THE ROSE SONATA World Premiere to Feature NYCB Principal Sara Mearns

This week, Ann Arbor will see the world premiere of 'The Rose Sonata,' a new dance work that brings together the fierce talents of New York City Ballet principal dancer Sara Mearns and acclaimed choreographers and directors Bobbi Jene Smith and Or Schraiber.

Commissioned by the University Musical Society of the University of Michigan, the evening-length project bridges classical ballet, contemporary dance and live music. Set to an original score composed and arranged by Yonatan Daskal and Mikael Darmanie, the music is played live by two on-stage pianists and features an ensemble of six dancers.

This is the first of three major commissions from UMS in celebration of their upcoming 150th anniversary season in 2028.

UMS president Matthew VanBesien had developed a relationship with Mearns during his time at the New York Philharmonic and approached her when UMS began discussing its commissioning initiative.

'Sara's deep curiosity about new choreographic projects has always impressed me, so we asked her to consider helping us to create an exciting new work for dance at UMS and develop it at the University of Michigan,' VanBesien said. 'When asked which choreographers Sara might want to collaborate with, she immediately named Bobbi Jene Smith and Or Schraiber.'

The three had worked together during the pandemic on Gallop Apace, inspired by a scene in Shakespeare's 'Romeo and Juliet.'

Mearns calls this type of interpretive work outside of her NYCB roles her 'barefoot dancing.'

'People would joke about it, that I wouldn't wear pointe shoes my entire off season. I would just be barefoot and doing other things,' Mearns said in an interview conducted with the creative team while developing the work in Ann Arbor this summer.

Her first 'barefoot dance' was in 2015.

'I was put together with a (Merce) Cunningham dancer and a very prolific choreographer, Jodi Melnick, and we made an (evening-length work) together,' Mearns said. 'I was asked to do things, to make decisions on my own, to not just be told what to do but actually have my own voice in this piece, and it was terrifying. But then when I got out there in the show, I was like, 'Oh, wait. I can dance another way. There's other ways for me to be an artist or a dancer on the stage.'

'Now I have the opportunity of sort of curating and picking who I want to work with; people that I would never get the opportunity to possibly work with at New York City Ballet or in the ballet world. And that's very, very exciting to me. I'm so grateful that opportunities like this come to me and that collaborations like this can happen.'

Over the month of June, Mearns, Smith and Schraiber spent time in Ann Arbor, conceiving 'The Rose Sonata.' Smith calls the studio time at U-M 'the biggest gift.'

'It feels so concentrated here. We wake up, go to the studio, have dinner together, go to sleep, wake up, go back to the studio,' she said. 'I always say with every process, you can prepare and you can prepare, and then you get in the room and you start at zero. It's the people in the room who end up creating what becomes the work. And the people are inseparable from what the piece will become.'

Smith and Schraiber agree that their work thrives at the intersection of physicality, musicality and 'the listening between people.' Part of what helps to create that spark is prioritizing live music in their work, rather than the recorded music traditionally utilized in classical ballet performance.

'Live music is magic ... and there's something I love, how nothing is assumed when there's live music. It keeps people on the edge, and there is nothing to lay back on,' Smith said. 'It forces people to be present, in a way. And I love that everything is happening in the moment. The audience is with us. The music is happening right now, and someone is dancing to it. And for me, that's where I want to be.'

'The Rose Sonata' will be at the Power Center Oct. 23 and 24.