Ballet 'Thou Swell' set to Rodgers music

NEW YORK, Feb. 7 (UPI) -- The highlight of the New York City Ballet's current season at Lincoln Center is Peter Martins' "Thou Swell," a glamorous tribute to the era of ballroom dancing set to a suite of songs from a dozen musical comedies by Richard Rodgers.

And a swell ballet it is, one of the best ever choreographed by Martins, chief ballet master of the company who began his own dance career as a champion ballroom dancer in Denmark. It is proving itself a great success with audiences and seems destined to become a fixture in the company's repertory for years to come.

Martins created "Thou Swell" as an extension of the Rodgers centennial year celebrated in 2002, and the work was given its premiere last month at a performance celebrating the 99th birthday of the New York City Ballet's late founder, George Balanchine. It is being danced on a program with two Balanchine ballets, "Serenade" and "Slaughter on Tenth Avenue."

Some of Rodger's songs do not have as strong a dance pulse as others, but Martins' choreography more than makes up for the unevenness of the material. If a plotline could be worked into "Thou Swell," it might be worth presenting on Broadway, now that dance dramas have become all the rage.

The setting of the work -- which gets its title from a song by Rodgers and Lorenz Hart from their 1927 "A Connecticut Yankee" -- is a flapper era supper club with four boxes with tables and chairs arranged around the dance floor with a white piano to one side. Overhead is a huge, tilted Art Deco-style mirror that reflects the dancers at an oblique angle, providing a second point of view for the audience.

This visual stratagem is wonderfully successful, new to ballet but a familiar contrivance on Broadway. What could be more exciting than watching two magnificent dancers executing a romantic adagio routine to the music of "Getting to Know You" from "The King and I" from a full frontal position while seeing the same dancers from a slanted aerial angle overhead in a mirror? It may sound distracting, but it works!

Eight of the company's principal dancers perform as four pairs of formally dressed supper club patrons and another four male and four female dancers take the roles of uniformed cocktail waitresses and dinner waiters. They dance to the music of Nick Archer at the stage piano, assisted by bassist John Beal, and drummer Paul Pezzuti, and a pit orchestra guest conducted by Broadway's Paul Gemignani, while Debbie Gravitte and Jonathan Dokuchitz sing onstage.

The principals dance as couples, in double duets, and in unison in a style that can best be described as balleticized ballroom, calling for a great deal of clinging body contact, spectacular lifts, and suggestive leg extensions. It's what Fred and Adele Astaire might have done if they had been ballet-trained.

One of the best pairings is Rachel Rutherford and James Fayette who really cut loose in Martins' super sexy interpretation of "The Lady Is a Tramp." The split skirt of Rutherford's black gown is lined with scarlet, providing exciting flashes of color as she dances up a ladylike storm. She plays quite a different role as the innocent jazz baby who finds sanctuary in Fayette's arms in "My Heart Stood Still."

The other couples are Yvonne Boree and Nilas Martins (son of Peter Martins), Darci Kistler and Jock Soto, and Maria Kowroski and Charles Askegard. Nilas Martins gets a dividend solo spotlight when he strides to the piano and takes over the keyboard briefly from Archer for a jazz riff. No reason for this charming little interruption, but again, it works!

The whole cast comes together for the closing number, "Thou Swell," which ends with the ballerinas on one knee embracing the waists of their partners who raise their arms triumphantly, just the reverse of the usual romantic dance finale pose. As the swells don their evening capes and disappear into the night, the waiters and waitresses take their places at the club tables in various attitudes of exhaustion.

Broadway designer Robin Wagner's stylish set under the canopy of a star-bright night sky, possibly inspired by the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel's original Starlight Roof ballroom, is truly evocative of the years between the World Wars when life was lived to the brim of a champagne flute. The black and white costumes accompanied by red accents are fashion designer Julius Lumsden's tribute to Cecil Beaton's Ascot costumes for "My Fair Lady."

The New York City Ballet will perform at Lincoln Center's New York State Theater through March 2.