2024 Season Repetoire

“This work is dedicated to the memory of two men whom I admire: John Wesley Carlos, former track and field medal winner at the 1968 Summer Olympics, well known for his triumphant salute upon the winners podium that year, and Dance Theatre of Harlem’s Founder and Artistic Director Emeritus, Mr. Arthur Mitchell (1924-2018), whose similar stand for his people, his community, and the arts “has brought us thus far on our way”-Robert Garland.

Return was choreographed for Dance Theatre of Harlem’s 30th anniversary. Choreographer Robert Garland calls the ballet’s style “post-modern urban neoclassicism – an attempt to fuse an urban physical sensibility and a neoclassical one.” Staged for 12 dancers to songs performed by James Brown and Aretha Franklin, Return is “… a witty fusion of ballet technique and street gait whose irony toward rhythm-and- blues had the audience in stitches.” (The New York Times)

Blake Works IV (The Barre Project), a commission for the Dance Theatre of Harlem, is the latest installment in William Forsythe’s continuously evolving work The Barre Project. The work derives its inspiration from the propulsive and rigorously structured songs of composer James Blake, whose work appears primarily in the popular music idiom.

The Barre series began in 2021 at the height of the pandemic as a filmed dance that was streamed to a global audience facing the restrictions on live performance at the time. The live stage version for Dance Theatre of Harlem features newly choreographed sections that highlight the diverse and formidable talents of the ensemble and is a version of the ballet that is unique to this company alone.

Pas de Dix, translated from French, as “a dance for ten,” was born of Balanchine’s fond recollections of his student days in Russia. He had danced in Petipa’s original production of Glazunov’s Raymonda at the Maryinsky Theatre, and the spirited last act of Raymonda was seed to this ballet. It is, in fact, the spirit and not the specific which is retained, for Balanchine’s Pas de Dix is a spectacle without story, a series of dances for an ensemble of eight with two principal dancers.

Petipa’s original choreography followed the narrative line of Raymonda. (The last act celebrated the nuptials of Lady Raymonda and the Count Jean de Brienne.) Balanchine added a brilliant introduction and conclusion incorporating typically Hungarian folk dance.

The classical and ethnic dance styles mingled here are paralleled in Glazunov’s score.

“Bondara’s, Take Me With You, finds a soulmate in Radiohead’s restless beat, so skilfully employed… The body language is searingly honest connecting social relationships and inner feelings.” – Danza

Created by Dance Theatre of Harlem Artistic Director Robert Garland for the Company, New Bach was first performed in September 2001, immediately after 9/11. The style of neoclassical ballet created by George Balanchine and cultivated at Dance Theatre of Harlem by Co-founder Arthur Mitchell is at the center and essence of New Bach. It is a supreme expression of Garland’s tongue in cheek description, “post-modern-urban neoclassicism,” infusing popular vernacular dance and Africanist influences within a framework of George Balanchine’s neoclassical ballet influences.