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It could be argued that the American ballet style was born on April 18, 1944, when an unknown dancer named Jerome Robbins (teamed with an almost equally unknown composer named Leonard Bernstein) presented a choreographic venture called Fancy Free with the American Ballet Theater. Jazzy in sound and mood, the work brought into the ballet an awareness of the contemporary scene and the way contemporary people move.

Since then, Choreographer Robbins has given ballet a varied, breezy, gutsy dance repertory built largely around modern urban man--joyous and nerve-ridden, frenzied and fey. His work may be an entire ballet (Moves) danced in total silence, a modern restudying of a classic (Afternoon of a Faun) performed in practice costumes, or a study of man-eat-man society ritualized as a swarm of insects (The Cage). In all of them he invariably reflects a sense of the contemporary spirit of experimentation.

Last week the New York City Ballet gave the world premiere of Robbins' latest creation, an hour's diversion titled Dances at a Gathering. It was his first new piece for a major dance company in four years, his first for the New York City since 1956. What he presented was something infinitely more startling than any avant-garde choreographic novelty: a pure classic ballet of artless yet artful simplicity that made the repertory of motion seem as fresh as if it had never been performed before. Dances may well be Robbins' finest work; as danced to near-perfection by stars of the New York City troupe, it is one of the most visually graceful works ever seen on an American ballet stage.

From all appearances, Dances seems like the ultimate denial of experimentation. Ten dancers participate, singly or in various groups, in a series of light, airy and at all times traditional maneuvers, to a background of short pieces by Chopin (mazurkas, mostly, along with a few waltzes and etudes) played by a pianist at stage right. The unassuming costumes are pastel-colored, vaguely folkish in style; the only stage ornamentation is the sky-blue backdrop. The work itself is plotless and seemingly could stop at any moment.

There is nothing new or exotic about the individual movements in Dances; yet they all seem new, like a modern sonnet that manages to bring fresh light to this centuries-tested poetic form. Although Robbins envisioned the work as a unified series of themes with variations, individual divertissements stand out: a twisting sequence of stage-girdling leaps by Edward Villella set to the Etude, Opus 10, No. 2; a gently humorous episode in which a busy, pirouetting ballerina is accompanied by a succession of bored, poker-faced partners who stroll casually alongside her and then drift off, unimpressed, into the wings; and the final, stately pas de dix, which ends on a note of quiet satisfaction as the couples pace silently off the stage together.

Denying any programmatic intent, Robbins, 50, defines the inspiration for Dances simply as "Chopin's music," while hinting at a possible sequel. "There's more Chopin that I like--the nocturnes, for example--that I may use for another ballet." His interest in this music and its choreographic possibilities could not be better timed. Dances is a welcome reminder that there is still room for invention at the level of freshness and simplicity rather than spectacle. "Let's get back to fundamentals," the work seems to say, and it makes the statement with extraordinary charm.

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