Other Dances

Choreography

Jerome Robbins

Staging

Isabelle Guérin

Costume Design

Santo Loquasto

Lighting Design

Jennifer Tipton, recreated by Randall G. Chiarelli

Duration

17 minutes

Cast

2 dancers

Premiere

May 9, 1976
Gala benefit for the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts

PNB Premiere

September 21, 2018

Music

Frederic Chopin
(Mazurka, Op. 17, no. 4, 1832-1833; Mazurka, Op. 41, no. 3, 1839; Waltz, Op. 64, no. 3, 1847; Mazurka, Op. 63, no. 2, 1846; Mazurka Op. 33, no. 2, 1837-1838)

The 2018 Pacific Northwest Ballet premiere of Jerome Robbins’ Other Dances is generously underwritten by Marcella McCaffray.

Other Dances was created especially for a gala benefit for the Library of the Performing Arts at Lincoln Center. The program notes for that occasion read:

“The title of this series of dances reflects their relationship to Jerome Robbins’ Dances at a Gathering. There was so much of Chopin’s music that Mr. Robbin’s wishes to choreograph that he used this opportunity to devise for Miss [Natalia] Makarova and Mr. [Mikhail] Baryshnikov these Other Dances—a waltz and four mazurkas.”

Notes courtesy of the Robbins Rights Trust.

Artist Biographies

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.