What in the world has happened to the New York City Ballet? I attended two all-Balanchine evenings in the current celebration of Balanchine’s centenary at the New York State Theatre, and was progressively horrified. A “falling off” doesn’t begin to describe what has become of the great choreographer’s works in the hands (and feet) of the present company under the direction of Peter Martins. They manage to make Balanchine’s work seem mummified, ready for the museums, akin to the Bolshoi Ballet under the deadening Communist regime that he left behind in his young manhood. Let me lay my cards on the table. Balanchine was a true genius. In him 20th-century America had a figure equal to the greatest artists of all time, on a par, I would argue, with Shakespeare and Milton. He made dance as expressive as Shakespeare and Milton did language, and he managed to refashion ballet to respond to the best of modernity.

But you would never know it now. In the performances I saw, there was no energy, no excitement, no spark, no shine, no soul. Martins’s directions to the company seem to be: look pretty, do your steps, and don’t fall down. He presents us with the externals of beauty and art, while continually withholding from us their actual essence and life. The dancers are competent, some even accomplished (although a great number are disturbingly unprepossessing and indistinguishable), but without inspiration or intelligence. They are other-directed, playing on the surface, imparting no felt life or meaning or expressiveness to what they dance. The evening grows more and more empty, and horror of horrors, even boring.

This “celebration” is even worse than the last Balanchine “celebration” some years ago. Yet the audiences clap and cheer and howl with helpless appreciation at the most ordinary execution, the most earthbound leaps, the most mundane posing and posturing. One can only imagine that they have adjusted themselves to the lowered standards and are grateful to see something pretty and cultivated, especially as compared to the brutal vulgarity of much popular culture. But what about the patrons, the sponsors, the friends, the donors, the benefactors of the New York City Ballet, and those who remember its glory when Balanchine was alive? How can they stand to see Mozart turned into Salieri?

I remember the exhilarating presence the old dancers used to bring to that stage, the commanding exuberance with which they entered–ready, it seemed, for life-altering revelation. The breathtaking speed and dazzling boldness of the dancing conveyed courage and risk. Something spectacular was happening on the earth, a reaching for the heights! Slower pieces, too, were done with a melting depth and spellbinding intensity of articulation. Performances unleashed such a profundity of feelings that you were almost glad when they let you go, even as you were eager for more. I still retain images of those days. Even the intermissions buzzed with the excitement and sense of aliveness that great art can produce.

Now it’s as if the performers are reading cue cards. Not only is there no risk or daring, there isn’t even a readiness to attack and surmount the steps. Balanchine’s choreography is barely discernible. One wonders if the dancers are dropping steps or leaving things out. Sometimes there’s not even enough happening on stage to hold one’s interest, or it’s so perfunctory you’d just as soon turn away.

Of course, seasoned dance critics such as Arlene Croce and Robert Gottlieb have been noting this decline for some years now, but after the last Balanchine celebration, I said, well at least we are getting to see the outlines of his great choreography, and surely the school of the New York City Ballet comes closest to training young people in the technique needed to execute his dances. But now I’m not so sure. There’s been an ongoing deterioration and it’s to the point where anyone wanting to see real Balanchine, irony of irony, will not come to New York City, but travel to the performances of companies where the old Balanchine dancers are teaching. And, thankfully, there are some films of his works that can refresh our hearts.

In trying to figure out why Peter Martins, one of Balanchine’s own star dancers, would turn his master’s work into a display of stuffed tights and tutus, one wonders if the younger man is perhaps engaged in some kind of Oedipal revenge, deliberately reducing the towering figure of his great father so that he cannot threaten the less talented son. If so, what a mistake. A great genius enriches us all, enlivens us all, elevates us all, and it is a privilege to be able to serve his legacy. I hope that it’s not too late, that there is someone somewhere who understands this and can restore this world-class New York City treasure, so that in the next Balanchine “celebration,” we will actually see the vision of art and dance and music that Balanchine lived to create and impart.

–Carol Iannone is editor-at-large of Academic Questions, the journal of the National Association of Scholars.