Effervescent Foolery

By * John T. Elson

A ballet based on a spot commercial sounds about as inviting as St. Vitus's Dance. Except if it was choreographed by George Balanchine, a genius who can design, with seemingly equal facility, enduring masterpieces or tremendous trifles. His latest work, which was given its world premiere by the New York City Ballet last week, is 22 minutes of slight but effervescent foolery. The title is the giveaway: PAMTGG (pronounced Pam-te-guh-guh) stands for "Pan Am Makes the Going Great."

Intrigued by overexposure to the airline's familiar radio and TV ad, Balanchine commissioned Jazz Composer Roger Kellaway to write a score based on its musical theme. Then he set out to design what might be called a dance-ode to an airline terminal. Between takeoff and landing (complete with last-minute baggage scramble) there is a series of typically flowing Balanchine duets for three couples, vaguely identified as young marrieds, two hippies and a brace of space-age jet-setters. By far the best is an earthy, bluesy number for Frank Ohman and German-born Karin von Aroldingen, a leggy, dramatically athletic beauty who is dressed (if that is the word) in a skimpy blue bikini and a see-through fringed-suede top.

Composer Kellaway's arch, nervous score does nothing to hide the banality of the original theme, and Balanchine's ensemble choreography is often surprisingly distracted and cluttered. On the other hand, Jo Mielziner's nighttime airline setting is one of the City Ballet's best, and the fanciful costumes by Irene Sharaff might give Braniff a few good ideas. For all its frivolity, PAMTGG does display, once more, Balanchine's uncanny skill at catching the aesthetic potential in America's mass culture and at fusing pop dance with ballet. Slightly dated in its style, the dancing of PAMTGG seems to have been inspired by the sort of mock ballet once seen on the Ed Sullivan and Jackie Gleason shows. Somehow Balanchine can create grace out of tackiness and art out of kitsch. If nothing else. PAMTGG leads one to wonder what kind of magic he might work if his fancy were caught by a roller derby or a pro football game.

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