My Night with NYCB and Christopher Wheeldon

February 1, 2012

Last night, DS editor Margaret Fuhrer and I settled in at Lincoln Center’s David H. Koch theater, ready for a wonderful night with New York City Ballet. Little did I know that I was in for my favorite night at the ballet ever.

The first three ballets on the program (Robbins’ Interplay, Balanchine’s Tarantella and Robbins’ In Memory of…) were great and certainly had some shining moments—like former DS cover stars Lauren Lovette and Taylor Stanley making memorable debuts in Interplay and Ashley Bouder’s peppy (and near-perfect!) performance in Tarantella.

But it was Christopher Wheeldon’s DGV: Danse à Grand Vitesse that absolutely knocked my socks off. From the moment Robbie Fairchild and Sara Mearns took the stage to dance the work’s first pas de deux, I was mesmerized. The intricate partnering, the flowing, wave-like movements, the seemingly impossible lifts, the bizarrely intriguing set—it was unlike any ballet piece I’d every seen. And it only got better with each couple to take the stage. My jaw dropped at Sara’s unfathomably flexible back, Megan Fairchild’s dynamic and magnetic performance, Wendy Whelan’s regal grace and Tiler Peck’s spot-on technique—I loved it. Can you tell?

Plus, as an added bonus, Wheeldon himself was sitting across the aisle from me. Could this night have gotten better?!

It’s performances like last night’s that make fall in love with dance over and over again. I can’t wait to see DGV again and experience its brilliance. Have you ever seen a performance that made you feel this way?