When the dancing ended, the undisputed star of the New York City Ballet took the stage for the night's biggest ovation.
It wasn't a dancer at all, but the late George Balanchine, one of the 20th century's great artistic minds, descending from the rafters Tuesday evening in a giant black-and-white photograph. The elegant tableau showed him in perhaps his most comfortable pose: teaching in class.
The audience cheered, and the dancers of the company he created knelt in a deep bow. A shower of glittery confetti rained down on the stage.
Tuesday's performance of three Balanchine signature works was the kickoff of a yearlong tribute to the master choreographer, who would have turned 100 in January. Companies across the world are saluting Balanchine in their own ways, but NYCB's is naturally the most extensive, devoting its entire winter and spring seasons to him.
"Mr. B hasn't been around for 20 years — but he's around here in many ways," said Peter Martins, the company's ballet master, opening the gala evening at Lincoln Center's New York State Theater. "This theater was built for Mr. B."
Balanchine was born in 1904 in St. Petersburg, Russia, and came to New York in 1933, first opening the School of American Ballet, which still produces many of the country's finest dancers, and then the New York City Ballet in 1948. He created more than 400 works, many of which still are regularly performed across the world.
In a nod to Balanchine's legacy, students of the School of American Ballet opened Tuesday's performance, dancing the beginning of "Serenade," the first work that Balanchine choreographed in the United States.
The 1934 ballet, set to Tchaikovsky's "Serenade for Strings," has a dreamy quality, which was best embodied here by Kyra Nichols, one of the company's longest-performing stars. The company's dancing became more steady and even as the work went on, with the final image — Nichols being carried by the ankles as she reaches up to the sky — a stunning one.
"Bugaku," the evening's second ballet, was created a full 30 years after "Serenade." Inspired by the dancers of the Imperial Japanese Household, who had performed with the NYCB, Balanchine commissioned music from composer Toshiro Mayuzimi, and then tried to meld the traditional Japanese steps with classical ballet.
The final ballet was clearly the favorite: Balanchine's much loved "Symphony in C" from 1947, set to Bizet. Maria Kowroski was also a standout in the elegant adagio of the second movement.