Cincy Ballet announces season of 'more'
Eight works – 53 percent – are choreographed by women. There is no other large ballet company in the U.S. that even comes close to that.
Several years ago, Cincinnati Ballet artistic director Victoria Morgan was asked about her goals for the company.
“More,” she answered.
It was blunt. But it was hardly a surprise. It’s what nearly every artistic director wants for her company. Morgan wanted more dancers. And more performances. More touring, too, and more inventive and imaginative productions. And, of course, more money to pay for all of it.
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When Morgan announced her company’s 2017-2018 season Thursday, she put a check mark next to a couple of those goals on her wish list.
Most notable is more performances.
“We’ll have 50 percent more performances next season than we have this year,” says Morgan, noting that performances here in Cincinnati will jump from 38 to 57 next season. Included in that number is an increase in performances of “Frisch’s Big Boy Presents The Nutcracker” from 12 to 14.
The company will also add a six-performance Family Series featuring dancers from Cincinnati Ballet Second Company and the Otto M. Budig Academy in an hour-long production of “Beauty and the Beast.”
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While Morgan won’t get her wish for more dancers or more touring yet, the company will perform “The Nutcracker” at the Detroit Opera House. And as for inventive repertory, she is announcing a season filled with modern classics and six world premieres.
Morgan’s ongoing campaign to provide more choreographic opportunities for women will continue full force. Of 15 works on the season, eight – 53 percent – are choreographed by women. There is no other large ballet company in the U.S. that even comes close to that.
So why is all this change happening now? Some of it is due to an improved and more stable economy. But some of it can be credited to Scott Altman, who joined the company as executive director on Oct. 1. In the past, Morgan’s dual position as artistic director and CEO limited how much time she could spend on either set of responsibilities. But Altman has brought a new level of aggressiveness to the company’s administrative operations.
Subscriptions range from $96 for the least-expensive, three-production subscription all the way up to $516 for a top-of-the-line six-show package. They are on sale now at 513-621-5282, www.cballet.org or at the ballet box office, 1555 Central Parkway, Over-the-Rhine.
The ballet’s 2017-2018 season:
- Kaplan New Work Series, Sept. 14-24, Jarson-Kaplan Theater, Aronoff Center.
This is the 13th year for this always-popular program of new choreography. This year’s program features world premieres by Dancefix founder Heather Britt, Hubbard Street Dance Chicago dancer/choreographer Penny Saunders and Cincinnati Ballet associate artistic director Johanna Bernstein Wilt. Also creating a new work is Emmy-nominated Travis Wall, one of the most popular choreographers for television’s “So You Think You Can Dance.” Morgan will be represented by the regional premiere of a work danced to K.D. Lang’s “Black Coffee.”
- “Romeo and Juliet,” Oct. 26-29, Music Hall. With the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra.
It’s been five years since Cincinnati Ballet last performed at Music Hall. But with this performance of Morgan’s fiery and elegant version of the ballet, the company returns. It’s all part of the grand re-opening festivities of the revamped Music Hall. As is so often the case when Morgan revisits a ballet she has created, you can expect a production that is tighter and far more emotionally charged.
- “Frisch’s Big Boy Presents The Nutcracker,” Dec. 14-24, Music Hall.
Morgan’s splashy version of the classic holiday ballet has never been seen at Music Hall. I suspect the transition will be a smooth one. After all, unlike some other “Nutcracker” productions from the past, this one has held up very well. When the company performed it at The Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C., last season, The Washington Post’s Pulitzer Prize-winning dance writer Sarah Kaufman said the “sparkling version of the holiday classic teems with a sense of humor, love and wonder.”
- “Carmina Burana + Serenade,” Feb. 8-11, 2018, Music Hall.
This is almost certain to be one of the highlights of the season. We haven’t seen Nicolo Fonte’s choreography for “Carmina Burana” yet, but the CSO will be joined by the May Festival Chorus to perform Carl Orff’s bombastic score for it. And George Balanchine’s “Serenade,” set to Tchaikovsky’s “Serenade for Strings,” is one of the best-known and most-loved ballets in the modern repertory.
