BAD MOOD? BALANCHINE WILL FIX THAT

American Contemporary Ballet’s twin masterpieces
turn live strings into a reset button for the soul

Two string duos. Two ballets. Both pairs similar in structure and running time, but containing glimpses of unlimited invention within fixed limitations. For their spring program, American Contemporary Ballet performs two works from George Balanchine: perennial favorite Concerto Barocco and, not seen in Los Angeles for over 40 years, La Source.

Violinist Enosh Kofler and violist Yu-Ting Hsu opened the evening with Passacaglia, Johan Halvorsen’s 1894 reworking of G. F. Handel’s Keyboard Suite No. 7 in G Minor, a furious, exciting piece that they played with such concentration, that not even someone’s dropped phone, landing like a bomb (we all jumped), derailed them. Los Angeles has no shortage of opportunities to see intense bow-shredders, but how often do you get the chance to experience them with the players so close to the audience?

Balanchine’s Concerto Barocco for 11 dancers dates from 1941 and is set to J. S. Bach’s Concerto for Two Violins in D minor BWV 1043. Completely without story, the choreography purely visualizes the music, assigning melodic lines among the dancers, the corps dancing Bach’s noodling foundation, while the principals bounce the solos among each other. Like the music, the dancers are in constant motion. It’s a little unsettling at first; theater so often puts the audience to work to find meaning, and I was treating Concerto Barocco like typical theater, trying to find puzzle pieces and put them together, only to be stymied when faced with a passionless pas de deux. No romantic lovers, but dancers focusing on movement. By the time I realized that there was no puzzle, the ballet was half over. Perhaps I would have caught on sooner in a more distant venue that made it easy to take in all the dancers in a single glance; the price of ACB’s intimacy, which I adore, means that it’s easier to see details instead of the big picture. This is a ballet to surrender to and get lost in, to float and wander without regard to thought.

Madeline Houk and Maté Szentes in ACB's Concerto Barocco

Kofler and Hsu began the Romantic second half with Jean Sibelius’ sweet and calm 1892 Duo for Violin and Viola in C Major. ACB continues to impress me with its commitment to live, unamplified music. With a 13-member ensemble, musicians outnumber the people on stage. How many other companies in town (that aren’t LA Opera or LA Phil) can claim that?

La Source, from 1965, uses several selections from the work of Léo Delibes: La Source, Le Pas des Fleurs, and Sylvia, arranged for ACB by Adam Bravo. Unlike the sunny first half, La Source begins with a tense, dark tone, getting progressively lighter as the ballet unfolds. Though still plotless, the music is simpler. Likewise, the choreography has fewer moving parts at any one time, each movement generally focusing on a single arrangements of dancers. The first two movements, featuring the corps, and then a pas de deux, were pleasant, but the ballet really began to come alive with Maté Szentes’ athletic, swirly, hippity-hop solo. Quincey Smith’s enchanting, coy solo followed. The light-footed finale begins with a gratifying, wonderful waltz, serving as something of a speedy, concentrated encore for all the groupings. By this point we were thoroughly, delightfully enchanted. The excitement was such that the audience could barely contain their applause until the music ended.

When I arrived, I was not in the best of moods. The news was grimmer than usual and I had been stuck in a streak of terrible plays. American Contemporary Ballet’s Twin Masterpieces worked like meditation on me, forcing me to clear my mind. Festering in my seat is easy, but the performance was irresistible, and I just didn’t want to any more. When it was over, I left feeling lighter and fresher than when I entered.

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photos by Anastasia Petukhova

Balanchine: Twin Masterpieces
American Contemporary Ballet
Bank of America Plaza, 333 S Hope St, Suite C-150 in Los Angeles
ends on March 27, 2026
for tickets ($65-$105), visit ACB

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