Atlanta Ballet's "Balanchine and Peck" Uplifting

This is what I've been missing all along. Everyone else who filled three tiers of Cobb Energy Center already knew: at the ballet, you are amazed and delighted to see a company of men and women exert their finely-honed bodies in runs, lifts, leaps, twirls, falls, each move precisely fit to music and to what the others are doing.

But I've always been a word guy, looking for narrative and ideas, who has always scoffed at ballet for what it lacks. But watching the Atlanta Ballet Company last Friday, I felt delight, amazement, and gratitude all the way through.

The first act was "Emeralds," a portion of the larger work "Jewels" by classic choreographer George Balanchine. To the sweet, aromatic pieces by Fauré, combinations of male and female dancers suggested romance and friendship. Without a story, without ideas, with only the title and green fabric to suggest a theme, I read the movements as characters enjoying themselves by enjoying each other.

The second act was "In Creases" by choreographer Justin Peck, who choreographed Spielberg's film West Side Story in 2021. Two pianists seated upstage at amplified grands played musical patterns by Glass while the company played with spatial patterns. Again with joy, these dancers criss-crossed, lifted, rolled, advanced, receded, circled. Sometimes, briefly, the dancers seemed to be pins or pistons in a machine. Once, dancers took turns high-stepping over their fellow performers in a way reminiscent of a football drill. These incongruities made me laugh every time -- before the image dissolved into something new.

Act Three was Balanchine's telling of the familiar parable of "The Prodigal Son," to music composed for the ballet by Prokoviev. Here, I was intrigued by the economy of the storytelling. A young man at a fence repeats a pair of energetic hand movements that suggest beating a drum and going out beyond the gate. Two sisters and the solemn father (costumed with long gray beard and robes) draw him into prayer, seated in a circle, heads bowed. But the young man rises, hands two serving men some clay jars, and bids them follow as he leaps past the gate.

He arrives in a land of males whose clothing and baldness made them look reptilian. The young man buys their friendship and falls (literally) for a statuesque temptress wearing a tall helmet like Nefertiti's. When the jars are empty, he's beaten and stripped. Crippled, he claws his way across the floor with a staff. When he collapses at the home of the father, the sisters summon to old man.

Only now, thinking back on the simple-looking movement that ends the ballet, I realize what strength and control was required for (SPOILER) the young man to climb up onto the old man's chest and hang there like a babe in arms. The father wraps his arms around the boy and turns to take him inside the house.

Light fades slowly; former critic of dance dissolves in tears.