 Is “improvisational
ballet” an oxymoron? If so, James Sewell challenges its apparent
contradiction in “Barrage,” which will have its New
York City premiere at The Joyce Theater, January 20–25. In
it, for instance, Sewell quotes a duet from “The Nutcracker”
only to have it interrupted by a burst of improvisation.
Such daring should not surprise. The 43-year-old Sewell has confounded
expectation ever since he uprooted his nascent company from New
York and returned to his native Minneapolis in 1993. During its
first decade, the company has become celebrated for manning the
border of neoclassical ballet. Sewell’s unique re-visions
will also be evident in the two other ballets on the program: “Moving
Works” and “Loves Remembered.”
“Barrage,” Sewell’s response to the overwhelming
deluge of traumatic world events, especially post-9/11, is set to
music as varied as Handel, Tchaikovsky and Fat Boy Slim. The 32-minute
ballet deftly negotiates despair and optimism, loss and control,
and order and chaos through its references to traditional work disturbed
by improvised responses by the dancers, who have been schooled in
contact improvisation techniques along with their classical training.
Structured around six Lieder and marking one of Sewell’s first
ballets, “Loves Remembered” premiered in New York at
the Merce Cunningham Studio in 1991. In keeping with the artistic
and poetic roots of the Lieder form, which emerged in the Seventeenth
Century as a means to link music with love poetry, “Loves
Remembered” is a series of male and female variations that
culminate in three duets reflecting the ambiguity, physicality and
passion of loves past and present.
Created in 1996, “Moving Works,” set to music by J.S.
Bach, Monteverdi, Baaba Maal and Combustible Edison, is a complex
exploration of multiple coordination and Sewell’s typically
imaginative musical choices. Performed by the full company of eight
dancers, the movement brims with primal emotion and drama.
Born into a family of professional musicians, James Sewell began
his dance training at the Children’s Theatre Company School
in Minneapolis. He studied the violin for nine years before beginning
to train in ballet at the age of 15. At 17, he moved to New York
to study at the School of American Ballet. He danced with ABT II,
the apprentice company of American Ballet Theatre, before joining
the Feld Ballet, where he was a principal dancer for six years.
As a dancer, he has performed as a guest artist with a range of
ballet and modern dance companies, including the New York City Ballet,
Zvi Gotheiner and Dancers, Denishawn and Martine van Hamel’s
New Amsterdam Ballet. George Balanchine created a role on him for
the Dance in America television production of “L’enfant
et les Sortileges.”
Sewell began creating ballets in 1982 while still at the School
of American Ballet in New York. Since then, he has choreographed
more than 50 works, nine for which he also composed the music. Most
recently, he has worked with improvisation. He has collaborated
with Chris Aiken and Kirstie Simson, masters in the improvisation
dance form. In 2001, the New York Choreographic Institute selected
him to work with dancers in the New York City Ballet and in 2002
he received the Bush Foundation Artist Fellowship to explore the
intersections between improvisation and ballet as well as to examine
the world dance community more closely. His dances have been performed
by more than a dozen companies in the United States and Taiwan.
Special projects and commissions have included “Musical Toys,”
accompanied by pianist Andreas Haefliger, for the Minnesota Orchestra;
“Passions,” a ballet commissioned for the Saint Paul
Chamber Orchestra, composed by Augusta Read Thomas; “Amahl
and the Night Visitors,” produced with the Saint Paul Chamber
Orchestra; “Nirvana Dharma,” a ballet commissioned for
James Sewell Ballet and the Plymouth Music Series of Minnesota;
choreography for the Minnesota Opera’s production of “Aida;”
and choreographing and dancing for a video – “Nutcracker:
The Untold Story” – for the Minnesota Orchestra’s
NotesAlive!™ video series.
Prior to its season at The Joyce, James Sewell Ballet performed
in St. Paul, MN (October 3–12); St. Cloud, MN (October 17);
Grand Island, Nebraska (November 21–23); and Covington, VA
(December 15), before returning to St. Paul from December 19–21.
The tour will continue after The Joyce season, with stops in Sanibel,
FL (February 21); Rochester, MN (March 5); Minneapolis, MN (March
19–21); East Lansing, MI (April 3); and St. Paul, MN (April
23–May 2).
The evening curtain for James Sewell Ballet at The Joyce Theater
is at 8pm, Tuesday through Saturday, and at 7:30pm on Sunday. There
will also be a 2pm matinee on both Saturday and Sunday. Tickets
are $36, and are available at the box office, by calling JoyceCharge
at 212-242-0800, or online at www.joyce.org. The Joyce Theater is
located at 175 Eighth Avenue at 19th Street.
###
These performances are made possible in part by a grant from the
Minnesota State Arts Board, through an appropriation by the Minnesota
State Legislature and a grant from the National Endowment for the
Arts.
Support for James Sewell Ballet's New York performances is provided
by the Art and Martha Kaemmer Fund of HRK Foundation.
122403
BACK TOP TOP
250 West 57th Street Suite 2318 New York
NY 10107 USA
T: 212.245.5100 F:212.397.1102 eja@ejassociates.org www.ejassociates.org
ELLEN JACOBS ASSOCIATES
|