AMERICAN Ballet Theatre’s program Tuesday night mixed a sensation with a mild disappointment. The sensation was the first appearance in a major role of the company’s new, 21-year-old Russian virtuoso, Daniil Simkin. The disappointment? The revival of Twyla Tharp’s “Brief Fling.”
Ever since its 1932 premiere, Vasily Vainonen’s duet “The Flames of Paris,” danced by the legendary Galina Ulanova and Vakhtang Chabukiani, has been wildly popular in Russia.
An essay in classical virtuosity, it proved the perfect vehicle for Simkin. His effortless dancing had the glint of gold to it, and, matched by a delicious Sarah Lane, he showed the ability to make classic bravura stylistically joyous. Here were two gorgeous dancers, with Simkin brilliantly maintaining the ABT tradition of superb male dancing.
An earlier part of that tradition was Julio Bocca, whose dancing and that of his partner, Cheryl Yeager, was one of the happiest memories I retain from Tharp’s 1990 piece.
Today, with a glittering cast led by Xiomara Reyes and Herman Cornejo, I am sure “Brief Fling” is no worse performed. Yet the simplistic classroom vocabulary and its power-driven choreography has lost much of its shock value. That, I suppose, is the danger of shock. Or schlock.
AMERICAN BALLET THEATRE
City Center, 131 W. 55th St.; 212-581-12120. Through Sunday.