Program Notes

Concerto Barocco

Music: Johann Sebastian Bach (Double Violin Concerto in D minor, BWV 1043)
Choreography: George Balanchine © New York City Ballet
Staging: Francia Russell
Lighting Design: Randall G. Chiarelli
Duration: 22 minutes
Premiere: June 27, 1941; American Ballet Caravan (Rio de Janeiro)
Pacific Northwest Ballet Premiere: March 10, 1977; restaged April 13, 1978

Perhaps the best-known description of George Balanchine’s achievement as a choreographer is that he made us “see the music and hear the dancing.” Balanchine acknowledged the preeminence of music in his creative process, asserting that “I cannot move, I don’t even want to move, unless I hear the music first.” But it was only in 1941, with Concerto Barocco, that he liberated himself totally from plot, character, and philosophical pretext and created a work which proclaimed unequivocally that the human body moving in relation to music is ballet’s essential concern.

Of this landmark piece, Balanchine himself stated: “The only preparation possible is a knowledge of its music [Johann Sebastian Bach’s Double Violin Concerto in D minor], for Concerto Barocco has no ‘subject matter’ beyond the score to which it is danced and the particular dancers who execute it.” Masterfully reflecting Bach’s polyphonic structure and development of musical voices—the brilliant interplay of the two solo violins with the chamber orchestra, and with each other—Balanchine’s choreography is as complex and pure as the music itself. But, as many viewers have noted, the ballet is no literal reproduction of Bach’s great score. Rather, it is movement related so ingeniously to the music’s inner workings that it seems an extra line of counterpoint or a partner in a subtle dialogue.

Concerto Barocco was soon recognized as a masterpiece. Choreographed during Balanchine’s free-lance years for a State Department tour of South America, the work was included on the opening night program of the newly established New York City Ballet at the City Center of Music and Drama in 1948 and has rarely been out of that company’s repertory. Concerto Barocco has been in Pacific Northwest Ballet’s repertory since 1977, first in a staging by Melissa Hayden, then restaged by Francia Russell the following year.

Dancing on the Front Porch of Heaven

Odes to Love and Loss

Music: Arvo Pärt (Cantus in Memory of Benjamin Britten, 1977)
Choreography: Ulysses Dove
Staging: Eva Säfström
Scenic and Costume Design: Jorge Gallardo
Original Lighting Design: Björn Nilsson
Lighting Design: Randall G. Chiarelli
Duration: 20 minutes
Premiere: April 29, 1993; Royal Swedish Ballet
Pacific Northwest Ballet Premiere: November 2, 2006; restaged August 19, 2009 (Jacob’s Pillow Dance Festival)

The 2006 Pacific Northwest Ballet premiere of Ulysses Dove’s Dancing on the Front Porch of Heaven was generously underwritten in part by Glenn Kawasaki and Winona & Robert Nilan.

Set for three couples in white unitards and subtitled Odes to Love and Loss, Dancing on the Front Porch of Heaven was choreographed for the Royal Swedish Ballet in 1993 and received its U.S. premiere in 1996 at the For the Love of Dove benefit in New York. According to New York Times dance critic Jennifer Dunning, Dove “suggests a broken flow of relationships by placing his solos and duets in a chain of white spotlights.” Dove himself explained, “To me, Arvo Pärt’s music can send souls to heaven. I want to tell an experience in movement, a story without words, and create a poetic monument over people I loved.” The musical score, Estonian composer Arvo Pärt’s Cantus in Memory of Benjamin Britten, is the same used by Susan Marshall for her aerial pas de deux, Kiss.

In the Upper Room

Music: Philip Glass (1986)
Choreography: Twyla Tharp
Staging: Shelley Washington
Scenic Design: Santo Loquasto
Costume Design: Norma Kamali
Lighting Design: Jennifer Tipton
Duration: 40 minutes
Premiere: August 28, 1986; Twyla Tharp Dance
Pacific Northwest Ballet Premiere: November 1, 2007; restaged for 2013

The 2007 Pacific Northwest Ballet premiere of Twyla Tharp’s In the Upper Room was generously underwritten by Glenn Kawasaki.

The collaboration of Philip Glass and Twyla Tharp united two stars of contemporary music and dance. Commissioned by Tharp for her newly structured company, Twyla Tharp Dance, In the Upper Room previewed as an untitled work-in-progress on July 7, 1986, at the Saratoga Arts Center Little Theater, where the audience’s enthusiasm and subsequent reviews immediately hailed it as a new, dynamic creation. Divided into nine segments, In the Upper Room features thirteen dancers, whose costumes evolve from black and white to dominant red, in a variety of groupings and abstract styles (some on pointe, some in sneakers) that culminates in a dazzling finale for the entire ensemble.

Mozart Pieces

Music:Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (Symphony No. 13 in F major, K. 112, 1771, Menuetto, Molto Allegro; Symphony in B-flat major, K. Anh. 216, 1771, Menuet; Symphony No. 5 in B-flat major, K. 22, 1765, Andante, Allegro molto; Symphony No. 9 in C major, K. 73/75a, c. 1769-1770, Molto allegro; Symphony No. 24 in B-flat major, K. 182/173dA, 1773, Allegro; Symphony No. 4 in D major, K. 19, 1765, Allegro; Symphony No. 1 in E-flat major, K. 16, 1764, Presto)
Choreography: Paul Gibson
Costume Design: Mark Zappone
Lighting Design: Randall G. Chiarelli
World Premiere

The world premiere of Paul Gibson's Mozart Pieces is generously underwritten in part by Deidra Wager and Bonnie Towne.

"Mozart Pieces is dedicated to my two dance teachers, Deborah Anthony and Jerolynn McBurney, who taught me everything I know." – Paul Gibson

Paul Gibson’s Mozart Pieces grew from a work originally choreographed for Pacific Northwest Ballet School’s annual School Performance in 2011, then titled Menuet and Allegros. Revised and expanded for the Company, the ballet is set to a selection of movements from Mozart symphonies. The cast of nine includes seven men who are featured in a series of solos, duets, and ensembles.

Mozart Pieces is Paul Gibson’s fifth work for Pacific Northwest Ballet.