Kirov/Balanchine
City Center, New York

The Kirov do not dance Balanchine as if to the manner born. But the all-Balanchine programme that concluded the Kirov’s visit to the US proved that the company could dance his works as well as and sometimes better than, currently, New York City Ballet, the company that the choreographer founded with Lincoln Kirstein when he came to America.

These days, many troupes have acquired ballets from the strictly controlled George Balanchine Trust, and although they are staged by reliable lieutenants, noted dancers with the company when Balanchine was alive, few troupes perform them in a conformist way. To see the Kirov dance Serenade on the stage that NYCB called home before Lincoln Center was built gave a special air to this, Balanchine’s first ballet choreographed for American dancers.