BALLET REVIEW : Re-Creation of Nijinksky’s ‘Sacre’ Keeps Getting Better

The Joffrey Ballet’s reconstruction of Vaslav Nijinsky’s watershed ballet “Le Sacre du Printemps” was introduced to Orange County on Thursday, capping a program devoted to works created for Sergei Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes.

It was simply sensational.

“Sacre” made dance and music history in 1913 when audiences rioted at the Paris premiere. Which had proved more inciting--Stravinsky’s rhythm-mad score or Nijinsky’s violently anti-classical choreography? For nearly 74 years, the answer had to be Stravinsky’s music, because the choreography had virtually vanished.

But dance historian Millicent Hodson and art historian Kenneth Archer painstakingly re-created the work for Robert Joffrey, and the answer to the question perhaps shifted to Nijinsky’s corner when the provocative results were first seen in 1987 in Los Angeles.

Since then, the company has grown only stronger in the chugging steps, foot stompings, vertical arm thrusts, massed circlings, hypnotic rituals, visual counter-rhythms and eerie delicacy of women floating upon raised toe.

At the Orange County Performing Arts Center in Costa Mesa, the company also more powerfully projected a sense of inner drama, swooping in response to the Old Woman (Carole Valleskey) whose divinations will precipitate events, cowering from unseen dread overhead, shuddering spastically at the Old Sage’s charisma.

Beatriz Rodriguez has sharpened her portrayal as the Chosen One, combining rage and swooning weakness in “Petrushka” gestures, and evoking sympathy as the character worked to keep her legs from giving way because she seemed to know that as long as she could keep moving, she could stay alive.

But “Sacre” is by no means entirely kinetic. Stop-action interrupts impelled movement, underscoring parallels with another work on Thursday’s program, “L’Apres-midi d’un Faune” (to Debussy’s score), Nijinsky’s first effort at choreography, created less than a year before.

Tyler Walters was seen as the Faune when the Joffrey danced at the Center in September, 1987. Walters has deepened an already fine conception, adding nuances to the stages of emotional transition, particularly in transforming awakening sensuality into vulnerability.

Charlene Gehm again was the warm Leader of the Nymphs.

Peter Narbutus made his first local appearance as the Chinese Conjurer with an otherwise familiar cast in Leonide Massine’s “Parade” (music by Satie). Narbutus hovered weightlessly in impressive bounds, hissed with visceral power and uncovered feline aspects of the role. But his leg work was not yet fully tensed, crisp or sharp.

Members of the Pacific Symphony played securely for John Miner (“Parade” and “Faune”) and Allan Lewis (“Sacre”).

The Joffrey Ballet performs through Sunday at the Orange County Performing Arts Center, 600 Town Center Drive, Costa Mesa. At 2 p.m. the ballet will dance “Parade,” “L’Apres-midi d’un Faune” and “Le Sacre du Printemps.” A second performance, at 8 p.m., includes “Cloven Kingdom,” “Billy the Kid” and “Suite Saint-Saens.” Tickets: $13 to $39. Information: (714) 556-2787.