Oohing and Ahing Over Balanchine's Jewels @ PNB

In place of a story, Balanchine offers a triptych of ballet style: French romanticism (Emeralds), American dynamism (Rubies), and Russian imperial classicism (Diamonds), with music by Fauré, Stravinsky, and Tchaikovsky, respectively. You have to grant that the man had a singular way of responding to musical structure with movement--at times you think no other gesture could express what the music is saying, at others the music is given a new dimension by a dancer's illustration of it in space. It's the ballet equivalent of "I never thought of it that way before."

Visually, the stage becomes a setting for the eponymous jewels, open to great washes of green, red, and white. The costumes are just as evocative as the music: in Emeralds, ballerinas wear "clouds of tulle;" in Rubies they've raided Radio City Music Hall; in Diamonds a crystalline white pervades.

Emeralds brought two pairings we perked up for, Louise Nadeau and Olivier Wevers, and Maria Chapman and Jeffrey Stanton, while the corps wafted by, arms elongated for the occasion. Naturally, one appreciates an impeccable entrechat six. C'est une merveille! In Rubies, Balanchine exposes us for a nation of knee fetishists; it's fun to see the bended-knee emphasis in comparison to the other two pieces. The mood is jazzy, and nods to the Charleston and other popular dances of long ago show up, commingling with an earth goddess's (Ariana Lallone, believably) foot-planted squats. Jodie Thomas and Jonathan Porretta have a pas de deux that's part circus strength act.

Finally, in Diamonds, Carla Körbes and Stanko Milov whirled among the courtier corps--we were struck by Balanchine's ability to implicate the space between dancers, either through symmetrical movement or playing up an asymmetry (the male dancer aggressively advances, the ballerina skitters away en pointe). A foot apart, or thirty feet, empty air suddenly becomes live with charged particles. Diamonds is also the acme of presentation--Milov is masterful at a "Here I am!" series of gestures that aim for nothing more than your attention. While most of the evening revolves around ballerinas looking lovely, Milov gets a chance to strut his stuff. He's a giant in contrast to the ballerinas, but it's as if his feet end in knife points, and he hurls himself across the stage with a breathtaking exactness.