The Sarasota Ballet released the sixth Digital Program of the 2020-2021 season this past weekend. The triple bill was comprised of a splendid array of Sir Frederick Ashton ballets. Although the dancers are versed in many different choreographic styles, the Ashton style is arguably the strongest from Corps de Ballet to Principals.
Kate Honea and Ricardo Graziano in Sir Frederick Ashton s Facade. (Frank Atura photo)
Director Iain Webb and Assistant Artistic Director Margaret Barbieri have worked tirelessly to preserve the original choreography of Ashton’s ballets; they have even revived some of his lost or forgotten works.
“Valses Nobles Et Sentimentales,” is one of the lost ballets that The Sarasota Ballet revived and first performed in 2011. Elegant scenery and costume designs by Sophie Fedorovitch suggest a ballroom setting in post - World War II Britain. Victoria Hulland brings sophistication to the Principal role; her footwork is crisp and epaulement generous. The ball
They also have revived ballets no longer performed anywhere else. One of those is “Valses Nobles et Sentimentales,” from 1947, which had not been seen in decades when Barbieri and Webb brought it back in 2011. It is the opening ballet in the company’s sixth digital program, an hour-long triple bill devoted to Ashton. (The program is available through Wednesday, one day longer than planned, because of a technical glitch that delayed the digital release.)
“Valses Nobles” is set to Ravel’s suite of the same name. With its layered melodies and unsettling dissonances, the music suggests both a dreamy euphoria and a kind of foreboding. Just four years later, Balanchine would use the same suite to much darker effect in his own ballet “La Valse.”
Westcoast Troupe follows the ‘Pipeline’
The Westcoast Black Theatre Troupe combines live theater and video for the Sarasota premiere of Dominique Morisseau’s timely drama “Pipeline.” The play, which WBTT originally planned to present live in the fall, is being filmed inside the theater and will then be shown in outdoor screenings in the theater’s parking lot Friday through April 30. Home streaming will be available May 1-23. The roughly 90-minute play is about an inner-city public high school teacher whose son is threatened with expulsion from an elite private boarding school after he attacks a teacher. It is directed by L. Peter Callender, an actor and artistic director of the African-American Shakespeare Company of San Francisco. Tickets are $20. For more information: 941-366-1505; westcoastblacktheatre.org
It is one of three Ashton works that fill the revised lineup for the company’s sixth digital program. Artistic Director Iain Webb had originally planned to feature George Balanchine’s “Serenade” along with “Valses” and Ashton’s “The Walk to the Paradise Garden.” Because of health and safety protocols, he replaced the Balanchine work with a third Ashton piece, “Facade,” which the company has performed many times.
Rhodes and Hulland last danced “Valses Nobles” together about five years ago, and it’s been at least two years since they partnered. Even after a break, Hulland said, “There’s so much comfort there. We always danced together, and Rickey’s got my back.”
The Sarasota Ballet’s Digital Program 5, released this past weekend, featured ballets from past and present choreographers. George Balanchine’s Donizetti Variations and Ricardo Graziano’s Amorosa differ largely in style but are similar in that they are both choreographic sensations. Donizetti Variations, first performed by the New York City Ballet in 1960, is a plotless ballet set to music by Gaetano Donizetti. The choreography reflects many aspects of the August Bournonville style with a Balanchine flare. Principal couple Katelyn May and Yuri Marques danced with attack and precision during the pas de deux and solo sections. May’s musicality was spot on during her variation, and Marques nailed his turning sequences.