Stichprobe: Der Grüne Tisch

In Amerian Ballet Theater's season of standout revivals, foremost among them is Kurt Jooss’s “The Green Table – A Dance of Death in Eight Scenes“ (1932), expertly coached by Anna Markard, Jooss’s daughter. Despite the paucity of live performances in New York, the opening/closing sequence – twelve men grandstanding around a table – is iconic to many. The characters, played by women and men, wore grotesque masks with clumps of hair, white gloves, and satin tails, designed by Hein Heckroth (masks by Hermann Markard) whose breast pockets hid pistols.

Each performed and repeated unique sequences of angry debate, table-pounding assertiveness, or finger pointing, but they always returned swiftly to the original tableau of fraternal jocularity.
F.  A. Cohen’s score for two pianos evoked ragtime in the table scene, shifting from playful to ominous, and set a pitch-perfect tone of diplomatic pomp with dire consequences. The rests and stops punctuated and gave clear structure to the choreography. Throughout, the pianos – played with passion by David LaMarche and Daniel Waite – were pushed to their percussive limit.
The warrior-garbed character of Death immediately established his relentless ...