- “Director’s Cut: Musical Masters,” March 15-18, 2018, Procter & Gamble Hall, Aronoff Center.
This is another program packed with heavyweight choreographers. Once again, Balanchine is represented – this time with the “Rubies” section of his full-length ballet “Jewels.” Then there is Jerome Robbins’ “Fancy Free,” a 1944 ballet performed to a score by a then-up-and-coming Leonard Bernstein. It was a mid-World War II tribute to the millions of men and women who were serving in America’s military. The ballet, about three young sailors on shore leave in New York City, provided the inspiration for the musical “On the Town,” which opened just eight months after the ballet’s premiere. Also on the program is the Cincinnati premiere of Garett Smith’s “Façades.”
- “Bold Moves,” April 26-29, 2018, Procter & Gamble Hall, Aronoff Center.
Morgan has cobbled together a wonderfully varied program to close out the company’s season. For starters, there’s the music – the Chicago-based contemporary music group Eighth Blackbird will accompany all three ballets. Then there are the ballets themselves. There will be world premieres by Jennifer Archibald and Kate Weare and the local premiere of a work by New York City Ballet dancer and choreographer Justin Peck, danced to composer/musician Bryce Dessner’s “Murder Ballades.”
The company is also presenting a Family Series, which is not part of any of the standard subscription packages.
- “Beauty and the Beast,” April 6-8, Procter & Gamble Hall, Aronoff Center. Performed by members of Cincinnati Ballet Second Company and dancers from the Otto M. Budig Academy
This year's "Bold Moves" coming soon
They call it “Bold Moves.” And on paper, at least, it looks like the Cincinnati Ballet’s March 17-18 program may turn out to be one of the most intriguing ones of the season.
There are just two ballets on the program; one by Ohad Naharin, an Israeli choreographer making his Cincinnati Ballet debut, the other by Adam Hougland, the company’s resident choreographer. The two couldn’t be more different.
Naharin, 64, is the artistic director of Israel’s Batsheva Dance Company. His work is often raw and muscular and packed with movement that can range from tender to frenzied. “Minus 16, the piece Cincinnati Ballet will perform, is danced to a recorded soundscape that includes everything from techno to an intensely rhythmic version of the traditional Passover song, "Echad Mi Yodea."
“It hasn’t been easy,” says Cincinnati Ballet artistic director/CEO Victoria Morgan. “The dancers have had to learn an entirely new movement language that Ohad uses. It’s called Gaga. Dancers are required to have three Gaga classes a week. The mirrors in the studio are covered. It’s been a completely new experience for the dancers.”
Naharin was the subject of a well-received 2015 documentary film called “Mr. Gaga” that finally opened in the U.S on Feb. 1. Other than a one-night screening as part of the Jewish and Israeli Film Festival on Feb. 15, the film has not been seen in Greater Cincinnati.
Hougland, who was raised in Dallas and now lives in Bristol in the UK, has been Cincinnati Ballet’s resident choreographer since 2009. In the course of his years working with the company, he has created a series of memorable ballets, including full-length works like “Mozart’s Requiem” and “Firebird” and a group of dances performed to a suite of new acoustic music as part of “Frampton & Cincinnati Ballet Live!”
This new work is a world premiere called “Cut to the Chase,” and will be accompanied by the Ariel Quartet, the renowned Faculty Quartet-in-Residence at the University of Cincinnati’s College-Conservatory of Music.
“It’s such a clever and musical work,” says Morgan, who first saw Hougland’s work when he was still a student at the Juilliard School in New York. “It’s such an adventuresome ballet. I think this may be my favorite work ever of his. And I’ve loved everything he’s done for us. It’s really a very, very special piece.”
“Bold Moves” will be performed at 8 p.m. March 17-18, 2 p.m. March 18 at the Aronoff Center for the Arts, 650 Walnut St., Downtown. Tickets start at $32; 513-621-5282 or cballet.org.