|
KANSAS CITY, MO (February 18, 2008) – Kansas City Ballet Artistic Director William Whitener today announced the 51st season featuring an innovative array of dances representing the classical geniuses as well as contemporary internationally recognized artists guaranteed to entertain and inspire audiences. An emotional spectrum of light-hearted escapades to soul-searing dramas will be featured throughout the season. Works rarely seen in Kansas City by George Balanchine, Agnes de Mille and Jerome Robbins as well as new acquisitions by Karole Armitage, Trey McIntyre and Ben Stevenson will share the stage. The Fall and Winter Shows as well as The Nutcracker will feature the Kansas City Symphony led by Kansas City Ballet Music Director Ramona Pansegrau.
This season announcement comes at the completion of a stunning yearlong celebration of the 50th anniversary of Kansas City Ballet. 2007-2008 featured seven premieres, including the full-evening ballet, Romeo and Juliet, which will run for 7 performances over two weekends at the fully refurbished Music Hall. National acclaim continues to grow for Kansas City Ballet. Scheduled performances by special invitation at New York City’s Joyce Theater and the Kennedy Center in 2008 has brought additional attention and prestige to this vibrant and thriving company.
“Building upon the momentum created during our fiftieth anniversary, I have programmed ballets that will further our commitment to American dance classics and the presentation of innovative new works. Drawing from our rich repository of ballets, the works of Balanchine, Robbins, de Mille and Tharp will be presented,” said Artistic Director William Whitener. “Additionally, I will be expanding one of my existing works and I am pleased to announce new acquisitions and premieres by my esteemed colleagues Karole Armitage, Trey McIntyre and Ben Stevenson.”
Fall Performance, October 9-12, 2008
The 51st season will kick off with a program for the young at heart on October 9-12, 2008, at the Lyric Theatre with one Kansas City PREMIERE: Trey McIntyre’s The Naughty Boy and two master works, Agnes de Mille’s Rodeoand Jerome Robbins’ The Concert.
The Fall Show will close with the lively Rodeo, choreographed by the American master Agnes de Mille and set to the music of another American genius, Aaron Copland. This love story of the American Southwest was the inspiration for Roger and Hammerstein’s popular musical Oklahoma! De Mille herself played the lead in Rodeo at the Metropolitan Opera House premiere in October 1942. She received 22 curtain calls. This piece of pure Americana consists of five sections: Buckaroo Holiday, Ranch House Party, Corral Nocturne, Saturday Night Waltz and Hoe-Down. The story it tells is perennial: how a girl, with the odds seemingly against her, sets out to get herself a man. The girl in this case is a cowgirl, a tomboy whose comically desperate efforts to be accepted as one of the ranch’s cowhands create a dilemma for the cowboys and make her the laughingstock of womenfolk.
The Concert, as described by Anna Kisselgoff of The New York Times, “is surely the most comic ballet of all time.” The Concert appears to make jokes about Chopin’s music but its true and deeper subjects are human dreams and yearnings, and the daydream fantasies music creates from the joys and miseries of their own lives. Dressed alike but distinguished by various hats, socks, vests, ties, and even by a cigar, people straggle into what might be a piano recital and set up folding chairs. The characters reveal themselves as the shy boy, the tough girl, the two gossipy ladies who rummage in their handbags at inappropriate moments, the serious music lover, and the henpecked husband and his wife. Just getting the seating arrangements straightened out becomes a sidesplitting moment.
Robbins satirized other choreographers with a knowing and respectful wink by including such motifs as the “daisy chains” that George Balanchine often put into his ballets (a line of dancers holding hands winds into knots that magically untie), and the corps de ballet of nymphs with delicately wafting arms prominently featured in Mikhail Fokine’s Les Sylphides. But in Robbins’s piece, the knots turn into an impossible snarl, and his clumsy sylphs don’t always agree on where to turn.
Trey McIntyre’s The Naughty Boy, set to Mozart’s Violin Concerto in G, focuses on the romantic antics of four couples and a Cupid. The Naughty Boy begins with a curtain drawn across two-thirds of the stage and Cupid wearing a whimsical orange coonskin hat and a fitted plaid jacket. The movement expands as the couples entangle and engage under Cupid’s influence. Suddenly colorful paper streamers fly through the air, paving the way for Cupid to flee the stage, and she does, darting mischievously with a teasing smile. The sprightly Cupid reappears and throughout the ballet joins and cajoles the couples as she sees fit. The dance showcases McIntyre’s confident, sassy, and breezy use of classical ballet.
