Killer ballet

[dansouth]

I saw a cool perfomance at the New York City Ballet today. Most of the program was based on Bach's music. The first set of dances were done to four of the Brandenburgs. The choreography was kind of your everyday ballet stuff - nice, but not particularly memorable.

 

The second set I wasn't crazy about, because most of the music was by Anton von Webern. It sounded like racoons raiding a kitchen, knocking utensils onto the floor. The last piece in the set was the six-voice ricercar from Bach's Musical Offering, one of my favorite pieces of music. Unfortunately, Webern had done the arrangement and did his best to screw it up.

 

The third and final set was VERY COOL, though. It was an adventurous piece called Organon, a brand new ballet that premiered in January of this year and features Bach's organ music - Fantasia and Fugue in C minor, Tocatta and Fugue in D minor, Fantasia in G major, etc. The really cool thing was that all of the music was played by two organists who sat on the stage with their electronic keyboards, surrounded by the dancers. The choreography was very inventive. At some points, there were nearly a hundred dancers on stage. The work also featured a bit of rock climbing (!), impressive staging, and a ballerina with superhuman stretching ability.

 

If you are in the New York area and have a chance to see Organon at the New York City Ballet (State Theater at Lincoln Center), I'd recommend it. It's not the dreadfully dull stuff that your parents used to watch on Channel 13.