Program pairs Concerto Barocco and La Source in a rare Los Angeles presentation.
American Contemporary Ballet will present Balanchine: Twin Masterpieces, featuring George Balanchine’s Concerto Barocco and La Source, from March 6 through March 27 at Bank of America Plaza in downtown Los Angeles. The program marks the first time the two ballets have been performed together in Los Angeles and the first full-length staging of La Source in the city in 40 years.
Both ballets are plotless works that exemplify Balanchine’s neoclassical style and are similar in structure and scale, each featuring one male principal, one female principal, one female soloist, and an ensemble of eight dancers. Despite these similarities, the works present distinct musical and visual atmospheres.
Concerto Barocco is set to Johann Sebastian Bach’s Double Violin Concerto from 1731 and has been described by critic Alastair Macaulay as “as near perfection as ballet can be.” La Source is set to music by Léo Delibes, a composer Balanchine regarded as particularly attuned to dance. Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky once said of Delibes’ ballet music, “If I had known this music I would not have written Swan Lake.”
American Contemporary Ballet previously staged Concerto Barocco three years ago. The current program reunites the work with La Source, offering audiences the opportunity to experience both ballets in the company’s intimate performance setting, accompanied by live music.
ACB Director Lincoln Jones said, “There are those who have claimed the classical vocabulary is limiting. Here, we see it is the opposite: a tool of infinite creation and timeless beauty.”
Balanchine: Twin Masterpieces
March 6 – March 27
Bank of America Plaza
333 S. Hope Street
Los Angeles, CA 90071
Tickets range from $65 to $140.
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