On October 11, 1948, the weather was fair in New York City. Low sixties, a moderate breeze, a waxing gibbous moon. A crowd entered the New York City Center of Music and Drama and found their seats. The 8:45pm debut performance of a brand-spanking-new company—the New York City Ballet Company—was about to begin.
In this introduction to Christopher Williams’s 2023 reimagining of Jeux, echoes of the past immediately mix within a contemporary setting. The work was first choreographed by Vaslav Nijinsky for Sergei Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes and premiered a century ago. Debussy was commissioned for the original production, though he initially balked at what he thought was a ridiculous scenario: tennis.