Amazed in Burning Dreams

Stacy Lowenberg and Maria Chapman in
Amazed in Burning Dreams. Photo © Angela Sterling

Music: Philip Glass (from Mishima film soundtrack, 1985)
Choreography: Kirk Peterson
Costume Design: Kirk Peterson and Larae Theige Hascall
Lighting Design: Randall G. Chiarelli
Duration: 31 minutes
Premiere: April 22, 1992; Pacific Northwest Ballet (PNB Offstage); repertory premiere November 16, 1993

Kirk Peterson choreographed Amazed in Burning Dreams for the 1992 season of PNB Offstage. Originally performed under the title Liquid Glass, Peterson’s abstract ballet is set to Philip Glass’s score for the 1985 film Mishima. Glass's music inspired in Peterson a very formalized response that nevertheless pulsates with an undercurrent of danger and controlled emotion.

Amazed in Burning Dreams was the first work created for PNB Offstage to be taken into the regular repertory. Todd Levin orchestrated Glass’s music from the original soundtrack into the living sounds of an orchestra for PNB’s repertory premiere in November 1993.

Notes by Jeanie Thomas; edited by Doug Fullington, 2009.