DANCE REVIEW

W ISCONSIN-born John Neumeier, the 57-year-old director of the Hamburg Ballet, has for years been one of Europe’s most celebrated choreographers. Yet he has worked comparatively rarely at home and, unfairly, even more rarely has he received the respect here he is always accorded abroad.

American Ballet Theater at City Center last week gave the world premiere of his “Getting Closer,” a complex work to music by Ned Rorem, with glamorous beach-like costumes by Zack Brown and sensuously psychedelic lighting by Brad Fields.

Set to Rorem’s 1985 Symphony for Strings, this was the sixth Neumeier ballet to enter the ABT repertory, but most of them, unlike this, have been either minor works or revivals of ballets created on one of his own companies.

Composer Rorem is probably best known, apart from his literary work as a diarist, for the powerful grace of his art songs, but his orchestral output, including three symphonies as well as this suite-like piece for strings, is considerable.

It is lovely music, with a transparent shimmer and grace, providing a firm rhythmic base perfect for dancing, and Neumeier having made a wise choice by and large lived up to it.

The ballet suggests an outsider (Angel Corella) who breaks into a partnership (Sandra Brown and Keith Roberts), is warned off by Roberts in a scherzo duet that might have homoerotic overtones, before finding, a little uncertainly, true love in the shape of Julie Kent.

For a nearly plotless ballet this simplistically dramatic quartet, for all its pure dance qualities, was over-fraught with emotional freight.

Some of the heavy-handed arm-movements, and equally strong-armed hand-movements appeared exaggerated for the essentially ambiguous storyline. As a result the dances sometimes shout even when the music whispers.

All the same Neumeier’s fluently inventive choreography makes eloquent use of the principals and also the effortless ensemble.

At City Center, 55th Street between Sixth and Seventh avenues, (212) 581-1212.