April 23, 2002

DANCE REVIEW; Young Dancers, a Choreographic Debut, a Waltzing Mozart and an Odd Plane Ride

By JACK ANDERSON

The ABT Studio Company was in remarkably good form in its buoyant program on Wednesday night at the Kaye Playhouse.

The troupe, American Ballet Theater's junior company, seeks to develop the talents of dancers ages 16 to 21. Its roster is always changing, and its former members go on to Ballet Theater itself or to other companies. That the current group danced with the eagerness of youth and the assurance of seasoned professionals surely attests to the soundness of the training provided by John Meehan, the organization's artistic director; Gage Bush Englund, its ballet mistress; and their staff.

Past performances by the Studio Company have featured old works and new. On this occasion, all four works were new. And one of the choreographers was totally new. Tobin Eason, a 17-year-old member of the company from Mandeville, La., made his choreographic debut with ''Symphony No. 23,'' a little charmer of a ballet to a recording of a merry score by Mozart.

It was filled with bounding sequences for Sarawanee Tanatanit, Jared Matthews and an ensemble of four couples (Nydia Monaco and Mr. Eason, Simone Messmer and Brett Van Sickle, Erin Ackert and Bo Busby and Melissa Thomas and Patrick Ogle). All of Mr. Eason's steps were traditionally classical. And he used them with ease to achieve a genuinely Mozartian combination of graciousness and verve.

There were also several quietly witty moments, as when, to a melody in three-quarter time, couples danced as if Mr. Eason were choreographically suggesting that Mozart in the 18th century had anticipated the Viennese waltz of the 19th century.

Two unusual pieces were by members of American Ballet Theater's main company. Robert Hill let an Italian word meaning ''to touch'' serve as the title of his ''Toccare.'' But part of its dramatic impact came from the reluctance to touch shown by its two characters (played by Ashley Ellis and Craig Salstein). They kept approaching, only to part or to circle each other warily.

When Mr. Salstein did embrace Ms. Ellis, she broke sharply away from him. The choreography's forcefulness was heightened by Jon Magnussen's piano score, played onstage by Blair McMillen, and by the way Brad Fields's lighting made each shape in space look sharp in outline.

When the curtain rose on Brian Reeder's ''Lost Language of the Flight Attendant,'' the way five couples were posed instantly revealed that they were rows of passengers on an airplane. Ms. Ackert portrayed a prim flight attendant whose gestures indicated that she was giving safety instructions and pointing out the exits. She also distributed pillows and confiscated an illegal cigarette.

But she could not stop the passengers from cavorting in the aisle or at one point from rushing en masse toward the lavatory. The ballet, to excerpts from Mozart's Piano Concertos No. 21 and 27, might have been even funnier if Mr. Reeder had managed to suggest, either through choreographic spacing or by some piece of scenery, the cramped conditions of an actual airplane. These passengers had too much room in which to romp. Nevertheless, their mischief was fun to watch.

William Tuckett, a British choreographer, contributed his own version of Stravinsky's ''Pulcinella,'' a commedia dell'arte frolic first staged in 1920. Mr. Tuckett set his cast scampering through a tale with many romantic complications. Although everyone was always busy, Mr. Tuckett failed to make his plot or his characters vivid.

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