Her Door to the Sky

Music

Benjamin Britten
(Simple Symphony, Op. 4, 1933-1934)

Choreography

Jessica Lang

Assistant to the Choreographer

Clifton Brown

Costume Design

Bradon McDonald

Lighting Design

Nicole Pearce

Scenic Design

Jessica Lang

Duration

21 minutes

Premiere

August 24, 2016
Jacob’s Pillow Dance Festival, Becket, Massachusetts

Jessica Lang’s Her Door to the Sky was commissioned by Jacob’s Pillow Dance Festival and Pacific Northwest Ballet. Her Door to the Sky premiered at Jacob’s Pillow Dance Festival, August 24, 2016. Major support was provided by Virginia B. Toulmin Foundation, with additional support from Aya Stark Hamilton, Deidra Wager, and Leslie & Tachi Yamada.

2017 marks the centennial celebration of legendary American painter Georgia O’Keeffe’s first solo exhibition in New York. Her Door to the Sky is inspired by O’Keeffe’s Patio Door series that she painted between 1946 and 1956.

Program note by Jessica Lang.

Artist Biographies

Benjamin Britten

British composer Benjamin Britten (1913–1976) studied with Frank Bridge and at the Royal College of Music. After WWII, he founded a new English-language opera tradition with works including Peter Grimes, Billy Budd, and The Turn of the Screw. Britten’s craftsmanship and versatility produced works ranging from large-scale symphonic scores to songs and choral works. Recurring themes include conflicts between the outsider and society, innocence and experience, moral good and lurking evil, and beauty and passion.

Bradon McDonald

After graduating from Juilliard, Bradon McDonald danced with the Limon Dance Company and Mark Morris Dance Group. After retiring from the stage, McDonald studied at LA’s Fashion Institute of Design and Merchandising, where he earned two degrees in fashion design. He was a top finalist and showed his collection at New York Fashion Week on Project Runway Season 12. He choreographed and designed costumes for Kurt Veill’s opera The Protagonist at Fire Island Opera Festival.

Jessica Lang

A celebrated choreographer of her generation, Jessica Lang is Resident Choreographer of Pacific Northwest Ballet and Artist in Residence at Sarasota Ballet. She has created over 115 original works on companies worldwide including American Ballet Theatre, Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, PNB, The Royal Ballet, Vienna State Ballet and her eponymous company Jessica Lang Dance of which Lang was Artistic Director from 2011-2019. For opera, Lang has directed and choreographed Pergolesi’s Stabat Mater for Glimmerglass; choreographed Aida for San Francisco Opera, Washington National Opera (WNO), Seattle Opera, LA Opera, and Lyric Opera of Chicago; and choreographed Salome for Des Moines Metro Opera. In 2024, Lang co-choreographed with Kanji Segawa WNO’s new production of Turandot, directed by Francesca Zambello.

Nicole Pearce

Nicole Pearce is a multidisciplinary artist living in Queens, NY. Her work has been seen internationally in Europe, Japan, Korea, New Zealand, and Russia. Notable works include Mark Morris’ The Look of Love, Molly Smith’s Catch Me If You Can, and Jessica Lang’s Children’s Songs with American Ballet Theatre. Her installation of 1,000 paintings entitled Tiny Paintings for Big Hearts is open to doctors, nurses, staff, and patients of Elmhurst Hospital in Elmhurst, NY.