A romantic touch with Sarasota Ballet
The Sarasota Ballet revisits two popular works from past seasons with its fifth digital program this weekend. Ballet lovers can experience “Amorosa,” a 2019 piece by principal dancer and resident choreographer Ricardo Graziano that is being performed for the first time since its premiere. It is set to Antonio Vivaldi’s “Cello Concertos.” Also on the program is George Balanchine’s 1960 ballet “Donizetti Variations,” which is danced to music from Gaetano Donizetti’s opera “Don Sebastian.” The program is available Friday through Tuesday for $35. For more information: sarasotaballet.org/events/digital-program-5
Art museum offers pay what you can
Arts events for Sarasota Manatee: Jan. 28-Feb. 3
Our weekly guide to the performing and visual arts in the Sarasota-Manatee area.
Key Chorale goes for Baroque
Like other organizations that have been experimenting with digital performances and testing how many artists they can safely bring together in one space, Key Chorale is expanding its group of musicians for its “Bach Together Again” concert that makes its digital debut Friday. Artistic Director Joseph Caulkins said he chose the Baroque program, which features Vivaldi’s “Gloria” and Johann Sebastian Bach’s “Magnificat,” because of the joyful and uplifting qualities in the music. It features the Key Chorale Chamber singers, orchestra musicians and soloists. It will be available on the group’s website through Feb. 21. keychorale.org
Despite the demise of a previous incarnation of the Sarasota Jewish Theater, director Carole Kleinberg is eager to prove that the community is ready for, and needs, a new, more professional version.
She admits the timing could be better – opening a theater in the middle of a pandemic adds to the challenge – but she is moving forward in leading a revival of SJT with a series of online performances that begin Jan. 31.
“There are 38,000 Jewish households in the Sarasota-Manatee area – that’s households, not individuals,” said Kleinberg, the former artistic director of the late Banyan Theater in Sarasota. “It seems to me in a community with 38,000 households and in a world where haters have been able to crawl out from under rocks and felt permission to spread their anti-Semitism and fear of others, that there should be a vehicle for spreading positive elements of Jewish history, culture, literature and humor.”