Welcome to your DT Monday recap of New York City Ballet’s web series “city.ballet.” This week, we’re covering the fourth installment of the series—about the soloists in the company. When an offscreen voice identifies her time as a soloist as akin to purgatory, you know you’re in for a juicier webisode than usual. (So far, “city.ballet.” has been pretty classy. No on-screen catfights or ridiculous romantic relationship portrayals. Just the facts and some short shots of dancing.)
Two soloists, Georgina Pazcoguin and Megan LeCrone, spent the same amount of time in the corps—10 years—before being promoted to soloist, but they’ve had vastly different experiences. Pazcoguin, as Dance Magazine covered, slowly knuckled her way up and briefly considered switching companies when a promotion didn’t look promising. LeCrone, meanwhile, has had three ankle surgeries, a knee surgery and a collapsed lung—she spent 10 years just trying to get healthy enough to dance consistently. That has to be frustrating. (LeCrone is the sister to choreographer Emery LeCrone, incidentally. Dancing runs in that family!)
I found it a little hard to believe that soloist Lauren Lovette didn’t know NYCB mainstay Craig Hall is still “only” a soloist—I doubt anyone in City Ballet is so unaware of hierarchy—but I did love getting to see some beautiful shots of those two in rehearsal. Craig Hall comes across as such a likeable guy! It’s hard not to root for him. And kudos to him for focusing on the present and not getting wrapped up in promotion worries.
Unfortunately, there was only one quick shot of married couple Megan Fairchild and Andy Veyette in this webisode. Sigh. They’re my ballet couple crush.
