Review: ALL-STAR DANCE GALA at Chautauqua Institution Amphitheater

All-Star Dance Gala

Chautauqua Institution Amphitheater
Chautauqua, NY
July 8, 2026

The eagerly anticipated kickoff to the Chautauqua Institution’s annual summer dance season, the All-Star Dance Gala at the Institution’s Amphitheater, lived up to its billing, delivering a stellar evening of dance.

Curated by Sasha Janes, the Bonnefoux McBride Artistic Director of Chautauqua School of Dance, this summer’s Gala featured top-flight dancers (most alumni of the Chautauqua School of Dance) from a half dozen prominent U.S. dance companies, along with International Principal Guest Artist Brooklyn Mack.

The diverse program of contemporary and classical ballet works opened with “Environment,” the first of four short pieces choreographed by Janes.

Set to dramatic string music by Benjamin Britten, the pas de deux was danced by New York City Ballet principal dancer Isabelle LaFreniere and Alvin Ailey American Dance Theatre star James Gilmer. It began with a daring overhead lift of LaFreniere and continued down that path, alternating between partnered lifts and close-quartered holds and embraces. As the pas de deux was excerpted from a larger ballet, it was difficult to discern the dancers’ relationship to one another in it. Despite this, Jane’s sumptuous balletic movement was beautifully interpreted by LaFreniere and Gilmer.

Excerpts from Jane’s “The Weight of Darkness” followed. A ballet with a Shakespearean “to be, or not to be” theme danced to music by Max Richter and Nico Muhly, Atlanta Ballet’s Jordan Leeper briskly moved across the stage, fitfully shaking his body every few steps. After a time, he was joined onstage by Ballet Austin II dancer Emily Hain, who emerged from darkness and threw a curtain along the stage’s back wall.

Moving with purpose as Leeper had, Hain’s dancing was animated and gestural. The pair soon gave way to Miami City Ballet dancers Taylor Naturkas and Alexander Peters, whose slower-paced choreography was devoid of Leeper and Hain’s gyrations. Dancing to melancholy piano music, the pair’s performance was subtle, moving, and appeared to carry the “weight” described in the ballet’s title. 

Next, like a belated Independence Day celebration, Mack and New Jersey Ballet’s SeHyun Jin brought bravura ballet fireworks to the Amphitheater in the grand pas de deux from the ballet Don Quixote.

One of classical ballet’s most technically demanding showpieces, veteran dancers Mack and Jin, in full costume, wowed the audience. While Mack rose to heights in big air leaps and jumps, Jin dazzled, ripping through multiple fouetté turns with grace, superior technique and control. Together, their performances were the very definition of all-star. 

The first of two world premiere ballets by Janes, “Keys to the Kingdom,” followed. The enjoyable stylized solo set to music by Abigail Washburn was performed by Leeper in a men’s suit and used a chair as a prop that he sat, leaned, jumped on, and propelled himself from.

Jane’s choreography for the piece was loose and playful, and mixed ballet, jazz, and liturgical styles with an improvisational feel. With the demeanor of a man feelin’ himself, the solo was a wonderful showcase of Leeper’s talents.   

Then, perhaps the most intriguing ballet on the program, Justin Peck’s “Chutes and Ladders,” also set to music by Britten, was performed by Naturkas and Peters.

Searing string music ushered in syncopated movement to begin the ballet. In it, Naturkas and Peters were like a couple in a comfortable relationship; Naturkas’ character was a bit bored and looking for some excitement to shake it up.

Marvelously danced, the ballet got more engaging as it progressed. Britten’s music turned strident with Peck’s choreography leaning into his New York City Ballet roots; angular and sharp. What made the work intriguing was the unusual fast-paced partnered lift-hop steps along with mood shifts in the music and dancing that made you want to travel along the journey the couple was on to see where it led. 

From ballet fireworks to ballet sublimity, Jin and Mack then returned to dance the final pas de deux from Christopher Wheeldon’s 2005 masterwork “After the Rain.” Performed to composer Arvo Pärt’s haunting piano and violin composition, “Spiegel im Spiegel,” the dancers melted in and out of tender, intimate movement as if carried along by a dreamlike lullaby emanating from someplace deep in all of our souls.

Jin and Mack were once again spellbinding in Wheeldon’s well-crafted intertwining choreography and partnered overhead spinning lifts. Poignant and mesmerizing, the “After the Rain” pas de deux evoked balletic beauty tinged with longing. 

The All-Star Dance Gala then ended with the second of Janes’ premieres, “Come on Over” danced by LaFreniere and Gilmer. 

Performed to Isobel Campbell and Mark Lanegan’s whispery, gravely vocals in the song “Come on Over (Turn Me On),” LaFreniere and Gilmer slinked, slid, and at times stumbled through the pas de deux’s jazzy, Broadway-esque contemporary ballet choreography.

In the unenviable position of following Wheeldon’s “After the Rain,” “Come on Over” appeared under–rehearsed and fell short of its sultry intent, proving an anti-climactic closer to an otherwise fabulous dance program.

Top photo of James Gilmer and Isabelle LaFreniere in “Environment” at the "All-Star Dance Gala," July 8 2026. Photo by Gabriel Milby/The Chautauquan Daily.

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