Couture and Ballet: New York City Ballet’s Fall Fashion Gala
Gianna Reisen’s Play Time, with costumes designed by Alejandro Gómez Palomo. Photo: Erin Baiano.
On 28 September, just a few days after the opening of its fall season, New York City Ballet (NYCB) celebrated the 10th anniversary of its annual Fall Fashion Gala. The event pairs choreographers with top fashion designers and commissions them to create new works together.
This year’s programme teamed up choreographer Kyle Abraham and British fashion designer Giles Deacon, NYCB Resident Choreographer Justin Peck and Belgian fashion designer Raf Simons, and 23-year-old choreographer Gianna Reisen and Spanish designer Alejandro Gómez Palomo. This was Reisen’s third commission for NYCB: she created her first piece for the company’s 2017 Fashion gala when she was only 18, making her the youngest person ever to create a piece for NYCB. This year, she choreographed her ballet “Play Time” to a commissioned score by singer and songwriter Solange Knowles (younger sister of Beyoncé). The evening opened with one of the company’s signature pieces by its founder-choreographer George Balanchine, “Symphony in C.”
NYCB’s Fall Fashion Gala is the brainchild of star actress, fashion icon and ballet lover Sarah Jessica Parker and raises funds for NYCB: the evening’s performance is followed by a gala dinner and ball at the company’s home, Lincoln Centre’s David H. Koch Theatre. The Fall Fashion Gala oozes glamour both on and off stage: celebrities in attendance ranged from ballet legend Mikhail Baryshnikov to rapper Queen Latifah. New York’s media outlets reported not just on the evening’s artistic merits abut also on the fashion choices of its glamorous audience.
But the marriage of couture with choreography also creates artistic challenges. New York based dance writer Marina Harss shared her thoughts with TWoA: “Fashion and ballet sound like they should go well together, but I’ve found that the oversized emphasis on fashion tends to lead to the creation of ballets that feel like they are at the service of the clothes, rather than vice versa. You can’t argue with the financial success of New York City Ballet’s Fall Fashion Gala, which every year seems to bring in millions of dollars—this year, it was announced that the gala had produced a record 3.4 million—but artistically, it seems to produce works that feel insubstantial and unexciting, and which end up lasting a season or two. There are of course exceptions, like Justin Peck’s ‘Pulcinella Variations’ and Kyle Abraham’s ‘The Runaway.’ This year, the costumes were quite spectacular. Square-shouldered, candy-coloured suits by Alejandro Gómez Palomo covered in sparkles made the dancers look like a cross between cartoon characters and chess pieces. And the Giles Deacon costumes for Abraham were baroque and mysterious looking, at least to the extent that I could see them in the murky light. But they sort of stole the show. The choreography often seemed to be working around the silhouettes.”