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'Carousel' dances are a new feather in the enigmatic Justin Peck's cap

When Justin Peck emerged as a professional choreographer in 2012, he seemed immediately a master of his trade. His dances for the new revival of the Rodgers and Hammerstein musical “Carousel,” at the Imperial Theater on Broadway, are yet another feather in his cap.

He makes at least two new ballets for the company (and others around the world) each year, often to new or modern music.

His works, polished and contemporary, are energetic through each individual body and in striking ensembles; and they often ask gender questions, with both opposite-sex and same-sex pairings.

His main dance language is ballet. But he has also set dancers moving with tap steps in sneakers; in “Carousel,” they’re sometimes barefoot.

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In almost every piece he tackles, he adds to his already impressive accomplishments. In “Carousel,” he and the director, Jack O’Brien, handle dancers so that there’s no clear division between them and other actors onstage.

And yet he gives us real dance virtuosity and ensembles containing speed and elaborate geometry. Still, although exuberantly executed, the dances don’t stay with me as most of this “Carousel” does.

The hardest part of “Carousel” for a choreographer to bring off is the Act 2 ballet, witnessed by the dead Billy Bigelow. He sees Louise, his teenage daughter, becoming an angry and bitter outsider, alienated from the social world of her upbringing. This psychodrama can easily seem the most dated part of “Carousel.” Film exists of the original choreography by Agnes de Mille.

But even de Mille’s tendency to overemphasize catches the dream quality that earns this ballet a special place in the overall drama of “Carousel.” Kenneth MacMillan — the master of sex, violence and acrobatic lifts in late 20th-century choreography — went further when he made the dances for Nicholas Hytner’s 1992 production (which reached Broadway in 1994). (MacMillan’s “Carousel” pas de deux still makes a vivid impression when performed out of context, as it did when the Royal Ballet brought it to New York in 2015.)

Vulnerable, ardent, defensive, Louise — danced by Brittany Pollack, a City Ballet soloist — encapsulates the inner conflicts that make “Carousel” so touching. Her darker feelings are shown with an expressionistic blend of upper-body gesture and lower-body steps; the most rapturous moments of her duet with the Fairground Boy (Andrei Chagas), beautifully timed to the music, are caught in formally academic-ballet terms — notably, an upright lift in which one leg is classically extended to the side, as if catching both her expansiveness and her aspiration to orthodoxy. Wanting fulfillment in love, she behaves like a ballerina in her partner’s arms.

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Still, the de Mille and MacMillan versions have more sheer force. Peck fills in the “Carousel” prescription fairly, correctly, inoffensively.

He’s usually at his best with ensembles and with male dancers. That’s generally true here. As Jigger Craigin, Amar Ramasar (another import from City Ballet) has several jumping phrases in which the way he immediately rebounds back up into the air and onto the beat is breath-catching.

A male ensemble in “June Is Bustin’ Out All Over” begins with a terrific “helicopter” jump (the working leg sweeps out and round while the dancer is in the air, then carries him into further turns).

Nowhere in “Carousel” do we ever feel a dance is a mere divertissement or set piece. The numbers keep changing format. In the high-energy “Blow High, Blow Low,” a dance for 11 men becomes one for 10, then subdivides into smaller groups before suddenly swelling to 14. Masculine, maritime energy bursts forth throughout this item: Although on dry land, these men become sailors, nets, ropes, voyagers.

More remarkable yet, at several points in the show, is Peck’s talent for complex group tableaus. This is at its most poetic when Billy and the Starkeeper (John Douglas Thompson) make their way through one formation after another, as if through shifting strands of mist. But other, larger-scale patterns also show true mastery.

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The overall impression of these dances only adds to my sense of Peck’s skillful anonymity. Although I love some of his work, I still can’t recognize any Peck hallmarks or characteristics. I keep finding more to admire in what he can do; I remain largely unsure of who he is.

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.

ALASTAIR MACAULAY © 2018 The New York Times

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