New York Theatre Ballet Presents LEGENDS AND VISIONARIES: PROGRAM B, 3/22-23

New York Theatre Ballet presents the second installment of Legends and Visionaries: Program B on March 22-23 at 7pm at Florence Gould Hall, 55 East 59th Street, NYC. The evening features works by Richard Alston, Antony Tudor, James Waring, and a world premiere by Gemma Bond, commissioned by New York Theatre Ballet. Tickets start at $30 and are available for purchase at www.ticketmaster.com or by calling 800-982-2787.

New York Theatre Ballet's repertory pairs the ballets of legendary creators with those of contemporary visionaries, bringing a new understanding and appreciation of dance. This season features new works and beloved favorites from choreographers including Richard Alston, Jerome Robbins, José Limón, and Antony Tudor. In a nod to the 50th Anniversary of the Judson Dance Theater movement, NYTB presents two pieces by James Waring.

The program includes:
Richard Alston's A Rugged Flourish is set to Aaron Copland's Piano Variations and will be performed to live music. This piece was choreographed for NYTB and premiered in 2010. As Mr. Alston describes, "Copland's Piano Variations have a brave stony rigour, repeatedly ringing out in grand gesture. A Rugged Flourish portrays a young hero's courage and determination - strong enough to be alone, yet all the stronger for eventually accepting the company."

Gemma Bond's Silent Titles (World Premiere) with music by Louis Moreau Gottschalk takes its inspiration from silent films. The ballet reflects the elegance of the silent movie age with black and white costumes and piano music played live on stage.

Antony Tudor's Dark Elegies is considered by many to be his greatest work. The ballet is set to Gustav Mahler's Kindertotenlieder and depicts a community in mourning. The nature of the disaster that has struck remains unspecified, but the grief is palpable.

James Waring's An Eccentric Beauty Revisited is inspired by Nijinsky's Le Dieu Bleu (1912) and danced to Erik Satie's La Belle Excentrique, a composition for piano which will be performed live. The intricate hand-painted costume by Sylvia Nolan is based on the original Leon Baskt design for Nijinsky. NYTB will be using Waring's original hand-beaded mask.

James Waring's Feathers is a solo choreographed for Raymond Johnson, who first performed the dance at the University of California Santa Cruz on July 6, 1973. The music is excerpts from Mozart's quartets for flute and strings in G major and D major. The dance is dedicated to Barbette, the American transvestite trapeze artist (1899-1972). Eulogized by Jean Cocteau and photographed by Man Ray, Barbette was one of the greatest stars of the French music-hall.

The evening will include a talk, Between the Acts: Conversation on Dance, featuring David Vaughn.

David Vaughan has danced, sung, acted, and choreographed in London, Paris, on and off Broadway, in American regional theaters, in film, television, ballet and modern dance companies, and cabaret. He was the archivist of the Cunningham Dance Foundation. He is the author of Frederick Ashton and his Ballets (revised edition, Dance Books, 1999) and of Merce Cunningham: Fifty Years (Aperture, 1997), now available updated as an app for iPad. At the Dancing in the Millennium Conference in Washington DC in July 2000, he received the 2000 CORD (Congress on Research in Dance) Award for Outstanding Leadership in Dance Research, and in September 2001 he received a New York Dance and Performance Award ("Bessie") for sustained achievement.

Other performances this season include Legends and Visionaries, Program A, featuring critically acclaimed and new repertory, James Sutton's version of Tchaicovsky's Sleeping Beauty and Keith Michael's Goose!, a fun filled ballet for kids and families. For full season information visit www.nytb.org.