 Two
new dances, as different as night and day, yet each affirming Pascal
Rioult’s restless musical imagination, highlight the Pascal
Rioult Dance Theatre’s annual Joyce Theater season, June 14–19.
The program features two freshly minted dances: “Les Noces,”
set to Stravinsky’s classic score of the same name, and excerpts
from a work-in-progress, “Kansas City Orfeo,” set to
music combining the 1762 Gluck opera and Kansas City jazz compositions.
The jazz sections of “Orfeo” will be played live. Last
year’s hit, “Firebird,” completes the bill.
In his deconstructed version of “Les
Noces,” Rioult once again defies the original take on a classic
score. Commissioned by Sergei Diaghilev in 1914, Bronislava Nijinska’s
version explored a 19th century Russian peasant wedding. For Rioult,
the music by Stravinsky presents a chance to strip away the expected
social and religious constructs of a marriage ritual to explore
the anxieties of leaving a safe and innocent world for a life of
sexual discovery. Unlike in the Nijinska classic, in which women
dominated the stage, men and women are equal partners in Rioult’s
interpretation.
“Kansas City Orfeo” likens
the tragic tale of Orfeo’s perilous journey into the underworld
in search of his beloved Eurydice to an artist’s creative
search for beauty, truth and immortality. In the work, Rioult creates
parallel worlds. The first presents a young Orfeo living in the
Kansas City underworld during Prohibition, where secret clubs and
organized crime rule and the sounds of jazz haunt the streets at
night; Rioult’s story tells of Orfeo’s heroic attempt
to rescue his kidnapped beloved. And then there is Rioult’s
other, older Orfeo, an artist recollecting his past failures and
disappointments in a world infested by surreal dreams and poetic
memories. The Joyce season will feature a 30-minute version of the
first act with an intimation of what is to come in the second. The
Julliard Jazz Ensemble will play a combination of Bennie Moten,
Count Basie and Duke Ellington during the Kansas City sections of
the dance. The sections reflecting the interior of the artist’s
mind are set to Gluck’s Baroque score.
Rioult’s fascination with Stravinsky’s
music was also seen last year in his “Firebird,” set
to the composer’s “The Firebird Suite,” inspired
by the ancient Russian tale of magic and transformation. The music
was originally commissioned in 1910 by Diaghilev for a new ballet
by Michel Fokine based on various Russian fairy tales. In Rioult’s
dance, a young child is the symbol of the bird; her innocence and
curiosity are agents of rebirth for the de-humanized creatures that
surround her in an underworld of lost souls. The now-10-year-old
Hannah Burnette Cullen returns as the bird.
Born in Normandy, France, Pascal Rioult
earned a Master’s degree in science education from the University
of Paris, and in 1981 was awarded a fellowship from the French Ministry
of Culture to study dance in New York City. After performing with
the companies of May O’Donnell and Paul Sanasardo, Rioult
joined the Martha Graham Dance Company in 1986, dancing as a principal
with the company until 1994.
While still dancing with Graham, Rioult
began choreographing in 1989, founding the Pascal Rioult Dance Theatre
in 1991. He produced his first concerts at the Theatre of the Riverside
Church in 1991 and 1992. Rioult’s “Narayama” and
“Harvest” were performed by the Graham Company during
its City Center seasons in New York. The Pascal Rioult Dance Theatre
has performed its repertory of over 20 works throughout the United
States as well as abroad. Rioult’s work has been commissioned
in both the United States and Europe by such presenters as the American
Dance Festival, Cal Performances and Théâtre de Saint
Quentin en Yvelines. The recipient of a 1998 and 2002 Choo-San Goh
Award for Choreography, Rioult has also been awarded grants from
National Endowment for the Arts and The New York State Council on
the Arts, among numerous other institutions and foundations.
Following the Pascal Rioult Dance
Theatre’s Joyce engagement, the company will perform as part
of City Center’s “Fall for Dance Festival” this
fall and in Harrisburg, PA (October 20). During November and December,
the troupe will to tour 10 cities in France, Belgium and Switzerland,
before returning to New York to perform at Queens Theater in the
Park (December 17–18).
The evening curtain for the company’s
Joyce Theater season, on Tuesday and Wednesday, is at 7:30pm. Thursday
through Saturday performances are at 8pm; the Sunday evening curtain
is at 7:30pm. There will also be 2pm matinees on Saturday and Sunday.
Tickets are $38 and are available at The Joyce Theater 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.
###
Major Support of the Pascal Rioult Dance Theatre’s
2005 New York Season has been provided by:
Altria Group, Inc., Crédit Industriel et Commercial, The
Lila Acheson Wallace Theater Fund of the New York Community Trust,
The Florence Gould Foundation, The Ford Foundation Good Neighbor
Committee, The Geoffrey C. Hughes Foundation, The Grand Marnier
Foundation, Harriet & Gordon K. Greenfield Foundation, The Harkness
Foundation for Dance, Donald L. Holley, The Lepercq Foundation,
The New York State Council on the Arts and SG Corporate & Investment
Banking.
The Pascal Rioult Dance Theatre wishes to express its appreciation
to the Theatre Development Fund for its support of this season.
Live music underwritten in memory of Gordon K. Greenfield.
Costume and lighting for “Les Noces” was underwritten
by Judy S. Gordon. Additional support provided by the Kenneth French
Fund for New Works.
“Firebird” was commissioned by the ADF, with support
from the Doris Duke Awards for New Work and the Altria Group, Inc.,
with additional co-commissioning support from Cal Performances and
was completed with funding from the Kenneth French Fund for New
Works.
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