|
March 26, 2007 – The Joffrey Ballet’s 50th Anniversary Season will conclude with Light Rain,a crowd-pleasing,
mixed-repertory program featuring some of the most requested works from the company’s extensive repertoire. The program will include Gerald Arpino’s Light Rain and his
comic, battle-of-the-sexes “boxing match,” Valentine, as well as Pilobolus’ humorous Victorian-era inspired Untitled, David Parson’s gravity-defying Caught,
and two aerial solos, Joanna Haigood’s Dance for Yal and Moses Pendleton and Cynthia Quinn’s White Widow. The Joffrey Ballet will present Light Rain in nine
performances only, April 25 – May 6, 2007, at the Auditorium Theatre of Roosevelt University, 50 E. Congress Parkway. Sidney L. Port is the program sponsor for Light
Rain.
“Many of the works on the Light Rain program were presented during our very first seasons here as Chicago’s resident ballet company,” said Arpino. “These
pieces sparked fascination and excitement with audiences and we receive ongoing requests to perform them. An audience favorite since its premiere in 1981, Light Rain is one of the
most often requested ballets in the Joffrey repertoire and I am honored that The Joffrey will be closing its 50th Anniversary Celebration with the signature piece that I created.”
The Spring Program will open with Joanna Haigood’s Dance for Yal, a daring aerial work featuring a woman dressed in red soaring above the audience on a swing. This
riveting, rapturous solo was first presented by The Joffrey Ballet in 1996 as part of Legends, a suite of dances by women choreographers set to songs by iconic female
singers of the 20th century. In Dance for Yal, the dancer lip synchs Edith Piaf’s hopelessly romantic anthem, “Et Pourtant,” while executing the evocative and breathtaking
choreography. The piece is being staged in Chicago by Haigood.
Light Rain continues with Pilobolus’ humorous Victorian-era inspired Untitled (1975), an imaginative work about two women and their gentleman
suitors, with music by Robert Dennis. As most recently seen on the Academy Awards® telecast this past February, the famed modern dance collective, Pilobolus, constantly surprises with
its acrobatic, witty works that utilize the human body to create shapes and moving sculptures. In 1985, The Joffrey became the first ballet company to present a work by this exciting troupe
when it premiered its production of Untitled, in which six dancers portray the surreal and comical courtship of two proper Victorian women. The ladies, dainty in their lace dresses,
reveal new shapes when their sons emerge from beneath their dresses to carry the women on their shoulders, creating giantesses who dominate the stage. Untitled is being staged in
Chicago by Robby Barnett, Adam Battelstein, and Jude Woodcock of Pilobolus.
The second act opens with Moses Pendleton and Cynthia Quinn’s aerial dance piece White Widow, a haunting and fluid solo performed to Angelo Badalamenti’s mesmerizing “While
the World Spins” with lyrics by David Lynch. The dancer must use extreme strength and control while she spins and floats through the air, creating an air of delicacy and mystery. White
Widow was created in 1990 by Pendleton (a founding member of Pilobolus) and Quinn for their company, Momix. The Joffrey first premiered the work in 2000 and is currently the only other
company in the world to present it. White Widow was featured in the late Robert Altman’s 2003 film “The Company,” about The Joffrey Ballet, and is being staged in Chicago
by Quinn.
The tone changes to the comical with Arpino’s battle-of-the-sexes “boxing match,” Valentine. This 1971 classic opens with a man and woman in their
respective corners of a boxing ring and quickly escalates into a no-holds-barred skirmish. Double bassist Joseph
Guastafeste of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra performs Jacobs Druckman’s droll score on-stage, serving as the referee for the dueling lovers at his increasing peril.
The program continues with David Parson’s Caught (1982),a heart-pounding, high energy solo performed with a strobe light that makes the dancer appear to float and defy
gravity. Parsons, also the original performer, sets the work to an exciting electronic score by Robert Fripp, commissioned specifically for this piece. An amazing match of man, music
and technology, Caught requires split-second timing and extraordinary strength and stamina. This piece was first performed by The Joffrey Ballet in 1999, and is being staged in Chicago
by Elizabeth Koeppen.
Closing out the Spring Program, and The Joffrey Ballet’s 50th Anniversary Season, is Arpino’s theatrical, signature work, Light Rain (1981). Performed in
three movements, a large cast of dancers wash across the stage, pulsing with energy and forming fluid, exotic groupings. A sensual duet between a man and a woman acts as the centerpiece of
the ballet. The original score for Light Rain was created by two contemporary composers from San Francisco – Douglas Adamz and Russ Gauthier. Their music, entitled “Dream
Dancer,” mesmerizes with Eastern rhythms and an unusual combination of instruments such as banjo, violin, mandolin, bass, toumbec (clay drum), finger cymbals, tambourine, claves (South American
wood sticks), maraca and bamboo flute. Light Rain also appeared in Altman’s “The Company.”
-more-
Performance Schedule and Pricing for Light Rain
The performance schedule for The Joffrey Ballet presentation of Light Rain, April 25 – May 6, 2007, is as follows: Wednesday, April 25 at 7:30 p.m., Fridays,
April 27 & May 4 at 7:30 p.m., Saturdays, April 28 & May 5 at 2 p.m. & 7:30 p.m., and April 29 & May 6 at 2 p.m.
Single tickets, priced from $25 to $130, are currently on sale at the Auditorium Theatre of Roosevelt University box office, all Ticketmaster Ticket Centers, by telephone
at (312) 902-1500, or online at www.ticketmaster.com. Groups of 10 or more should call (312) 386-8899. There will be special $20 college and
graduate student “rush” tickets available an hour before curtain for any remaining tickets. Students will need to show a current ID.
The Joffrey Ballet extends special thanks to its 2006-2007 Season Sponsors, the Abbott Fund and Huron Consulting Group; Cinderella Program Sponsor, J.P.
Morgan Chase; the Production Sponsor for Cinderella, Chicago Community Trust and the NIB Foundation; The Nutcracker Program Sponsor, Exelon,
Proud Parent of ComEd; Destiny’s Dances Program Sponsor, The Sara Lee Foundation; Les Présages Production sponsor, the NIB Foundation; The Green
Table Production Sponsor, The Heller Foundation; and Light Rain Program Sponsor Sidney L. Port. Live music for the 2006-2007 Season, provided by The Chicago
Sinfonietta, is underwritten in part by The Joyce Foundation, the Julius Frankel Foundation, the Elizabeth F. Cheney Foundation, the Daniel F. and Ada L. Rice Foundation, and Burton and Anne Kaplan. The
2006-2007 Season is also supported by grants from the Illinois Arts Council and the CityArts Program of the Chicago Department of Cultural Affairs. The Joffrey Ballet is also supported by
the National Endowment for the Arts. Special thanks to American Airlines, the Official Airline of The Joffrey Ballet.
|
