The Joffrey Ballet

March 20, 2006 – The 2005-2006 Joffrey Ballet 50th Anniversary Season will culminate with Cool Vibrations, showcasing three exciting works set to contemporary music: the World Premiere of Motown Suite, a new work by Donald Byrd set to Motown hits; Deuce Coupe (1973), which revolutionized the way the world viewed ballet, featuring choreography by Twyla Tharp and performed to the all-American music of The Beach Boys; and crowd favorite, Sometimes It Snows in April, choreographed by Laura Dean, from The Joffrey’s Billboards (1993), its full evening of ballet set to the music of Prince. Cool Vibrations will be performed at the Auditorium Theatre of Roosevelt University, 50 E. Congress Parkway, in nine performances only, April 26 through May 7, 2006.

Cool Vibrations will be performed to recorded music by the original artists. Motorola is the Program Sponsor for this presentation.

“This 50th Anniversary Season has showcased all aspects of The Joffrey’s extensive and diverse repertoire—from great classics such as Romeo and Juliet and The Dream, to modern masterpieces like Return to a Strange Land,” said co-founder and artistic director, Gerald Arpino. “Cool Vibrations highlights The Joffrey’s legacy as being the first ballet company to meld classical dance with popular music and social dancing, with the groundbreaking Deuce Coupe by Twyla Tharp, Laura Dean’s Sometimes it Snows in April, from Billboards, and a brand new commission, Motown Suite, by contemporary choreographer Donald Byrd.”

Opening the Spring Program is Twyla Tharp’s lively and fun Deuce Coupe (1973), set to the music of The Beach Boys. In 1973, the avant-garde Tharp was invited by Robert Joffrey and Gerald Arpino to create a new work for The Joffrey – her first ever for a ballet company. Deuce Coupe was groundbreaking in its juxtaposition of the classical ballet vocabulary with Tharp’s quirky loose-limbed dance technique and the free-form dances of the 1960s and 1970s. The work is widely considered a masterpiece of late 20th century choreography. Tharp is now internationally known for her Broadway hit, Movin’ Out, as well as her choreography for the motion pictures, “Hair,” “Ragtime,” and “White Nights.”

The program continues with a World Premiere from Donald Byrd, Motown Suite, his first for The Joffrey Ballet. Byrd uses classic Motown hits to explore his themes in this ballet, including “Dancing in the Street” by Martha Reeves & The Vandellas, “Love Machine” by The Miracles, “You Can’t Hurry Love” by The Supremes, “I Heard it Through (the Grapevine)” by Marvin Gaye, and more. Byrd, who is known for his edgy style and the daring attack of his work, has created over 80 works for his former company, DONALD BYRD/THE GROUP, and for Spectrum Dance Theater, for which he is currently serving as Artistic Director, as well as for many major modern dance repertory companies including The Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater and Dayton Contemporary Dance Company, and classical companies including Pacific Northwest Ballet and Oregon Ballet Theater, to name a few. He is probably best know for his reworking of the Christmas classic, The Nutcracker, into The Harlem Nutcracker, which received critical acclaim and toured nationally for five years. Byrd was recently the choreographer for the current Broadway hit, The Color Purple.

When asked about his new piece for The Joffrey, Byrd said, “I have always had an interest in the place where popular culture and high art intersected. From a movement perspective, the proposed new work would ask how black vernacular dance might link to the movement syntax of ballet and attempt to integrate the two. We’re investigating the American way of moving and how it has been informed by African-American music and dance.”

Closing out the program will be Laura Dean’s Sometimes It Snows in April, an excerpt from Gerald Arpino’s production of Billboards (1993) that took international audiences by storm. This full evening of dance featured four radically different works from choreographers Laura Dean, Charles Moulton, Margo Sappington and Peter Pucci all set to the music of Prince. Dean’s Sometimes It Snows in April opened the evening and was set to the title song, “Trust” and “Baby, I’m a Star.” Dressed all in silver, the dancers traverse the stage in Dean’s signature geometric patterns and mesmerizing repetition as the ballets energy builds to its breathless finish. This revival marks the first time the work has been seen in nearly a decade.

The performance schedule for Cool Vibrations, April 26 – May 7, 2006, is as follows: Wednesday, April 26 at 7:30 p.m.; Friday, April 28 at 7:30 p.m.; Saturday, April 29 at 2 and 7:30 p.m.; Sunday, April 30 at 2 p.m.; Friday, May 5 at 7:30 p.m.; Saturday, May 6 at 2 and 7:30 p.m.; and Sunday, May 7 at 2 p.m.

Tickets, priced from $15 to $125, are now on sale at the Auditorium Theatre of Roosevelt University box office, all Ticketmaster Ticket Centers and Broadway in Chicago locations, 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 $15 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 2005-2006 Season Sponsors, the Abbott Fund and Huron Consulting Group; Cool Vibrations Program Sponsor Motorola; Production Sponsors for Deuce Coupe, Mary & Saul Sanders and the National Endowment for the Arts; Production Sponsors for Motown Suite, The Chicago Community Trust, NIB Foundation, and the National Endowment for the Arts; and the Production Sponsor for Sometimes it Snows in April, the Sara Lee Foundation; A Midsummer Night’s Dream Program Sponsor, Chase; the Production Sponsors for Celebration, the NIB Foundation, and Sidney L. Port; The Nutcracker Program Sponsors, Exelon, proud parent of ComEd, and Northern Trust; Romeo and Juliet Program Sponsor, LaSalle Bank and the Production Sponsor, the NIB Foundation. The 2005-2006 Season is also supported by grants from the Illinois Arts Council and the CityArts Program of the Chicago Department of Cultural Affairs. Special thanks to American Airlines, the Official Airline of The Joffrey Ballet.

For more information on the 2005-2006 Joffrey Ballet Season, please call (312) 739-0120 or visit www.joffrey.com.

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