Burlesque premiere
AMERICAN CONTEMPORARY BALLET REVEALS BURLESQUE
ACB opens 8th season with world premiere of new ballet and score from Pulitzer Prize-winning composer Charles Wuorinen
It's not often that ballet companies premiere the works of modern masters of music. Balanchine did it with Stravinsky, and on October 12, American Contemporary Ballet brings just such a premiere to Los Angeles with a brand-new score from American composer Charles Wuorinen. The subject? Burlesque.
“The idea was to use the context of burlesque—solo, exhibitionistic performances by a series of women—to display something that is more than skin-deep," says Jones. He added that Wuorinen’s “gripping, evocative and rhythmic” score was a perfect match for the choreography he envisioned for the new ballet. "Charles really understands dance. He understands what kind of musical gestures will translate well into physical ones, which seems to be pretty rare among composers. I've been eager to commission him for years.”
Burlesque & Inferno is a thrilling, chilling Halloween double feature that pairs the new work with Inferno, Jones’ groundbreaking 2017 immersive ballet to Wuorinen’s Dante-inspired The Mission of Virgil. Instead of the momentary frights of a haunted house, Jones takes the audience somewhere much more mysterious, using the company’s skyscraper performance space to create one of the most un-missable (and perhaps strangest) environments ever created for contemporary classical ballet. By putting viewers 350 feet above the earth, surrounding them with glass, and bringing the city’s neon lights inside, ACB creates a world that blurs the distinction between heaven and hell.
Burlesque & Inferno: October 12 – 31; visit acbdances.com for tickets and additional information.
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Burlesque & Inferno: https://www.acbdances.com/burlesque