http://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/01/arts/dance/women-fill-new-york-city-ballets-season-with-splendor.html 2016-09-30 23:55:50 Women Fill New York City Ballet’s Season With Splendor The company’s fall season has been bounteous with repertory by its founder-choreographer, George Balanchine, and features exciting performances. === It’s hard to tear yourself away from New York City Ballet just now, in particular from its many excellent ballerinas. The company, almost halfway through its four-week fall season, is being characteristically bounteous with repertory by its founder-choreographer, George Balanchine, which in turn is bounteous with ballerina roles. A few of the women cast in Balanchine parts are too tame, too weak, too passive; but all the troupe’s three ranks (principal, soloist, corps) contain women whose vivid individuality excites. Two in particular — Ms. Peck, a prodigious virtuoso whose musicality is her most renowned asset, last week made her debut in the central role of the Mozart classic There’s a touch of calculation in her response to music. You can spot the moments when she seems to be saying, “Watch how I play with my music here.” Such nudging, by trying to separate the dancer from the dance, diminishes both. Yet who could miss how she makes the steps radiate? They seem to give off halos of light. She’s also been dancing the lead in “Symphony in Three Movements,” a role she delivers admirably without its particularly suiting her. It’s larger and more mysterious than she is. But she’s intelligent. Each time she performs a role, you feel her varying her approach. When “ In Her dancing’s scale is always immense, its texture rich, its phrasing magisterial. She, better than any other dancer today, unlocks the larger dimensions of Balanchine dance theater. Her movement seems to charge great blocks of air with energy throughout both stage and auditorium, energy that seems channeled directly from the music. This is mysterious stuff to talk about — and yet it’s easy to feel it in the presence. Her effect was at its most profound on Sunday afternoon in “Episodes” (conducted by Andrews Sill), a seemingly simple role. With austere purity, she made the Bach-Webern score feel both like a drama of light and sculpture in motion. In “Diamonds” on Wednesday, it was wonderful to feel the firm lengths of her phrases. This ballerina becomes a mirror of the conductor. Unlike him, she faces us. Like him, she makes no sound, but gives shape to music and sends it beaming forth. After having a baby, Ashley Bouder, the company’s foremost powerhouse, returned last week in the “Voices of Spring” scene of “Vienna Waltzes.” Though she’s been offstage only nine months but the affectionate quality of her dancing was something new. Her role in “ In “Jewels,” the most definitive performance of all remains Teresa Reichlen’s as the central soloist in “Rubies.” Commanding, dark-glinting, naughty, she too can unlock space; the high sweep of those long legs has a force that sails far out into the theater. Sterling Hyltin and Robert Fairchild’s partnership in “Stravinsky Violin Concerto” is the most felicitous in New York dance; the extraordinary drama they reveal in the Aria II duet is so double-edged that it keeps deepening its plaintive spell. Ms. Hyltin, Ashley Isaacs, Ashley Laracey and Indiana Woodward were all exceptional in “Divertimento No. 15” last week (Ms. Woodward — all brio — has been winning in several other roles); and Unity Phelan was effortlessly poetic in the Concerto (Op. 24) of “Episodes.” No wonder some balletomanes hate to miss a performance.