Houston Ballet Offers Up a Mixed Repertory Program DIRECTOR'S CHOICE: LEGENDS AND PRODIGY

From March 16 - 26, Houston Ballet offers up a mixed repertory program Director's Choice: Legends and Prodigy, featuring three company, dancer and audience favorites. Hans van Manen's Grosse Fuge showcases Houston Ballet's strong male lineup and proves unequivocally why he is Holland's most famous choreographer. Ji?í Kylián created Stepping Stones during a visit to Australia as a reflection on man's desire to preserve his heritage. Justin Peck joins Houston Ballet's repertoire with Year of the Rabbit, a ballet that showcases the corps de ballet.

Houston Ballet Revives Grosse Fuge By Holland's Famous Choreographer

Hans van Manen

Hans van Manen's Grosse Fuge, originally created for Netherlands Dance Theater on April 8, 1971, is an abstract, contemporary work for eight dancers. Grosse Fuge examines love and relationships, a common theme in van Manen's choreography. It is set to Ludwig van Beethoven's Grosse Fuge, Op. 133 and Cavatina Op. 130, one of the composer's last works for string quartet.

Pulitzer-Prize winning author and musician Edmund Morris observed that Beethoven's Grosse Fuge is "deliberately harsh music that is cruel to play and cruel to listen to. It's like Beethoven wanted to push the body always beyond its own limits." Beethoven's aggressive music is reflected to some degree in van Manen's choreography, which features vigorous male partnering, as well as strong group and ensemble work. The costumes, designed by van Manen, are notable for the long, divided, Martha Graham-like skirts worn by the male dancers.

Luke Jennings from The Guardian commented, "Hans van Manen's work is characterized by its structural sophistication, and while his principal subject is dance itself, there is often a detectable subtext, a sense of dark undercurrents swirling beneath the formal balletic architecture. These often relate to the conflicted relations between men and women, concerning whose differing natures Van Manen has clear ideas." (May 14, 2011).

Houston Ballet has three other works by Mr. van Manen in its repertory, Adagio Hammerklavier, Five Tangos and Solo.

Company Premieres Ji?í Kylián's Dynamic Stepping Stones

Stepping Stones, a ballet for eight dancers, is set to John Cage's Sonatas and Interludes for Prepared Piano and Anton Webern's Six Bagatelles for String Quartet, and acts as a reflection on the handing-on of cultural heritage. Mr. Kylián created the ballet in 1991 for the Stuttgart Ballet as a reverence to tradition and heritage. The dancers move with miniature copies of sculptures that range from prehistoric time to the time of Brancusi. All the while, they are watched by statues of Egyptian cats who have witnessed over 3,000 years of human evolution. In the creation of Stepping Stones, Mr. Kylián noted, "I have great respect for cultural achievements of the past. So we all carry our cultural baggage, which sometimes restricts our movement, and sometimes serves us as a 'stepping stone,' enabling us to move between 'what was' and 'what will be.'"
Ji?í Kylián has proven to be one of the world's most influential choreographers and has had a profound impact on the world of dance. Jack Anderson, writing in The New York Times about Kylián, observed, "Ballets choreographed by Ji?í Kylián are passionate, rhapsodic, even tempestuous. The Czech-born artistic director of Netherlands Dance Theater likes to send dancers surging in great waves across the stage, and he is not afraid to make strong choreographic statements in the theater." (June 21, 1987).

Houston Ballet has eight other works by Mr. Kylián in its repertoire, including Symphony in D, Sinfonietta, Forgotten Land, Svadebka, Falling Angels, Soldiers' Mass, Sechs-Tanze and Petite Mort.

Company Premieres Choreographer Justin Peck's Acclaimed Year of the Rabbit

Rounding out the program is the company premiere of Justin Peck's Year of the Rabbit. The ballet was Mr. Peck's second work for New York City Ballet, and is a collaboration with American singer-songwriter Sufjan Stevens. The ballet is set to Mr. Steven's astrology-inspired electronica album and song cycle Enjoy Your Rabbit. Year of the Rabbit is an elaboration of Mr. Peck's Tales of a Chinese Zodiac, which he created in 2010 for the New York Choreographic Institute.

At the world premiere of Year of the Rabbit New York Times writer Brian Seibert enthused, "The plenitude is delightful rather than oppressive, because of the freshness and because of Mr. Peck's precocious command of structure. To be offered so many wonders in succession is heady, but it is Mr. Peck's brilliant transitions that make the mind want to keep up and help it do so." (October 7, 2012).

Justin Peck is currently a soloist dancer and the Resident Choreographer with New York City Ballet and has been hailed as an important new voice in 21st-century choreography.

About Houston Ballet

Houston Ballet has evolved into a company of 59 dancers with a budget of $33.2 million (making it the United States' fifth largest ballet company by number of dancers), a state-of-the-art performance space built especially for the company, Wortham Theater Center, the largest professional dance facility in America, Houston Ballet's $46.6 million Center for Dance which opened in April 2011, and an endowment of just over $70 million (as of January 2017).

Australian choreographer Stanton Welch AM has served as artistic director of Houston Ballet since 2003, raising the level of the company's classical technique and commissioning many new works from dance makers such as Christopher Bruce, Jorma Elo, James Kudelka, Trey McIntyre, Julia Adam, Natalie Weir, Nicolo Fonte, and Edwaard Liang. Executive Director James Nelson serves as the administrative leader of the company, a position he assumed in February 2012 after serving as the company's General Manager for over a decade.

Houston Ballet has toured extensively both nationally and internationally. Over the past fifteen years, the company has appeared in London at Sadler's Wells, at the Bolshoi Theater in Moscow, Russia, in six cities in Spain, Montréal and Ottawa, at The Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C., in New York at City Center and The Joyce Theater, at the Théâtre des Champs Elysées in Paris, at The Arts Center Melbourne State Theatre in Melbourne, Australia, in Los Angeles at The Music Center's Dorothy Chandler Pavilion, and in cities large and small across the United States. Houston Ballet has emerged as a leader in the expensive, labor-intensive task of nurturing the creation and development of new full-length narrative ballets.

Houston Ballet Orchestra was established in the late 1970s and currently consists of 61 professional musicians who play all ballet performances at Wortham Theater Center under music director Ermanno Florio.

Houston Ballet's Education and Outreach Program has reached approximately 45,884 Houston area students (as of January 2017). Houston Ballet's Academy has over a thousand students and has had five academy students win awards at the prestigious international ballet competition the Prix de Lausanne, with one student winning the overall competition in 2010. For more information on Houston Ballet visit www.houstonballet.org.