ACB OPENS 13th SEASON WITH A
GRAND SLAB, TRIPLE-SLAY
For the first time, American Contemporary Ballet opens its 13th season in Los Angeles with three provocative, eerie creations on alternating nights throughout October, offering a Halloween experience unlike any other in the city. Compelling, surprising and unmissable, the performances’ casts vary every night, ensuring no two shows are the same, except in their underlying premise: Beauty is skin deep; evil goes straight to the bone. ACB presents all three of the Halloween experiences that made it LA’s hottest Halloween destination. Visit the underworld, witness a sacrifice, and see L.A.’s strangest burlesque. But you can only see two per night – any more might be fatal. For those who don’t know, this is the most intimate professional company in Hell or anywhere else: patrons are seated in three rows on three sides just feet from the dancers, while live chamber music swirls around you.
Even in ballet, a journey through Hell is terrifying. It can also be spellbinding. Dante’s underworld and its population of demons, poets, doomed lovers and Satan himself unfolds in ACB’s dark and slyly humorous reflection on the wages of sin – and our all too human attraction to it.
Inferno, a trip through Dante’s Hell, complete with appearances by doomed lovers, monsters, and Satan himself (and that’s the easy stuff). Based on Alighieri’s version of Hell from his epic poem Divine Comedy, the show’s atmosphere is creepy and ominous in a way that comes together well thanks to creative combinations of choreography and technical elements. Each brief section of the ballet has the work jumping from persecution, limbo and the first sinners’ circle almost directly to the ninth. You will be wowed by what has become ACB’s favorite and perhaps best form of storytelling: expressive hand and arm gestures, which rotate in circles to create familiar patterns. The ballet is an eerie delight, as is watching the devil open and close it’s long, razor-like fingers.
THE RITE
A young woman chosen for sacrifice, a score that caused a Paris riot and riveting choreography brought L.A. audiences to the 2023 premiere of ACB’s The Rite. The desire to re-explore the unearthly spectacle – or just to enjoy the sensation of hair rising on the back of their necks – brought many back for multiple performances.
BURLESQUE
Both Inferno and The Rite will be paired with Burlesque, a weird and cinematic take on the genre that only ACB (or maybe David Lynch) could imagine. ACB female soloists are featured in six scenes of escalating strangeness. Gothic and mind-bending? Yes. Slightly disturbing? It may be the only burlesque that leaves more to the imagination than is comfortable. And all that can be said with certainty of the ballet’s inexplicable Variation 7 is that your friends will be talking about it.
Created by Lincoln Jones
Music by
Inferno: Charles Wuorinen
The Rite: Igor Stravinsky
Burlesque: Charles Wuorinen
Variation VII: Morgan Jones
cover photo by Norman Jean Roy
ACB SERVES HALLOWEEN THREE WAYS
American Contemporary Ballet
October 11-31, 2024
New Location: TELEVISION CITY, 200 N Fairfax Ave, Stage 33
90 minutes with intermission
for tickets ($65–$140), visit ACB
October 11 8pm Inferno & Burlesque*
October 12 8pm Inferno & Burlesque
October 17 8pm The Rite & Burlesque*
October 18 8pm Inferno & Burlesque
October 19 8pm The Rite & Burlesque
October 24 8pm The Rite & Burlesque
October 25 8pm The Rite & Burlesque
October 26 8pm The Rite & Burlesque
October 31 8pm Inferno & Burlesque
* Opening night champagne reception
