VIDEO: NYC Ballet's Russell Janzen on GLASS PIECES

As dancer Russell Janzen notes, Jerome Robbins' Glass Pieces may be an abstract ballet with an experimental score by Phillip Glass, yet it's also rooted in the real world, especially the feeling of driving, pulsing undercurrents found just by walking through New York City. See Janzen talk about the work in the video!

Expansive in scope and streamlined in style, Glass Pieces captures the pulsating heartbeat of metropolitan life with its charged, urban choreography, concluding in a finale that propels the corps de ballet across the stage at an electrifying pace.

Although Philip Glass's work is often labeled as minimalist, he prefers to call it "music with repetitive structures." His early compositions were greatly influenced by Ravi Shankar and the hypnotic rhythms of Indian music. Some of his most notable work for theater includes the trilogy of operas comprising Einstein on the Beach, Satyagraha, and Akhnaten. Jerome Robbins, originally in line to direct Akhnaten, instead choreographed a ballet using music from the opera along with Rubric and Facades, both from Glassworks. In Glass Pieces, Robbins incorporated concepts from postmodern dance into the traditional ballet vocabulary, and he infused the work with a distinctly urban energy. The recurrent rhythms, driving momentum, and labyrinth of shifting patterns of the ensemble combine to create a physical architecture for Glass's music.

The centerpiece of the Spring Season is Robbins 100, a celebration of Jerome Robbins, NYCB's co-founding choreographer, whose remarkable contributions to the worlds of ballet and Broadway musical theater have made an indelible impression on both art forms. The three-week celebration runs through May 20, featuring 20 works created by Robbins over the course of 40 years, as well as two world premiere ballets in tribute to Robbins. Robbins 100 opened on Thursday, May 3 with a Spring Gala performance.

All performances will take place at the David H. Koch Theater at Lincoln Center, located at West 63rd Street and Columbus Avenue. Tickets start at $30 and are available at nycballet.com, by calling 212- 496-0600, or at the theater's box office. Benefit-priced tickets for the May 3 Spring Gala evening, which include the 7 p.m. performance, a pre-performance reception, and a black-tie supper ball, are available through the NYCB Special Events Office at 212-870-5585 or at nycballet.com/springgala