Sarasota Ballet is gaining a national, if not international, reputation for mastering a uniquely diverse repertoire including some of the greatest choreographers in today's dance world. On the Modern Greats program with three performances, December 3-4, 2010 at the Sarasota Opera House, the Sarasota Ballet will perform three Sarasota premieres - Christopher Wheeldon's The American, Will Tuckett's Spielende Kinder and Twyla Tharp's In the Upper Room.
One of the most memorable performances of the Sarasota Ballet's 2009-2010 season was Christopher Wheeldon's There Where She Loves. "It was as if Chris Wheeldon blew the roof off of Sarasota," says Sarasota Ballet director Iain Webb who expresses his great pleasure to be presenting another Wheeldon ballet this season.
The American, set to the music of Antonin Dvo?ak composed during his American sojourn, is one of the early works that established Christopher Wheeldon as one of the most sought after choreographers today. It was premiered by Carolina Ballet and in June 2004 by Images of Dance Company in London. The open spaces and tranquility of the American west inspired Dvorak, and subsequently Wheeldon as reflected in his fluid choreography.
Anna Kisselgoff, dean of American dance critics, wrote of Wheeldon in the New York Times, "No ballet choreographer of his generation can match his imaginative use of the classical vocabulary."
Royal Ballet choreographer Will Tuckett spent a whirlwind week in Sarasota in early September working with the dancers to set his Spielende Kinder, which was originally created as a ballet for ABT2, entitled School Pieces. Will Tuckett recreated Spielende Kinder (translating from the German as "Children at Play") for Margaret Barbieri and London Studio Centre's Images of Dance in 2004. For the Sarasota Ballet, he has once again revised and reworked his ballet to showpiece the vitality and the virtuosity of the dancers.
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