That Opening Night Feeling
You feel it the second you walk into the Touhill - this isn't going to be just another ballet performance. The energy's different. The audience knows it too.
Saint Louis Ballet kicked off their season with a double bill that basically functions as a showcase of everything Balanchine could do. Two pieces. Same choreographer. Zero similarity in how they make you feel.
Where the Adventure Starts
"Western Symphony" doesn't even try to be subtle about what it is - pure, uncut American frontier. We're talking saloon doors swinging open, horses tearing across open range, the whole nine yards. Balanchine built movement that literally feels like square dancing got upgraded to rocket fuel. The ensemble section hits like a stampede - dozens of bodies moving as one, every foot plant and leap landing with that specific kind of dangerous precision that makes you hold your breath.
Then there's the pas de deux. This isn't your slow-motion romance either. These dancers move like they've got somewhere important to be. Quick, hungry, technically vicious. The kind of partnership where you can feel the competition and connection at the same time.
And Then Everything Changes
"Serenade" walks in and the whole room shifts. You can practically hear everyone's lungs relax.
Set to Tchaikovsky's string serenade, this piece is Balanchine at his most naked - no pyrotechnics, no cowboy hats, just pure movement logic. The dancers extend and fold and extend again, their lines creating shapes that feel inevitable even though you couldn't have predicted them. There's something almost sacred about how these bodies navigate space together.
Watch the dancers' faces during this piece. The technical perfection from "Western Symphony" transforms into something softer. Vulnerability. Receptivity. The same performers, completely different vocabulary.
What Horiuchi Pulled Off
Credit to artistic director Gen Horiuchi for this programming - it's actually genius. These two pieces don't just sit next to each other. They talk to each other. The first is all expansion, reach, frontier conquest. The second is interiority, reflection, turning the gaze inward.
That contrast? That's the entire emotional spectrum in two acts.
The Verdict
This is ballet at its job - making you feel like you're experiencing something you've never seen before, even though Balanchine's been dead for decades. The company brings that freshness back without rewriting the choreography.
Ballet lovers in Saint Louis just got reminded why this art form never actually gets old.
