20th C ballets/dances created to be seen live!

Admittedly, my performance career began in the 20th century and lasted until 2008. My earliest memories of attending theatrical performances start around 1968 seeing "Panto" (Jamaican versions of British Pantomime). Billed as family shows, Panto often dramatized Jamaican lore and legend while satirizing current events in song and dance as tradition dictated. By the time I was four I read comics and fairy tales and I listened to dramas and reggae on the radio. By the time I was six, on Saturdays mornings I was dropped off to see double feature movies like the Tarzan movies with Johnny Weismuller and Disney features like "Old Yeller" and "The Horse in the Grey Flannel Suit". Going to the theater to see a live performance was always a special treat, and a memorable experience, though it did mean putting on shoes... which were my least favorite type of clothing. Hah! Ending my performance career as a "barefoot modern dancer" seemed pre-ordained.

My childhood in Jamaica climbing trees and barefoot.

Video or televised dance was almost non-existent in my experience growing up, especially on a Caribbean island where broadcast television was a single channel available for a couple of hours in the mornings and early evenings. Decades later, the proliferation of dance videos are still primarily "reminders" of live performances, for me. Even when I first see a dance on video, I long to see it in performance, and I accept that recordings of storied dancers will be my only chance to imagine their artistry on stage that led to their legend. Great dancers can elevate almost any choreography, and great choreography elevates both individual artistes and ensembles. As a theatrical experience, costume, set, and lighting designs are the components that complete an artistic vision. For this post, I am limiting myself to writing about dances where my first experience of them in a theater remains with me today, decades later. I wish I could see them performed again live, regularly.

Sphinx by Glen Tetley (1977. Bohuslav Martinu) had a stunning set by Rouben Ter Arutunian featuring a curved ram midstage bound on each side by soaring wings. The costumes designed by Willa Kim were constructed unitards with abstract designs. The first performance I saw was peformed by London Festival Ballet with Martine van Hamel as a special guest star in the title role. She and her pivotal role dominates my memory of that performance. It is not often revived, though it was created for American Ballet Theatre and joined the repertoires of many major ballet companies like, The Royal Ballet (London), Deutsche Oper am Rhein (Düsseldorf), and the National Ballet of Canada. 

clip from BBC studio recording of Peter Schaufuss & Elisabetta Terabust in Sphinx.

Pictured - Sphinx: Martine van Hamel/Marianela Núñez. Anubis: Kirk Peterson.
Oedipus: Rupert Pennefather.

My career would bring me into many adjacent associations with Glen Tetley including Paul Taylor whose own performing and choreographic career paralleled Tetley's in many ways. However, Taylor built a performing company while Tetley sustained a freelance choreographic career. In 1962 Tetley did form his own performing ensemble and closed his first program with Pierrot Lunaire to the song cycle by Arnold Schoenberg. I have always wanted to see Pierrot Lunaire performed live as I first learned about it seeing a broadcast of Rudolph Nureyev performing the title role. I digress here from speaking about live performances that attracted me to certain dances, because of how my life always seemed just one step removed from Tetley. One of the first people I met when I joined Paul Taylor's company in 1993 was Linda Hodes, who was a lifelong friend to both Taylor and Tetley, and with whom I enjoyed an ongoing friendship until she died just last year. Linda was in the original cast of Pierrot Lunaire in NYC on May 5, 1962. The dance's legend lives on. It was revived by the Royal Ballet & Opera just this year, and I still haven't seen it live... 

clip from 1977 film of Rudolph Nureyev dancing Pierrot Lunaire.

Robert Powell, Glen Tetley, Linda Hodes - Pierrot Lunaire. Photo: Jack Mitchell

Sons of Horus by David Bintley (1985. Music: Peter McGowan. Designs: Terry Bartlett) caught my attention the first time I saw it performed by San Francisco Ballet circa 1988. I had been familiar with Bintley's name as a dancer with the Royal Ballet and his 'Still Life' at the Penguin Cafe had just been filmed by Thames Television in the UK and broadcast on PBS in the USA. Sons of Horus still sticks with me for the mythic quality of the characters, and for Bintley's craft at dynamic chorus movement with entrances and exits that implied an endless parade of humanity. I have not encountered news of any revivals of the dance, and there doesn't appear to be any available video recordings available. 

Sons of Horus image captured from David Bintley website https://www.davidbintley.co.uk/ 

Billy The Kid by Eugene Loring (1938. Music: Aaron Copland). With a libretto by Lincoln Kirstein original set and costume designs were by Jared French. This was my first exposure to what I consider to be an authentic Americana work. In truth, I may have performed the ballet before I ever saw it from the audience, but I was always struck by how Loring so clearly told the story and brought a feel for the era and the American West to life. One of my favorite sections was the "danse macabre" that both musically and choreographically broke from the style and tone of the rest of the ballet. Yet it brings a self-aware absurdity to the proceedings and rallies the viewer's attention to the drama unfolding. 

Silent film footage of Billy the Kid circa 1939. Ann Barzel Film Archive. 

studio photo of Billy the Kid 

Billy the Kid performed by Oakland Ballet Company in 1975
Mother/Sweetheart: Patrice Whiteside (executor for Eugene Loring's estate)
Billy: Lance James.

I had heard Copland's music before in concerts that included his Fanfare for the Common Man and Applachian Spring, and my appreciation for Copland's music was strengthened by seeing the dances for which he composed music including Rodeo, and the little seen The Tender Land. Loring created The Tender Land with Oakland Ballet Company shortly before I joined, and it was revived regularly over the next decade or so. I believe it to have been a kind of vanity project created between Copland and Loring. The Tender Land ballet has all the classic trademark music and choreography of both creatives, and I never failed to be moved by performances that ever evoked the heart and spirit of the American Pioneers. 

Oakland Ballet's Julie Lowe as 'Beth' in The Tender Land circa 1987. 

video clip from Oakland Ballet Legacy project by Chroma Diverse.

Patrice Whiteside as 'Laurie' in The Tenderland with Oakland Ballet Company circa 1978.

To accommodate both my available time to create these posts, and to allow me to include many more dances I wish could be seen on stages everywhere, I will continue my compendium in the weeks to come. 

American Ballet Theatre opens their two week run at the David H. Koch Theater at Lincoln Center. On their first program is Petite Mort by Jiří Kylián (1991. Music: W.A. Mozart). Designs conceived by Kylián himself, I had not realized that this dance was created much later than his Sinfonietta (1978. Music: Leoš Janáček). While both of these ballets are available on video, their impact in live performance cannot compare. The recordings are great reminders of watching a performance play out. And each dancer and company performing the works bring it a different life for the viewers. 

Linda & Glenn were two dancers I had the pleasure of working with when
I staged a Taylor work for AAADT.

Sinfonietta by Jiří Kylián
Roslyn Anderson, Alida Chase, Michael Sanders, Nils Christe. Photo: Sven Ulsa

As I looked up the original cast of Sinfonietta, I saw names of people I either met or learned of during my career as teachers, directors, and choreographers in their own right. I feel distinctly privileged to see that they were a part of the creation of what I consider to be a truly great dance!