Taking the Pulse of New York City Ballet Without Peter Martins

NEW YORK — New York City Ballet both is and isn’t in limbo. Peter Martins resigned as ballet master-in-chief on Jan. 1. Since early December, the artistic life of the company has been run by a team of four young people, all under 40. Weeks or months are likely to pass before any permanent successor is appointed. Until June, the company dances repertory announced last year by Martins.

No dance company is static. Performances bring change. In the current six-week season (through March 4), some careers have made advances; others not.

Whoever takes over City Ballet long-term must address not just the legacy of Martins but also the achievements of this interregnum, too. A controversial slap in Martins’ “Romeo + Juliet” has been deleted; the ballerina Patricia McBride has coached a role she created. There have been impressive debuts in individual roles. Not least, there’s a new name on people’s lips: that of the 18-year-old Roman Mejia, who was promoted to the corps from apprentice by Martins in November.

This month, Mejia danced the faun soloist in the Fall section of Jerome Robbins’ “The Four Seasons” and Mercutio in Martins’ “Romeo + Juliet.” He has dash, sunniness, spontaneity, courtesy, speed, precision, sparkle, enthusiasm. He can arrive in the air before you saw the jump coming, beat his legs together or flourish his feet in rings while up there. And he turns, both fast and slow, with the same mixture of impulsiveness and security he brings to everything. There’s plenty yet we don’t know about Mejia — can he partner? — but the rainbow-like naturalness of his dancing makes this early stage of his career a joy for the audience.

How’s the rest of the company dancing? “The Four Seasons” was a good place to check in. Fall, in which the faun character accompanies a lead couple, was exuberantly performed by two casts: Tiler Peck, Joaquin De Luz and Daniel Ulbricht; and Ashley Bouder, Zachary Catazaro and Mejia. I remember the illustrious first two casts of this ballet in 1979, when Patricia McBride and Mikhail Baryshnikov alternated with Suzanne Farrell and Martins, but those memories did not stop me from finding Peck and De Luz glorious. (And Ulbricht is another who knows plenty about staying longer in the air than seems possible.)

Bouder, now often so mannered in ballets by George Balanchine, was at her freest and blithest. And Catazaro, though his powers in bravura technique are limited, showed more blaze and sweep than ever before.

But neither Sara Mearns (juicy but harsh) nor Sterling Hyltin (sweet but pallid) gives Robbins’ Spring choreography full radiance or élan; nor do their partners, Jared Angle and Chase Finlay. Both the Summer ballerinas, the splendid but usually cool Teresa Reichlen and the lovely but withdrawn Ashley Laracey, are cast against type. Reichlen, in superb form all season, relished the chance to show a new voluptuousness. The insular Laracey, however, badly needs awakening: She scarcely connects to anyone else onstage.

Most of City Ballet’s repertory currently contains comparable unevenness. Who can neatly sum up the overall effect Martins has left on today’s company? The one he inherited in 1983 was superlative. Within 10 years, most of that dance quality had diminished appallingly, with a loss of central energy. Many of the most important classical ballets were looking like pretty little items of confectionery. And too many company alumni who had worked with Balanchine (the company’s founder-choreographer) and Robbins were banished.

Yet the last 10 years have brought a remarkable recovery. How can the same man have presided over such a decline and then such improvement?

Two of the most signal features of Balanchine style — dancing that takes the dancer out off balance as if over a brink and that arrives with (or ahead of) the beat as if embodying it — were so diluted by 2007-08 that you could seldom feel their presence at all. That’s far less true these days. Energy isn’t always ideally directed, but it is far higher than it was earlier this century. Three ballerinas in particular showed a marvelous command of Balanchine this winter: Maria Kowroski, Tiler Peck and Teresa Reichlen. Sara Mearns, as in the fall, was dancing at peak strength, but often serving her own self-dramatizing intensity more than the subtler demands of the roles.

Martins’ record with new choreography is similarly baffling. From the first, he made City Ballet the world’s foremost showcase for choreographic commissions. (With its treasury of ballets by Balanchine and Robbins, it can lay claim to have been that all along, but the difference was that Martins brought in more outsiders.) In the last century, however, this policy paid lousy dividends. (Bad new ballets can be found the world over, but they’re grimmer when seen in the House of Balanchine.) This century changed that: The company has produced more of the world’s best new ballets than any other troupe.

So this winter we saw again Alexei Ratmansky’s “Russian Seasons” (2006). This remains a wonderfully mysterious and poetic piece that often tugs at the heart. But the season’s repertory (scheduled months ago by Martins) also contained 21st-century rubbish. Why on earth were we asked to revisit Angelin Preljocaj’s “Spectral Evidence” (2013) and Martins’ “The Red Violin” (2006)? Some bad ballets are at least engrossing; these are bores.

I watched five casts of the Martins “Romeo.” There’s lots to say on individual casts, but this “Romeo” seldom changes the pulse. There’s more humanity anywhere in “The Four Seasons” and “Russian Seasons.”

As for the Balanchine ballets, they release something that seems larger than humanity: spirit made visible. Along comes the right debut in the right role — Russell Janzen as Phlegmatic in “The Four Temperaments,” Unity Phelan as the third ballerina in “Divertimento No. 15” — and the sense of rightness is immense: the harmony of the spheres.

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