JEUX

'Well-made, musical, imaginative, “Jeux” turns games into theater. And its central role is further proof that Sara Mearns is our most dramatically remarkable ballerina today, with urgent qualities of need and pathos.'

'Here the isolated figure is Ms. Mearns. The ballet’s suggestion of her numb anguish provides the most choreographically striking imagery. It is Mr. Danchig-Waring who keeps her from falling, and the various off-balance positions in which he holds and turns her are both arresting and moving. Yet Ms. Mearns, though she can see at this point in the tale, is too blinded by other emotions to see him; she’s like Shakespeare’s Gloucester, who says “I stumbled when I saw.”'

'And what a gem—a dark riddle of a gem. I can’t remember when I’ve seen a new one-act story ballet as intriguing as his Jeux.' 'If you could imagine a Bergman film turned into a ballet, or a story ballet that does not have to choose between being literal and being musical, or a ballet that brings you inside the mind of a confused, lost young woman, Brandstrup’s Jeux would be it.'

'Among the bounty of premieres at City Ballet this month, only the Danish-born, British-based Kim Brandstrup’s Jeux — to the menacing turbulence of the Debussy score that Nijinsky used in 1913 for his scandalous tennis à trois ballet — involves a set and tells a story. We have heard this story before, which makes Jeux more predictable but also potentially more resonant than its plotless peers. Brandstrup fulfils that promise. - Brandstrup carries us inside the isolated woman’s terror by blurring the line between the real and the phantasmagorical. Betrayal has turned the whole world into a threat to this woman, but the predatory ensemble does seem to scapegoat her. The fearless Mearns resembled a proud animal reduced to a defensive crouch.'

-- every moment is articulate and stunning, and a few gel so nicely that you can't distinguish motion from music. When Mearns cascades backwards into awaiting arms, faint, weak, her body hinged at the hips as she's rotated 360 degrees. When Hyltin seamlessly wanders into a triple piqué turn, her arms plopped in a sassy "V." When the corps waltzes across the floor and under the moon, popping into lifts in passé, their reflections dancing like phantoms on a scrim. In fact, these shadows are the most interesting part... man-made projections crafted by the human body, distorted and elongated.