State Ballet of Georgia
What makes Jacob’s Pillow in Becket, Massachusetts, such a wonderful venue for watching ballet—and the great ballerina Nina Ananiashvili in particular—is the way the intimacy of the summer dance festival’s 620-seat Ted Shawn Theatre magnifies every sound, step and landing. You can hear a ballerina’s toe shoe squeaking as she turns on pointe and see her cavalier’s muscles flex and lengthen. Experiencing their effort and humanity up close takes nothing away from their magical, idealized image; if anything, it makes them appear even more awesome.
Currently artistic director of the State Ballet of Georgia, Ananiashvili, who performed with her company at the Pillow in June, does not suffer under magnification. At 44, a bit thick around the waist now, she is no longer a gazelle or any of the other flighty, delicate creatures commonly associated with ballerinas. She whirled through Don Quixote Grand Divertissement (excerpts from Marius Petipa’s 1869 story ballet), however, calling to mind something royal and feline—a lioness, perhaps, radiating strength and ease.
The former ice-skating champion always has possessed a star’s presence, whether dancing with the Kirov and Bolshoi Ballets or as a principal with American Ballet Theatre. At the Pillow, however, she shared the crowd’s adulation not only with her partner, Sergei Filin, but also with a man who wasn’t onstage—36-year-old choreographer Trey McInytre, a relatively fresh face in the dance world. McIntyre’s 1996 ballet Second Before the Ground brought the audience to its feet with the sheer force of its joyousness. Second is inspired by an African legend, according to which a person recalls the happiest moments of his life just before death. It opens with a splash of sunshine in the form of six men in suspenders and baggy yellow pants, jumping high, legs scissoring, backs arching and faces alight.
Set to music by the Kronos Quartet, the ballet revolves around three couples, each possessing its own buoyant beauty. The petite Lali Kandelaki flew and fluttered in Irakli Bakhtadze’s arms; Tsisia Cholokashvili, closely embraced by David Khozashvili, made each gesture angular and deliberate; and Ekaterine Chubinidze and Vasil Akhmeteli intertwined in one surprising and lovely way after another.
The highlight of the company’s rendition of George Balanchine’s 1981 Mozartiana, with a score by Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky, was the appearance of four beaming young students from New York City Ballet’s School of American Ballet. On the whole, however, Mozartiana is a rather sober ballet, in which the punch comes not from spectacular moves but rather from the virtuosity of deceptively simple steps—intricate, slow-paced sequences of footwork that rely on precision and nuance. In the principal role, Nino Gogua, partnered by Lasha Khozashvili, looked as if she was concentrating awfully hard on getting the steps right. That’s something you don’t want to see up close.
Tresca Weinstein is the dance critic for The Times Union in Albany, NY. This summer marked her eleventh year reviewing dance at Jacob’s Pillow.
