The Jacobs Opera and Ballet Theater will present its Fall Ballet showcase opening Friday at the Musical Arts Center. It will be performed Oct. 24 and 25, with showings at 7:30 p.m. each evening and a matinee 2 p.m. Saturday.
Each performance will feature four different ballets, with each one being at least 30 minutes long. The program consists of Alexandra Danilova’s restaging of “Chopiniana,” George Balanchine’s “Allegro Brillante,” Christopher Wheeldon’s “This Bitter Earth” and Gianna Reisen’s “Strauss 200.”
Although each dance differs in mood and tempo, the four form a program offering a variety of classical ballet interpretations. Sarah Wroth, chair of the Jacobs Ballet Department, said the program’s range allows the show to appeal to a wide variety of tastes.
“Classical ballet can be so many things, and I think that’s where we want to operate from,” Wroth said. “The fact that there are so many nuanced differences in the way this classical art form can be presented, so it can appeal to a very wide audience.”
“Chopiniana,” a restaged version of Mikhail Fokine’s “Les Sylphides” and set to the music of Frédéric Chopin, will open each performance. The dance is a minimalist, elegant number meant to convey the beauty of ballet. Its dancers will be adorned in short, simple white dresses as they move about the stage. Wroth described the ballet as “romantic and historical” because of its movement quality.
Lillian Smith, a senior majoring in ballet and minoring in arts management, will be dancing the principal ballerina role in “Chopiniana” on both Friday and Saturday nights. She described the performance as stripped down and simple.
Smith, who has worked throughout the past year to recover from an injury, said the principal role in “Chopiniana” is the biggest role she has been cast in throughout her college career. She described how the role has allowed her to showcase her affinity for slow, expressive movements.
“It really just shows the audience the beauty of ballet and where it can start,” Smith said. “It’s just so lyrical and expressive, and nothing about it feels like what I’m doing ballet wise is the important part. It’s not about how high my arabesque is, it’s about how I’m showing the story, and that’s what I love.”
Smith described herself as the kind of dancer who enjoys creating large gestures with her movements. She noted the challenge of simplifying her movements in order to adhere to the tone and context of “Chopiniana.”
That’s meant an increased maturity level Smith has to bring to the dance.
“I feel like there’s a lot that I need to be depicting and doing to set the mood of the ballet, but also, I can’t do too much at the same time,” she said. “Stripping it down and just dancing with the movement is actually more powerful than kind of flourishing it too much and adding extra accoutrements."
Following “Chopiniana” is “Allegro Brillante,” set to the music of Tchaikovsky. The ballet was choreographed by the illustrious co-founder of the New York City Ballet, George Balanchine, who described the dance as “everything I know about ballet in 13 minutes.” The dance is considered a more brisk and upbeat performance.
Wroth praised the dance’s simple technique.
“It’s just vibrant, pure classical ballet,” Wroth said. “But it’s also, if you dissected it, very simple steps. It’s just put in this pattern that’s so beautiful.”
The show’s third number, Christopher Wheeldon’s “This Bitter Earth,” is the only dance in the show performed to a prerecorded track. Its music features jazz singer Dinah Washington’s vocal rendition of the song of the same name.
The number is a pas de deux, which means it is a duet between two dancers. The dance was written to portray grief, loss and a submission to fear of the unknown. The pairing for “This Bitter Earth” features Maya Jackson, a senior ballet major at Jacobs who will be dancing on Friday and Saturday night. She interprets the dance as a physical portrayal of an emotional, reflective journey.
“It has a feeling of reflecting and reminiscing on your past and how you’ve gotten to where you are, and then also an outlook into the unknown future,” Jackson said, “So, it’s kind of like an emotional journey throughout life and all the achievements you’ve made.”
“This Bitter Earth” will be one of Jackson’s last performances in her college career at IU. As a senior preparing for life after graduation, she said she relates to the dance’s theme of embracing the unknown.
“I just want to be able to make the audience feel something, so as I go into it I just think about my own story in my head and try to convey the emotions that I’m feeling,” she said.
The show’s closing piece is “Strauss 200,” a dance set to the music of Johann Strauss II. The dance was choreographed by Gianna Reisen, currently 26 years old, who is the youngest person in history to have been commissioned as a choreographer for the New York City Ballet. Reisen herself guided and choreographed the Jacobs dancers throughout rehearsals for the piece.
Hannah Reiff, a junior double majoring in ballet and mathematics, dances the principal role in “Strauss 200.” Reisen choreographed the dance around many of Reiff’s technical strengths.
While Reisen’s guidance placed an added pressure on her performance, Reiff said, it also emboldened her to do the choreography justice.
“Because she pretty much choreographed it on me, it really highlights all of my strong suits,” Reiff said. “So, while I feel more pressure to execute it well on stage, there are things in the choreography that she gave me that I feel confident in and I’m excited to share with people.”
Tickets for the Fall Ballet can be purchased on the Jacobs Opera and Ballet Theater website.
