Brilliant NYC Ballet honors Balanchine

George Balanchine was not afraid of lines. He focused on them in his symmetrical ballets, and crossed them with his neo-classical choreography. The New York City Ballet, which Balanchine ran from 1948 until his death in 1983, continues to dance these lines in “Hommage a Balanchine,” which was the season opener Sunday night at the Maine Center for the Arts.

Seventeen principal dancers sharply performed five works from the repertory that established Balanchine as a stylistic genius among American choreographers. Each full extension and featherweight leap proved that the beauty, purity, and clarity of this man’s artistic vision still has the power to shock in the most wonderful and elevating of ways.

Symbolism ruled the sculpted moves of Lindsay Fischer, Valentina Kozlova, Lauren Hauser, and Wendy Whelan in the Greek-based ballet “Apollo,” set to the music of Igor Stravinsky. Short on plot, long on portraiture, “Apollo” showed Balanchine’s work in its most immaculate and mesmerizing form: the simple yet stunning patterns of arms and legs as they wrapped and lifted, wound and fluttered, pointed and joined.

In her solo work and in a pas de deux with the elegant Fischer, Kozlova gave a particularly assured and energetic show of skill as the muse of dancing. She continued to radiate in the pas de deux from “Swan Lake,” which she performed with Leonid Kozlov.

The most expansive piece of the evening, “Agon,” filled the stage with 12 dancers who, in various combinations, performed to the powerfully dramatic music of Stravinsky. A spidery pas de trois by Nilas Martins, Albert Evans, and Lordes Lopez exploded with liveliness, and a pas de deux by the solid Jock Soto and powerful Helene Alexopoulos (filling in for Heather Watts) was a superhuman integration of precision and passion. Although one would be hard pressed to find fault with any of the performances during this grand-scale spectacle piece, both Lopez and Alexopoulos were fascinating and exciting in the thoroughness with which they attacked every movement and completed it with extraordinarily vivid punctuation.

All the ballet moves you ever wanted to see (and secretly wanted to do) were performed poetically by Damian Woetzel and Melissa Podcasy in Tchaikovsky’s pas de deux. Without ever losing sight of their technical responsibilities — and perhaps in spite of them — Woetzel and Podcasy brought emotional depth to this lovely piece. An delighted audience awarded the excellence with a long and full applause.

In excerpts from “Who Cares?” — Balanchine’s salute to Gershwin — three couples gleefully leaped on stage where they hip-shifted with a cool smoothness that seemed to say: “Fred and Ginger couldn’t make it, so we came instead.” Lopez and Soto joined up again for the title song “Who Cares?” and were romantically breathtaking as a team. It’s unusual to see ballet dancers actually dancing as a ballroom-type couple, but these two knew what they were doing and did it with sparkling flair. Soto even added the extra touch of kissing Lopez’s hand as they skipped off stage.

During “The Man I Love,” Heather Watts, who has been with the City Ballet for 23 years and was hand-picked by Mr. B, himself, made her only appearance of the evening. Though looking a bit strained and slightly sluggish during more demanding moves, Watts still was a model of grace and attitude.

After the show, when she and the company dancers spoke with audience members during the champagne and chocolate reception in the Bodwell Dining Area, Watts said she was recovering from a hip injury and didn’t want to push herself beyond her capabilities for the evening. She also spoke of her forthcoming 39th birthday, and the incredible experiences she has had as a dancer. When asked if Balanchine would be pleased with the homage in honor of his work, she responded with a raspy laugh, “He’d look down and be surprised to see me still dancing.” Then she quickly added, “He’d want to call it just `ballet,” and to him that would mean an evening of Balanchine.”