Sarasota Ballet Presents MODERN GREATS, 12/3-4

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.

The choreographer has expressed his desire "to capture that fleeting moment between childhood and maturity in these snapshots of life as a series of playground games." In short, this is more a portrait of the uneasy transitions and breathless contradictions of adolescence, as we gradually learn to "put away childish things" and grow up. Carl Orff's rhythmically energetic music is matched by Tuckett's choreographic wit and vigor, to create a piece which evokes all the joys of youth, alongside the wistful innocence of first love and future dreams.

"Will has an amazingly creative mind and it has been a wonderful experience for our dancers to work so closely with him," says Webb.
           
Twyla Tharp is one of the most decorated and admired of today's American choreographers with countless successes under her belt. She has choreographed more than 135 dances, five Hollywood movies, and directed and choreographed four Broadway shows. She received one Tony Award, two Emmy Awards, 19 honorary doctorates, the Vietnam Veterans of America President's Award, the 2004 National Medal of the Arts, the 2008 Jerome Robbins Prize, and a 2008 Kennedy Center Honor.
           
In 1986, her own company premiered In the Upper Room set to the propulsive and hypnotic music of the famed minimalist composer Phillip Glass.  In it she blends a diversity of styles over 40 minutes of energetic, pulsing rhythms.
           
It was received immediately with critical and popular acclaim and has experienced numerous performances over the last 25 years. Upon its premiere, Dale Harris of the Wall Street Journal wrote, "...the expressive force of the work is so clear, so vividly communicated, that the audience can hardly but give it an ovation."
 
Modern Greats, Sarasota Opera House, 61 N. Pineapple Ave., Sarasota, Fla., 8 p.m. Fri., Dec. 3 and Sat., Dec. 4, 2 p.m. Sat., Dec. 4, $20-$75, (941)359-0099 ext.101 or sarasotaballet.org

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