Masters at Work

TWO CELEBRATED WORKS EVINCE THE PERFECTLY COMPLEMENTING STYLES OF NYCB’S FOUNDING CHOREOGRAPHERS

Ever since its 1969 premiere, Jerome Robbins’ expansive masterwork Dances at a Gathering has held a special place in the repertory. Set to a suite of Chopin’s piano works, the ballet, performed on a bare stage, is a pure dance depiction of the romantic, comic, and communal interactions between the performers onstage, who, while not specifically characterized, express aspects of their personalities and spirituality through classical steps occasionally inflected with folk influences. The ballet is joined by another deeply romantic work: Balanchine’s Brahms-Schoenberg Quartet is, as the title suggests, a four-movement ballet that vividly evokes the elegance of the Austro-Hungarian empire, with Schoenberg’s orchestrations of Brahms’s music adding a subtle veneer of modernity.