New York City Ballet: New Combinations
$54-$240
Pierre Henry — Variations pour une Porte et un Soupir (Nos. 14-25; part of 'Variations pour une Porte et un Soupir')
Dan Deacon — Selected works (part of new choreography by Justin Peck; NYCB commission)
The annual program celebrating Balanchine's birthday traditionally features a world premiere, in this case the 25th dance from Resident Choreographer and Artistic Advisor Justin Peck, for which Dan Deacon will be providing a commissioned score. The program opens with Christopher Wheeldon's From You Within Me, set to Arnold Schoenberg's early work Verkläkte Nacht, featuring a cast of a dozen dancers and painter Kylie Manning's atmospheric drops at the front and back of the stage. Balanchine is represented by one of his most strikingly enigmatic works, Variations pour une Porte et un Soupir, a pas de deux for a woman swathed in a huge, billowing skirt, personifying the "door" of the title, and a man as the "sigh," illustrating the otherworldly Pierre Henry score.