Constant motion and emotion
The many cultures in the US have enriched the identity, artistry and energy of the American Ballet Theatre, its artistic director tells Richard James Havis
What is it that makes the American Ballet Theatre so "American"? According to Kevin McKenzie, the former dancer who has been the company's artistic director since 1991, it's not a patriotic, flag-waving approach to dance, although the company is the United States' official national ballet. McKenzie says the label refers more to its progressive attitude, its versatility and its openness to different styles.
In short, the progressive qualities that inform the ballet are the same ones that characterise the best of the country as a whole.
"The word 'American' in our title does not stand for patriotism. It's more about the cultural melting pot of energetic cultures," McKenzie says at the company's offices and rehearsal studios just north of New York's Union Square. "It's an outlook whereby you constantly redefine what excellence is, rather than doggedly follow tradition. The American style is not about a physical look - it's more about an energetic approach. The thing that Americans put on the map was versatility: Americans have taken a melting pot of cultural backgrounds and turned it into an advantage."
The American Ballet Theatre (ABT) certainly has a distinguished history of innovation, even if it has sometimes been affected by serious financial problems. The company was founded around 1937 by a Russian émigré, Mikhail Mordkin, a former director of the Bolshoi Ballet. It started its rise to prominence in the 1940s, under Mordkin's student Lucia Chase and former Hollywood agent Richard Pleasant. The duo, McKenzie says, had planned to turn it into an international "museum of dance" which would feature different styles of dance, including ethnic and ballet.
A shortage of funds interfered with their plans and the ballet reconfigured to focus on performing classic ballets from the past - such as Swan Lake, which was staged in the US for the first time in 1926 by Mordkin, and is still a staple for the company - as well as original works. The company has never made a distinction between old and new in terms of artistic validity.
The American style is not about a physical look - it's more about an energetic approach
Hong Kong audiences will get a taste of both when the troupe presents two mixed-bills as well as a full-length ballet, Romeo and Juliet, to officially open this year's Arts Festival. The two Dance Gala programmes will include works by Antony Tudor, George Balanchine and the Asian premiere of Alexei Ratmansky's Shostakovich - Symphony No 9. They will also be performing Kenneth MacMillan's version of Romeo and Juliet to the renowned Prokofiev score.