The Nutcracker , December 5-28, 2008
From December 5 through 28, 2008, Kansas City Ballet will present The Nutcracker, at the Music Hall. Kansas City Ballet is proud to present this holiday classic that will warm the hearts of all ages. The Nutcracker, featuring the music of Peter I. Tchaikovsky and choreography of Todd Bolender, returns for 16 public performances and three matinees for schools. This full-length ballet continues to astound audiences with its magnificent sets, costumes and special effects. Three casts of Kansas City Ballet dancers, plus more than 200 local youngsters ages 7 to 17 selected from Kansas City Ballet School, tell E. T. A. Hoffman’s story. Tickets will go on sale to the public on October 20, 2008.
THE NUTCRACKER AT THE MUSIC HALL IN DOWNTOWN KANSAS CITY
301 West 13th St.
Kansas City, MO 64105
Saturday, December 6 Sugar Plum Fairy Luncheon
Saturday, December 6 2:00 p.m.
Sunday, December 7 1:00 p.m.
Saturday, December 13 2:00 p.m. & 7:30 p.m.
Sunday, December 14 1:00 p.m.
Friday, December 19 7:30 p.m.
Saturday, December 20 2:00 p.m. & 7:30 p.m.
Sunday, December 21 1:00 p.m. & 5:00 p.m.
Tuesday, December 23 7:30 p.m.
Wednesday, December 24 1:00 p.m.
Friday, December 26 7:30 p.m.
Saturday, December 27 2 p.m. & 7:30 p.m.
Sunday, December 28 1 p.m.
Winter Performance, February 19-22, 2009
The 51st season will continue with the Winter Show’s presentation of the Kansas City PREMIERE of Ben Stevenson’s End of Time, two works rarely seen in Kansas City, George Balanchine’s Apollo and Igor Stravinsky’s Firebird, and an encore production of Twyla Tharp’s As Time Goes By.
Apollo is Balanchine’s first great public success. It marked the beginning of his significant and enduring collaboration with Stravinsky and featured his lasting neoclassical style. He united the traditions of classical Russian ballet and the spare austerity of modernism, which led to the evolution of the new classicism. Balanchine looked upon Apollo as the turning point of his life, “in its sustained oneness of tone and feeling”.
The story centers around Apollo, the god of music, who is visited by three muses; Terpsichore, muse of dance and song; Polyhymnia, muse of mime; and Calliope, muse of poetry. Using classically austere and formal imagery, Balanchine is not only exploring the gifts of this young god but of his own. In the beginning, the troika of Muses leads Apollo around the stage; by the end of the piece, he’s leading them. When Apollo hears, in Stravinsky’s score, the call from Olympus, the Muses sink lower and lower on each stroke of the music, while Apollo ascends triumphantly.
Twyla Tharp’s As Time Goes By, set to the music of Franz Josef Haydn, is especially meaningful to Artistic Director William Whitener, who danced in the original cast. “As Time Goes By altered the way that dancers and audiences perceived ballet as a contemporary art form,” said Whitener. “At its premiere, the audience was fascinated by its pure invention, complexity, wit and serenity.” In As Time Goes By, Tharp seeks to explore the raw power and kinetic force of movement through deliberate lapses in ballet decorum. The title for Haydn’s Symphony No. 45 is “Farewell”, during which the orchestra dwindles down during the course of the symphony, going from a full compliment of musicians to just two violinists. Described as gracious, clever and beautifully kinetic, the ballet is casual in manner but so delicately complicated, it will have you on the edge of your seat. “The Minuet, Ten Makes Six” is a tightly woven composition, often compared to the inner workings of a clock. “The Four Finales” heats things up, as seventeen dancers vigorously and furiously create a ‘cast of thousands’ effect. Finally, “Then”, an extended adagio, follows Haydn on his course of diminishing density. Eventually, a male soloist, smoothly wound and unwound, telling of singular intensity and private introspection, holds the stage.
End of Time, choreographed by Ben Stevenson, is set to the music of Sergei Rachmaninov’s Cello Sonata in F, 2nd Movement. This pas de deux explores the bond between the last man and woman on earth. Stevenson is currently in his fifth year as artistic director of Texas Ballet Theater. Prior to this post, he spent 27 years nurturing the Houston Ballet from a small provincial ensemble to one of the nation’s largest dance companies. For his contributions to the world of international dance, Mr. Stevenson was named an Officer of the Order of the British Empire (O.B.E.) by Queen Elizabeth II in the New Year’s Honors List in December 1999.
