Brooklyn Ballet Announces Spring Season
By: Julie Musbach Mar. 20, 2018
Brooklyn Ballet, a unique and interdisciplinary dance company rooted in the classical idiom, presents Revisionist History, a provocative and diverse Spring season of broad range and repertoire. Brooklyn Ballet's programming is ever-expanding, embracing multifaceted dance styles and refashioning historical works. April's offerings include works of legendary dance makers George Balanchine, Merce Cunningham, Isadora Duncan and Michel Fokine, as well as premieres of mixed genre and interdisciplinary works by Artistic Director Lynn Parkerson. The Company presents 5 performances, April 19-22, in The Mark O'Donnell Theater at The Actors Fund Arts Center in downtown Brooklyn.
Parkerson's directorial interest employs historical movement, influenced and inspired by Baroque-era court dancing and reconstructions of 19th-century ballets, while providing context for today's generation. Brooklyn Ballet's spring program showcases this through a comparative study of the suggested influences of Duncan's Chopin Dances on Fokine's Les Sylphides, revealing ways Isadora Duncan and Michel Fokine transformed classical ballet in the early 20th century. Hand-picked by George Balanchine at the age of 16, New York City Ballet alumna Deborah Wingert stages themes 1-3 of The Four Temperaments-Melancholic, Sanguinic, and Phlegmatic. The Four Temperaments, a ballet with unceasing appeal, references the medieval concept of psychological humors through its classically grounded but definitively modern movement. Jamie Scott, 2014 Merce Cunningham Fellow restages Duet from Landrover, originally premiered in 1972 at the Brooklyn Academy Of Music. The work is rooted in the exploration of people moving through different geographies and representing varied spaces with varied backgrounds.
"With the infusion of modern and improvisational techniques and an ethnically diverse cast Brooklyn Ballet is expanding the ballet vernacular through creative dialogue with seemingly disparate dance forms," states Brooklyn Ballet's Artistic Director, Lynn Parkerson. "Our Spring Season, "Revisionist History" provides an historic perspective of dance in the 20th Century while leading ballet into the 21st."
Brooklyn Ballet presents two new works in April-Pas de Deux, a collaboration between Lynn Parkerson and visual artist Cornelia Thomsen set to music by Baroque composer Jean-Philippe Rameau, and At the Intersection, a multi-genre dance for an ensemble of 3 hip-hop dancers and 8 ballet dancers. Pas de Duex, a mixed-movement duet performed by a ballerina and a gliding hip-hop dancer, explores intimate connections between the two bodies. At the Intersection is a work in progress with a musical score composed by cellist Malcolm Parson, of Turtle Island Ensemble, and the Carolina Chocolate Drops. This is Malcolm's 5th collaboration with Brooklyn Ballet. Julius Abrahams is the pianist for the program.
PERFORMANCE SCHEDULE
Thursday, April 19 at 8:00 p.m., ticketed pre-performance reception at 6:30p.m.
Friday, April 20 at 8:00 p.m. Free Beer Friday!
Saturday, April 21 at 4:00 p.m. and 8:00 p.m. A Children's reception will be held following the matinee performance. A post-show discussion with the artists follows the evening performance.
Sunday, April 22 at 4:00 p.m.
TICKETS and VENUE INFORMATION
General seating is available for $25, student and senior, $15, and children under 12, $10. Tickets to the Opening Night & Pre-Performance Reception are $75. Premium reserved seating is $100 on opening night, $50 for all other performances.
Tickets available for purchase at https://web.ovationtix.com/trs/pr/972996 or at 718-246-0146.
The Mark O'Donnell Theater at The Actors Fund Arts Center is located at 160 Schermerhorn Street, in downtown Brooklyn, accessible by A, C, F and G trains.
