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Dances at a Gathering

Choreography

Jerome Robbins

Staging

Philip Neal & Jenifer Ringer

Costume Design

Joe Eula

Lighting Design

Jennifer Tipton, recreated by Randall G. Chiarelli

Duration

58 minutes

Premiere

May 22, 1969
New York City Ballet

PNB Premiere

May 28, 2009

Music

Frederic Chopin
(Mazurka, Op. 63, no. 3, 1846; Waltz, Op. 69, no. 2, 1829; Mazurka, Op. 33, no. 3, 1838; Mazurka, Op. 6, no. 4, 1830-1831; Mazurka, Op. 7, no. 5, 1830-1832; Mazurka, Op. 7, no. 4, 1830-1832; Mazurka, Op 24, no. 2, 1836; Mazurka, Op. 6, no. 2, 1830-1831; Waltz, Op. 42, 1839?-1840; Waltz, Op. 34, no. 2, 1831; Mazurka, Op. 56, no. 2, 1843; Etude, Op. 25, no. 4, 1835-1837?; Waltz, Op. 34, no. 1, 1835-1838; Waltz, Op. 70, no. 2, 1841; Etude, Op 25, no. 5, 1835-1837?; Etude, Op. 10, no. 2, 1829-1832; Scherzo, Op. 20, 1831/1834; Nocturne, Op. 15, no. 1, 1830-1833)

The 2009 Pacific Northwest Ballet premiere of Jerome Robbins’ Dances at a Gathering was generously underwritten by Jeffrey & Susan Brotman.

Dances at a Gathering was the first ballet Jerome Robbins made for New York City Ballet upon his return to the company in 1969, following a 12-year absence during which he choreographed some of his best-known Broadway musicals. An hour-long suite for ten dancers, set to solo piano works by Frederic Chopin, Dances at a Gathering began as a pas de deux. Robbins selected more music and the ballet grew. He invited Balanchine to see a rehearsal, asking him if the ballet wasn’t a bit long. Balanchine watched the rehearsal, then said, “More. Make more!”

Speaking before the premiere, Robbins explained, “I’m doing a fairly classical ballet to very old fashioned and romantic music, but there is a point to it. In a way it is a revolt from the faddism today. I find myself feeling just what is the matter with connecting, what’s the matter with love, what’s the matter with celebrating positive things?”

Jerome Robbins dedicated Dances at a Gathering to the memory of lighting designer Jean Rosenthal.

Notes by Doug Fullington.

Artist Biographies

Jennifer Tipton

Jennifer Tipton was born in Columbus, Ohio, and attended Cornell University. After graduation, she came to New York to study dance, and her interest in lighting began with a course in the subject at the American Dance Festival at Connecticut College. She has been awarded two Bessies and a Laurence Olivier Award for lighting dance; her work in that field includes pieces choreographed by Mikhail Baryshnikov, Jiří Kylián, Dana Reitz, Jerome Robbins, Paul Taylor, and Twyla Tharp, among many others. In 1991, she received a Dance Magazine Award and has been a recipient of the National Endowment for the Arts Theater Program Distinguished Artist Award and a grant in the National Theatre Artist Residency Program funded by the Pew Charitable Trusts. Her theater work has garnered a Joseph Jefferson Award, a Kudo, a Drama-Logue Award, two American Theatre Wing Awards, an Obie, two Drama Desk Awards, and two Tonys for The Cherry Orchard and Jerome Robbins’ Broadway. She was the recipient of the Dorothy and Lillian Gish Prize in 2001 and the Jerome Robbins Prize in 2003. In 2008, she became a United States Artist “Gracie” Fellow and a MacArthur Fellow. Ms. Tipton is on the faculty at the Yale University School of Drama.

Jerome Robbins

Jerome Robbins (1918-1998) is world-renowned for his work as a choreographer of ballets as well as his work as a director and choreographer in theater, movies, and television. His Broadway shows include On the Town, Billion Dollar Baby, High Button Shoes, West Side Story, The King and I, Gypsy, Peter Pan, Miss Liberty, Call Me Madam, and Fiddler on the Roof. His last Broadway production in 1989, Jerome Robbins’ Broadway, won six Tony Awards, including best musical and best director.

Among the more than 60 ballets he created are Fancy Free, Afternoon of a Faun, The Concert, Dances At a Gathering, In the Night, In G Major, Other Dances, Glass Pieces and Ives, Songs, which are in the repertories of New York City Ballet and other major dance companies throughout the world. His last ballets include A Suite of Dances created for Mikhail Baryshnikov (1994), 2 & 3 Part Inventions (1994), West Side Story Suite (1995) and Brandenburg (1996).

In addition to two Academy Awards for the film West Side Story, Mr. Robbins received four Tony Awards, five Donaldson Awards, two Emmy Awards, the Screen Directors’ Guild Award, and the New York Drama Critics Circle Award. Mr. Robbins was a 1981 Kennedy Center Honors Recipient and was awarded the French Chevalier dans l’Ordre National de la Legion d’Honneur.

Randall G. Chiarelli

Randall G. Chiarelli (1949-2024) devoted his career to lighting for dance, much of it at Pacific Northwest Ballet, and also for American Ballet Theatre, Royal New Zealand Ballet, Atlanta Ballet, Houston Ballet, San Francisco Ballet, among others. His many collaborators included choreographers Donald Byrd, Mark Dendy, Ronald Hynd, Kent Stowell, Susan Stroman, and Christopher Wheeldon. Chiarelli graduated from the University of Washington with a degree in painting and sculpture.