Ballet Moves spotlights variety of styles

All the right moves.

That’s what made the New York City Ballet — and it’s what keeps the troupe at the forefront of the dance world.

But it’s also the inspiration for New York City Ballet Moves.

A traveling troupe that takes NYCB dances, and dancers, where NYCB has never gone before, Ballet Moves makes its Las Vegas debut Tuesday and Wednesday in The Smith Center’s Reynolds Hall.

“Everyone’s very intrigued, very curious” about the upcoming Smith Center stop, acknowledges Jean-Pierre Frohlich , a NYCB ballet master who’s artistic administrator for the Ballet Moves visit.

Especially because the advance word — from colleagues at the Joffrey Ballet, among others in the dance world — is “wonderful.”

That’s also a word many would use to describe NYCB — and the dances created by co-founder George Balanchine and his fellow choreographic genius, Jerome Robbins (who’s equally renowned for “West Side Story,” “Fiddler on the Roof” and other Broadway credits).

Ballet Moves showcases those, and other, NYCB choreographers in a traveling program that spotlights “a range of choreography, a range of styles,” Frohlich says in a telephone interview from his office in (where else?) New York.

With a maximum of 20 principal dancers, soloists and corps de ballet members — plus musicians — Ballet Moves’ repertoire ranges stylistically from classical to modern, romantic to energetic.

The music, meanwhile, spans Igor Stravinsky — and Ray Charles.

Three NYCB works will be performed both nights: Balanchine’s neoclassical “Duo Concertant ,” danced to the title Stravinsky composition, first featured in a 1972 Stravinsky Festival; Robbins’ romantic “In the Night,” a 1970 work danced by three couples to four Frederic Chopin nocturnes; and the energetic “In Creases,” set to the first and third of Philip Glass’ “Four Movements for Two Pianos” and choreographed by Justin Peck, a NYCB corps member who in 2011 was named to the New York Choreographic Institute’s first choreography residency.

Rounding out the Tuesday night program: choreographer Ulysses Dove’s “Red Angels,” a “classical ballet with a contemporary look,” Frohlich says, set to Richard Einhorn’s electric violin score; and “A Fool for You,” which Peter Martins (NYCB’s ballet master in chief since 1990) choreographed to 12 songs by Ray Charles, including the oh-so-appropriate “Hit the Road, Jack.”

Indeed, “A Fool for You” is the only featured Ballet Moves work danced to a recorded score; when it premiered in 1988, Charles, his band and backup singers the Raelettes performed the score.

Tuesday’s and Wednesday’s other dances feature live music performed by “more of a chamber orchestra,” Frohlich says.

And though “there’s piano in every piece” except “Red Angels,” audiences “don’t realize while (they’re) watching, because the compositions are so different,” he adds. “So you’re not saying, ‘God, not another piano ballet!’ ”

Charles’ “A Fool for You” recordings are a special case, but otherwise “watching ballet and having the music on tape ... almost feels like it’s not the full package,” Frohlich says. “The heartbeat’s missing. It doesn’t have the same feeling.”

Live music will be featured in all five of Wednesday’s Ballet Moves works.

Joining “Duo Concertant,” “In the Night” and “In Creases” are “Polyphonia, ” choreographer Christopher Wheeldon’s work for eight dancers, performed to 10 Gyorgy Ligeti piano pieces; and “Zakouski ” (which, in Russian, means hors d’oeuvres), Martins’ 1992 work danced to piano-violin pieces by Russian composers Stravinsky, Sergei Prokofiev , Sergei Rachmaninoff and Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky.

Ballet Moves tours usually take place “when dancers are on break,” Frohlich says, so “we don’t always keep the same dancers.”

Instead, after seeing who’s available — and who’s not — “we put together the names of dancers” and “Peter Martins and I create a repertory for that venue and cast accordingly,” he says.

Some dancers “get disappointed” when they’re not chosen, Frohlich admits, although “we’ve almost used the whole company. We try to rotate the dancers.”

And though the lineup of dancers may change, the emphasis in Ballet Moves remains the same for all NYCB dancers.

It’s “the music, ballets and choreography,” Frohlich says. “It’s not about the stars. It’s about all wanting the same thing, and being in the same place.”

Even when they’re on the move.

Contact reporter Carol Cling at ccling@
reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0272.