Performance Dates
BROADWAY CHARM, SUBTLE SIMPLICITY, AND ABSTRACT MOVEMENT AHEAD OF ITS TIME
A Robbins favorite and a Robbins rarity lead this program. Fancy Free, the first ballet he choreographed, instantly establishing him as a major talent in 1944, has remained a durable classic with its charming comic tale of three sailors on leave happily carousing in New York. By contrast, Rondo, from 1980, is a little-seen ballet made for two female dancers that features a winsome combination of classical steps and folk and popular dance idioms. Also on the bill are Justin Peck’s Solo, which made its premiere in the film directed by Sofia Coppola for the Company’s virtual Spring Gala in 2021, and the entrancing Balanchine leotard ballet Episodes.
Ballets on this Program
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Fancy Free
Evoking the Great White Way, Fancy Free is the precursor to Broadway’s On the Town, presenting three sailors and their escapades on shore leave in Manhattan.
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Rondo
This rarely-seen ballet by Jerome Robbins, a pure and unembellished dance for two women set to Mozart’s Rondo in A Minor, K. 511, is to make its revival during NYCB’s Winter 2023 performances after a decades-long hiatus from the stage.
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Solo
Originally created for the Company’s virtual 2021 Spring Gala, NYCB Resident Choreographer Justin Peck’s Solo features a single dancer whose movements ebb and flow to Samuel Barber’s treasured Adagio for Strings.
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Episodes
A four part avant-garde work, Episodes grew out of Balanchine’s enthusiasm for Anton von Webern’s orchestral music, which Balanchine once wrote “fills the air like molecules.”
