As sharp and bright as the steel, and as strong as the football
team that define its hometown, Pittsburgh Ballet Theatre will make
its New York City debut at The Joyce Theater, March 29–April
3. Gleaming with the company’s newly created contemporary
edge, the Joyce repertory features New York premieres by decidedly
different choreographers: Kevin O’Day, Derek Deane and Dwight
Rhoden. Former American Ballet Theatre principal Terrence S. Orr,
the troupe’s artistic director since 1997, has been determined
from the start to bring a new dimension to the classically trained
company.
“Balanchine’s ballets,
which had been the backbone of PBT’s repertoire, demanded
that the company have a strong classical technique,” said
Orr. “Since taking over PBT, however, I have been vigilantly
seeking innovative choreographers to challenge the dancers in new
and demanding ways.”
Kevin O’Day’s “Sting/ING
Situations,” set to a series of the rocker’s hit songs
such as “Walking on the Moon,” “Every Little Thing
She Does is Magic” and “Roxanne,” plays games
with space and time. What emerges is a ballet bursting with surprising
patterns and unexpected encounters between the dancers. Although
O’Day, who danced with the Joffrey Ballet, American Ballet
Theatre, Frankfurt Ballet and Twyla Tharp, set the timing, patterns
and spacing, the dancers choose how to get from point A to B.
Derek Deane, a former principal with
the Royal Ballet, chose music by America’s blue-collar composer
Bruce Springsteen to accompany his “Hungry Heart…‘we
all have one’!!” Set in a diner in the 1950’s
or ’60’s and episodic in form, the ballet presents a
series of short stories about local, everyday people, their lives
and their feelings of love, disillusionment, frustration, anger
and friendship.
Giving classic ballet vocabulary a sharply contemporary edge, Dwight
Rhoden’s “7th Heaven” is set to classic sounds
of Beethoven and Bach. The stage, brimming with movement, is electrified
by dancers whose classically trained balletic line is challenged
by Rhoden’s new demands on their torsos and unconventional
feats of coordination.
In addition to its Joyce Theater
repertory, the company, which was founded in 1969, performs a range
of works including Balanchine, Jiri Kylian, Kenneth MacMillan, Choo
San Goh, Paul Taylor, Marius Petipa, Agnes de Mille and Bruce Wells.
Terrence S. Orr, Artistic Director of PBT, joined American Ballet
Theatre in 1965, where he was a principal dancer and later became
a ballet master. He has worked with such noted choreographers and
dance artists as Agnes de Mille, Jerome Robbins, Mikhail Baryshnikov,
George Balanchine, Choo San Goh, Eliot Feld, Erik Bruhn and Kenneth
MacMillan. He is married to Marianna Tcherkassky, a former principal
ballerina with ABT and a current ballet mistress at PBT. Orr succeeded
former New York City Ballet principal Patricia Wilde, who had been
the company’s artistic director from 1982 to 1996.
ABOUT THE CHOREOGRAPHERS FOR THE JOYCE SEASON:
Kevin O’Day
received his early dance training at the Joffrey Ballet School in
New York. After one year he joined the Joffrey II and the following
year he became a member of the Joffrey Ballet, after which he began
performing with Twyla Tharp in 1984. From 1988 to 1991 he was a
soloist with American Ballet Theatre, where he performed in a wide
variety of roles. In 1991 he joined the Frankfurt Ballet and from
1992 to 1995 he was a member of Mikhail Baryshnikov’s White
Oak Dance Project. During that time, O’Day appeared frequently
as a guest with New York City Ballet. He made his choreographic
debut in 1994 with a dance for White Oak Dance Project. In 1998
O’Day and composer John King collaborated to form O’Day
Dances. To date, O’Day has choreographed more than 30 original
works, including commissions for NYCB, Hubbard Street Dance Chicago,
Les Grands Ballet Canadiens, Stuttgart Ballet, Les Ballet de Monte
Carlo, Pacific Northwest Ballet, Pennsylvania Ballet and Ballet
Argentino. Currently he is the artistic director of Ballet Mannheim.
Derek Deane joined
The Royal Ballet School in 1970 and after two years graduated into
The Royal Ballet Company, where he rapidly rose through the ranks
to become senior principal dancer. He left the company in 1989 to
pursue an international career as a teacher and choreographer. In
1991, he became resident choreographer and assistant director of
the Ballet di Roma in Rome, Italy, while he also choreographed many
ballets for La Scala in Milan, Teatro San Carlo in Naples and The
Teatro Massimo in Palermo, Sicily. In March 1993, he became artistic
director of English National Ballet, where he remained until 2001.
Many productions were created for the company during his tenure,
including his “In The Round” productions for The Royal
Albert Hall. Deane was nominated for two Lawrence Olivier Awards
for his ENB productions, and in 2000 he received an OBE (Order of
the British Empire) in Her Majesty the Queen’s New Year’s
Honours List for service to dance.
Dwight Rhoden, a
native of Dayton, Ohio, began dancing at the age of 17, while studying
acting. He has performed with Dayton Contemporary Dance Company,
Les Ballet Jazz De Montréal, and was a principal dancer with
Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, where he also served as company
teacher, choreographer-in-residence and rehearsal coach. He has
been a featured performer in numerous television specials, documentaries
and commercials in the U.S., Canada and Europe. Rhoden is co-director,
along with Desmond Richardson, of Complexions. He has created works
for DCDC, Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, Pennsylvania Ballet,
Joffrey Ballet, Phoenix Dance Company and Aspen Ballet, among others.
Pittsburgh Ballet Theatre performs
regularly at the Benedum Center in Pittsburgh, PA, most recently
presenting “The Sleeping Beauty” (February 10–13)
and “A Tribute to Paul Simon” (March 10–13). Following
its Joyce Theater season, the company will return to Pittsburgh
to perform “Madame Butterfly” (April 28–May 1);
“Carmen” (October 6–9); and “The Nutcracker”
(December 11–28).
The evening curtain for Pittsburgh
Ballet Theatre’s Joyce Theater season, Tuesday through Saturday,
is at 8pm. There will also be 2pm matinees on Saturday and Sunday.
Tickets are $40. All tickets 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.
###
Pittsburgh Ballet Theatre,
a not-for-profit organization, is supported in part by the National
Endowment for the Arts, a federal agency; the Pennsylvania Council
on the Arts, a state agency; the Allegheny Regional Asset District
and Allegheny County, the Heinz Endowments, the Claude Worthington
Benedum Foundation, the Shubert Foundation, The Surdna Foundation,
ALCOA Foundation, Columbia Gas of Pennsylvania, Dominion, Giant
Eagle Foundation, H. J. Heinz Company Foundation, Highmark Blue
Cross Blue Shield, Kaufmann’s, The Lazarus-Macy’s Fund
of the Federated Foundation, Mellon Financial Corporation Foundation,
PNC Foundation, PPG Industries Foundation, UPMC and US Airways.
Pittsburgh Ballet Theatre performances at The Joyce Theater are
sponsored by The Alcoa Foundation, The Heinz Endowments, the Adams
Foundation and various Pittsburgh Ballet Theatre Trustees.
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