The Winter Performance will conclude with Firebird, set to the music of Igor Stravinsky. The music was premiered as a ballet by Diaghilev’s Ballet Russes in Paris in 1910. The ballet has historic significance not only as Stravinsky’s ‘breakthrough piece’, but also as the beginning of the collaboration between Diaghilev and Stravinsky that would also produce Petrushka and The Rite of Spring. The ballet was staged by George Balanchine for the New York City Ballet in 1949 with scenery and costumes by Marc Chagall. The ballet was restaged by Balanchine and Jerome Robbins for the New York City Ballet for the 1972 Stravinsky Festival and introduced Gelsey Kirkland as the Firebird.
The ballet is based on Russian folktales of the magical glowing bird of the same name that is both a blessing and a curse to its captor. Stravinsky’s ballet centers on the journey of its hero, Prince Ivan. Ivan enters the magical realm of Kashchei the Immortal; all of the magical objects and creatures of Kashchei are herein represented by the strings. While wandering in the garden, Ivan sees and chases the Firebird. The Firebird, once caught by Ivan, begs for its life and ultimately agrees to assist him in exchange for eventual freedom. Next, Prince Ivan sees thirteen princesses, with one of whom he falls in love. The next day, Ivan chooses to confront Kashchei to ask to marry one of the princesses; the two talk and eventually begin quarreling. When Kashchei sends his magical creatures after Ivan, the Firebird, true to its pledge, intervenes, bewitching the creatures and making them dance an elaborate, energetic dance (the “Infernal Dance”). The creatures and Kashchei then fall asleep; however, Kashchei awakens and is killed by the Firebird. With Kashchei gone and his magic broken, the magical creatures and the palace all disappear, and all of the “real” beings (including the princesses) awaken and, with one final fleeting appearance from the Firebird, celebrate their victory.
Spring Performance, May 7-10, 2009
The culmination of the 51st season will be the WORLD PREMIERE of Kansas native Karole Armitage’s new piece, and encore productions of Twyla Tharp’s Nine Sinatra Songs and an expanded version of Kansas City Ballet Artistic Director William Whitener’s Gingham Shift.
Nine Sinatra Songs, choreographed by the internationally renowned American Choreographer Twyla Tharp, will open the Spring Program. Nine Sinatra Songs is one of five Tharp works that Kansas City Ballet has staged in recent years. Her choreography is characterized by wit, inventiveness and physical vigor. Nine Sinatra Songs is an elegant and cheeky piece that views the social dancing of the 1950s through the nostalgic yet sharpened eyes of the 1980s. The basic unit of each dancing couple includes Tharp’s reinforcement of the traditional ballroom dance giving dominance to the female dancer. Oscar de la Renta collaborated with Tharp to design the beautifully distinctive evening attire, giving a similar double edge of both present and previous ages. Featuring songs sung by Frank Sinatra including Strangers in the Night, All the Way, That’s Life, One for My Baby, Softly as I Leave You, Somethin’ Stupid, Forget Domani and My Way, this piece has been performed on Broadway, at the White House and abroad. William Whitener, who performed in the original cast, will stage the work.
Each one of the songs she has chosen (seven duets and two recapitulation dances--one for the first three couples, another for all seven) has its own musical and dance/theater character. The basic unit of each dancing couple includes Tharp’s reinforcement of the traditional ballroom unit, which is enhanced by the active participation of the female dancer.
The opener is based on the theme of infatuation, while the next dance Tharp has characterized as a “bastardized Tango.” Another was not based on any particular dance form, but showed a “close” couple in late night, knowing and easy rapport. After a re-gathering of all the “characters” involved, a new dancing couple lends tart, comic relief. Unhurried and unshowy glamour bathes the next dance, while the next, is pure showbiz. This duo plays it straight, fast, front and center, in the manner of actual ballroom competition entrants. The capstone couple is one engrossed in a battle of wits and maneuvers. They play it hot, hard and furious, each giving as hard as he or she gets. The final swell is a repeat of “My Way,” recorded later than the first recapitulation’s “My Way” accompaniment. The dance has become a wildly popular Tharp classic, presenting its view of 1950s social dancing through the nostalgic and yet sharpened eyes of the 1980s.
