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Since March, three ballet dancers — Brittany Pollack, Amar Ramasar and Craig Salstein — have been living in a different world, where daily class happens not in a pristine studio with barres and mirrors, but on the carpeted floor of a theater mezzanine. And instead of being thrown onstage in a debut because another dancer is injured, or performing in three ballets in one night (sometimes four), they dance the same thing every night.
What happened to them? “Carousel,” by way of Justin Peck, the show’s 30-year-old Tony-winning choreographer. They only have a few more weeks to bask under the Broadway spotlight — the production closes on Sept. 16 — and then it’s back to life at Lincoln Center, at least for Ms. Pollack, 29, and Mr. Ramasar, 36, who are members of New York City Ballet. Mr. Salstein, 35 — a dance captain of “Carousel” — recently left American Ballet Theater, where he danced for 16 years.
In the musical, set in Maine at the turn of the 20th century, Julie Jordan, a young millworker, falls in love with the handsome, rugged carousel barker, Billy Bigelow. Ms. Pollack plays Louise, their daughter, and Mr. Ramasar is Jigger Craigin, Billy’s friend, who also happens to be a scoundrel. There’s a botched robbery; Jigger escapes unscathed, and Billy dies but later comes back to earth to help his troubled daughter who, at times, is very unlike the sunny Ms. Pollack.
Dance plays an important part in the show, which features sweeping, intricate ensemble numbers; in the nautically themed “Blow High, Blow Low,” the dancers — with Mr. Ramasar front and center — create the illusion of a ship with their bodies. And there is a 10-minute ballet for the spirited and vulnerable Louise, who, we learn, is snubbed by her peers and left heartbroken after a pas de deux with the Fairground Boy. “I feel like it’s a whole experience of different parts of my life,” Ms. Pollack said, referring to Louise’s trajectory. “It’s amazing how I’m able to lose myself so easily in the ballet.”
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