on stage at the end of the studio time. The company benefits from the time spent “developing the dancers without the pressure of performance,” said Mr. Webre, who reached out to Mr. Reeder to make the partnership happen.Though all four of the current grants went to American companies, the institute is looking forward to someday using the model internationally. As the organization’s endowment grows – it just received a $5 million gift from the Irene Diamond Fund – it will be able to put those global goals in place. Until then, this first round of fellowship grants is a major investment in the future of ballet – and ballet in America.***There’s a lot of baseball on television this time of year. (I’m not immune. I’m keeping an eye on the White Sox, mainly because I like watching the unusual combination of force, elegance, and panache in Orlando “El Duque” Hernandez’s pitching.) But if you need to counterbalance all those hours of sports with something cultural, there’s a lot of excellent dance on stage this week.Tonight at the Joyce Theater, David Parsons opens his two-week engagement. If anyone knows how to make enjoyable, accessible dances (without forgoing artistic merit), it is Mr. Parsons. Lately, he has been using popular songs. His new piece “DMB” is set to songs by the Dave Matthews Band – including “Satellite,” “When the World Ends,” “Out of My Hands,” and “Stay (Wasting Time).” Last year, he created “Shining Star” to funky tunes by Earth, Wind & Fire. That was for the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, and now his company will have its turn to dance the piece. Also new this year is “Wolfgang,” a tribute to Mozart. The season includes a healthy chunk of the Parsons repertory, which is long on explosive, meaty dance with a human edge.On Wednesday, American Ballet Theatre begins its annual season at City Center, which runs to November 6. One way to get the most out of this first week of performances is to go Thursday and Friday. On the first night, you’d catch the new work by Peter Quanz, plus the erotic narcissism of Jerome Robbins’s “Afternoon of a Faun” (danced by Julie Kent and Ethan Stiefel), as well as the splashy bravura of Paloma Herrera and Jose Manuel Carreno in the “Paquita” pas de deux. Then on Friday night, Mr. Carreno takes up the reins in Balanchine’s “Apollo,” followed by the company in Mark Morris’s “Gong” and Kurt Jooss’s “The Green Table.” And when you’re done with that, it will be (almost) time for the World Series.pcatton@nysun.com

Choreography Goes Back To School

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