Karole Armitage, a native of Lawrence, Kansas, is known as a ‘punk ballerina’ and this World Premiere is sure to reflect her reputation. She began her career dancing Balanchine as a member of Ballet du Grand Théâtre de Genève. After joining Merce Cunningham’s troupe in the late 1970s, she formed her own dance ensemble. She began to receive international notice as a dancer/choreographer in the early 1980s with a series of modern dances accompanied by punk rock music. Recent collaborators include British composer Thomas Adès and American artist Jeff Koons. Over the last twenty-five years, Armitage has had the opportunity to work with a wide range of artists, from the pop star Madonna, to filmmakers Merchant and Ivory, to painter David Salle, to fashion designer Christian Lacroix and composer, György Ligeti. Known for choreographing “Vogue” for Madonna and “In the Closet” for Michael Jackson, her choice of both music and movement for the premiere piece is certain to energize audiences.
The Spring Performance closes with an expanded version of the playful Gingham Shift, choreographed by Kansas City Ballet’s Artistic Director William Whitener and set to new age blue grass recordings of premiere banjo player Bela Fleck and master instrumentalist Edgar Meyer. Hailed by The New Yorker as “the most remarkable virtuoso in the relatively unchronicled history of his instrument,” Meyer was named a recipient of one of the 2002 prestigious “genius” grants from the MacArthur Foundation. The first movement depicts childhood in three movements: First Kiss, Sliding Down and Free-for-All. The expanded version will include two additional movements thus portraying life from the cradle to the grave.
ADDITIONAL INFORMATION
SEASON SUBSCRIBER INFORMATION
To make ballet affordable for everyone, the Series Subscription Package includes major savings and benefits for the Fall, Winter, and Spring Shows including: ticket discounts, savings on single ticket prices, priority seating, free ticket exchange and the chance to purchase discounted tickets for The Nutcracker before they go on sale to the general public. Subscribers save up to 33% off individual show tickets. Parents, note this great opportunity to introduce the arts to your children: patrons under 21 can purchase season tickets for half price with an adult subscription order. Finally, subscribe now and secure your opportunity for priority seating in our new performance home, the Kauffman Center for the Performing Arts. Season tickets range in price from $60 to $180. For ticket information, please call Kansas City Ballet ticket box office at 816.931.2232 or visit our website at www.kcballet.org.
STUDENT AND SENIOR DISCOUNTS
Students and Seniors who arrive at the Lyric box office one to two hours prior to Fall, Winter or Spring Repertory Programs, may purchase any available seat for just $10 with a valid I.D. Rush prices are not valid at any of The Nutcrackerperformances.
BARRE: Kansas City Ballet’s Young Friends Group
Kansas City Ballet BARRE is a subscription group for ballet enthusiasts, age 21-40. They invite you to share a dynamic season with other young professionals from the community who support the arts. The BARRE motto: “Art you can party with,” truly describes what they are all about. Kansas City Ballet BARRE members enjoy a Friday night season ticket that includes pre-show happy hours, a dance party, discounted Nutcracker tickets, backstage tours, meeting the dancers and mingling with other members at special events - all while supporting Kansas City Ballet. This group is setting its schedule for 2008-2009 and will release it later this summer. For more information, please contact Karen at 816.931.2232 ext.304, email barre@kcballet.org, or visit the new website at www.kcbbarre.org.
, October 9-12, 2008, Lyric Theatre
The Concert
Jerome Robbins
Frédéric Chopin
The Naughty Boy
Trey McIntyre
Wolfgang A. Mozart
Rodeo
Agnes de Mille
Aaron Copland
, December 5-28, Music Hall
Todd Bolender/Peter I. Tchaikovsky
, February 19-22, 2009, Lyric Theatre
Apollo
George Balanchine
Igor Stravinsky
As Time Goes By
Twyla Tharp
Joseph Haydn
End of Time
Ben Stevenson
Sergei Rachmaninov
Firebird
TBA
Igor Stravinsky
, May 7-10, 2009, Lyric Theatre
Gingham Shift
William Whitener
Bela Fleck/Edgar Meyer
World Premiere
Karole Armitage
TBA
Nine Sinatra Songs
Twyla Tharp
Frank Sinatra
###
Please direct all media inquiries to: Ellen McDonald at 816.444.0052.
|