REPERTORY DETAILS
Chopin Dances (1905/1909)
Choreography: Isadora Duncan and Michel Fokine
Music: Frederic Chopin
Collaborator: Catherine Gallant
In 1909, shortly after Duncan's tour to Russia, Fokine premiered his famous Les Sylphides, the game-changing ballet that would forgo traditional narrative constructs. With a palpable likeness, which is apparent in Brooklyn Ballet's layering of Duncan's Chopin Dances and Fokine's Les Sylphides, viewing the works side by side illuminates the many shared attributes of the two artists' styles and suggests the evident influences on linking musicality to movement.
Revolutionary Etude (1923)
Choreography: Isadora Duncan
Music: Alexander Scriabin A solo created by Duncan after the death of her children, this later work exemplifies the heroic narrative of her transforming choreographic voice. The Revolutionary Etude is performed by Artistic Director Lynn Parkerson.
The Four Temperaments Themes 1-3 (1946)
Choreography: George Balanchine
© The George Balanchine Trust
Music: Paul Hindemith
Staged by Deborah Wingert
An expression in dance and music of the ancient notion, the human organism is made up of four different humors, or temperaments. Each one of us possesses these four humors, but in different degrees, and it is from the dominance of one of them that the four physical and psychological types-melancholic, sanguinic, phlegmatic, and choleric-were derived. Although the score is based on this idea of the four temperaments, neither the music nor the ballet itself makes specific or literal interpretation of the idea.
Duet from Landrover (1972)
Choreography: Merce Cunningham
© Merce Cunningham Trust. All rights reserved.
Music: John Cage, David Tudor, Gordon Mumma
Costumes: after Jasper Johns
Staged by Jamie Scott
Inspired by the idea of people moving in different landscapes, there is a sense that we move in our country, across varied spaces, with varied backgrounds.
Pas de Deux (2017)
Choreography: Lynn Parkerson
Music: Jean Phillipe Rameau
Visual Artist: Cornelia Thomsen
Collaborating Choreographer: James Fable
A mixed-movement duet performed by a ballerina and a gliding hip-hop dancer, the piece explores intimate connections between the two bodies, two disciplines, and two dynamics of movement.
At the Intersection (work in progress)
Choreography: Lynn Parkerson
Music: Malcolm Parson
Collaborating Choreographer: Michael Fields
A multi-genre dance for an ensemble of 3 hip-hop dancers and 8 ballet dancers.
ABOUT BROOKLYN BALLET
Founded in 2002 by Artistic Director Lynn Parkerson, Brooklyn Ballet brings a contemporary vision to the treasured art form of ballet, with repertory and programs that revitalize and re-imagine the classical form. The first-of-its-kind in Brooklyn in more than 40 years, the organization is committed to artistic accomplishment, education and community engagement. In 2009, Brooklyn Ballet opened the doors to its first permanent home at The Schermerhorn-
built and managed by Common Ground and The Actors Fund. The ground level space provides Brooklyn Ballet with a storefront dance studio, access to a 99-seat black box theatre, dressing rooms, and administrative space. As a community dance institution, the Brooklyn Ballet School offers youth and adult ballet classes, allowing dancers to learn and develop their skills alongside professionals of all backgrounds. The school'sElevate and Brooklyn Ballet in the Houses programs offers children scholarships and opportunities to participate in the rigors of ballet training.
Brooklyn Ballet's programs are made possible in part by The New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in Partnership with The New York City Council; Council Member Stephen Levin, Council Member Alan Maisel, Council Member Mathieu Eugene, Council Member Robert Cornegy, Council Member Laurie Cumbo, Mertz Gilmore Foundation, Sills Family Foundation, Corcoran Cares, The Curtis W. McGraw Foundation, Boston Consulting Group, Breukelein Institute, The Robert and Mercedes Eichholz Foundation The Howard Gilman Foundation, The John N. Blackman Foundation, Consolidated Edison Company of New York, Inc., The Harkness Foundation for Dance, New York State Council on the Arts, Atlantic Avenue Local Development Corporation, Alloy, BoardAssist, Park Avenue Charitable Fund.
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