JOFFREY ADDS SURPRISE TO A PROGRAM
ALREADY BRIMMING WITH EXCELLENT DANCE
Joffrey Ballet certainly must be conscious of its earth shifting habits. More likely, its propensity for greatly broadening ballet’s possibilities has been welded into the dance company’s DNA. Joffrey’s four-piece winter program Golden Hour showcases adventurously inventive choreography and splendid dance converge to prove borders and limits in ballet can be made to magically disappear.
Just as many contemporary dance companies have long incorporated balletic elements into their arsenals of technique, ballet has been doing the same by incorporating more modern influences into its dance form. The impact, especially when in the hands of far seeing and intrepid dance makers, can be phenomenal.
The Joffrey Ballet Ensemble in Under the Trees' Voices
That was emphatically the case with Golden Hour’s opener, Under the Trees’ Voices, whose choreography grew from the ingenious mind of frequent Joffrey collaborator, Nicholas Blanc, who also conceived the dance’s costumes. Depth and the way the work blends both dramatic appeal and signature innovation into a seamless whole has made it a consistent crowd favorite since its world premiere with the Joffrey in 2021. The first of two longer pieces bookending the program, its four sections strive to promote social unity by showing “we’re better together than we are alone”. That message resonates throughout the piece as well as so much more.
The Joffrey Ballet Ensemble in Under the Trees' Voices
With each of the dance’s segments having its own mood and way of framing concept, Blanc’s contribution to the program incites a constant sense of expectation. Opening cool with overtones of mystery, it turns hot, then sultry before finally exploding in effusive vitality. Jack Mehler’s simple but beautifully evocative set design uses giant low hanging leaves suspended overhead to turn the stage into a secret fantastical world whose inhabitants seem to share our basic need for understanding and compassion. Attired in sheer costumes patterned to blend with the lushness of nature, sixteen dancers portray the sweep of human emotions through the language of movement.
Stefan Goncalvez in Under the Trees' Voices
Creating that language in a uniquely lyrical style is one of Blanc’s foremost gifts. In Under the Trees’ Voices, he grafts aspects of contemporary dance onto ballet that intensify our understanding of the dance’s purpose. You find yourself smiling in recognition of sentiments stirred by what you’re witnessing. And thrilled at the beautiful and unexpected ways he has dancers express them.
Key to both is the late composer Ezio Bosso’s astonishing music, ravishingly performed by the Lyric Opera Orchestra under Scott Peck’s unerring direction. Through Bosso’s music, you hear genius and the perfect aural backdrop for Blanc’s gorgeous dance creation.
The Joffrey Ballet Ensemble in Heimat
A mixed repertoire, Golden Hour’s program reveals four very distinct visions of where contemporary ballet is and where it may be going. Heimat, choregraphed by Cathy Marston, leans blissful and glows with the soft patina of sentimentality. A dance interpretation of Richard Wagner’s symphonic poem, Siegfried Idyll; in 2022 it, too, held its world premiere at Joffrey. Composed to commemorate the birth of his son, Wagner’s music extols the satisfying fulfillment a contented family life can instill in the human spirit. Marston’s Heimat brings it to life in a dance for five that elegantly portrays life’s unpredictable flow in an archetypal family unit. Unhurried and serene, it shows how whatever and wherever you call home will always be a place of acceptance and sanctuary.
The Joffrey Ballet Ensemble in Heimat
Much more complex and smoldering with a persistent undercurrent of intensity, Yuri Possokhov’s Andante entices before it fixates. It too is a study in “the intricacies of human relationships” but expands its scope to include the sensual. A dance for three, the curtain rises to Victoria Jaiani being held aloft by Alberto Velazquez with Xavier Nunez lying prone on the far left of the stage. While the orchestra plays Shostakovich, they stand or lie frozen in still silhouette, allowing the audience to absorb the beauty of the image the scene creates.
Victoria Jaiani and Alberto Velazquez in Andante
With Velazquez and Nunez in dark blues and Jaiani in pink, their costumes embrace the virtues of the human form as they begin to dance a story that travels through the complex landscape of our emotions. The “slow, evenly spaced” score ensures their movements can be luxuriously unrushed, allowing us to savor its perfection. Perennially marvelous, Jaiani wears her virtuosity gently in this world premiere. The dance acumen of Velazquez and Nunez also stand out in high relief, making Andante a delight from first moment to last.
Xavier Nunez, Victoria Jaiani and Alberto Velazquez in Andante
Closing the program with more smiles and ripples of light amused laughter, Dani Rowe’s Princess and the Pea was completely unexpected. A contemporary take on a fairy tale classic, the night’s second world premiere introduced wonder with a message to an evening full of lustrous dance. Big, with a wonderfully imagined green-themed set and costumes designed by Emma Kingsbury, it turns the entire fairy tale upside down with its precocious alternative take on good versus evil.
Lucia Connolly in Princess and the Pea
Dressed in suit and tie, and wearing black framed glasses, company member Dylan Gutierrez sets the story up with a brief and humorously droll narration about P Town’s slide from great to grim under the rule of a tyrannical princess. Dance takes over the rest of the storytelling and switches to Penelope, Pea for short, at home with her two dads. A one vegetable town, Pea’s dads try to appease their finicky eater by giving her a carrot instead of the town’s mandatory peas. Deliciously riotous havoc ensues when the secret pea police immediately discover their transgression. The dads get canned, literally, and Pea’s exiled to a pea labor camp. Their only hope is to win a rigged mattress contest.
The Joffrey Ballet Ensemble in Princess and the Pea
Wacky, wonderful and wild, Rowe’s choreography brings expansive heart and personality to the piece, as well as remarkably exceptional dance grounded in ballet. Something of a breakthrough, Princess and the Pea again proves ballet’s capacity to adapt to any story format and make it resonant and. Here it’s also upliftingly compelling. Seeing ballet make notable advances on other fronts, those that further acknowledge the cosmopolitan nature of our world, would be even more gratifying.
Anabelle de la Nuez and Jonathan Dole in Princess and the Pea
Annabelle de la Nuez dancing Pea, Basia Rhoden in her role as the despotic Princess and Jonathon Dole as the carrot that steals Pea’s heart are all sensational. From the reception of the audience on opening night, it looks like Joffrey and the copiously gifted Ms. Rowe have another well-deserved hit on their hands.
The Joffrey Ballet Ensemble in Princess and the Pea
photos © Cheryl Mann 2025
Golden Hour
Joffrey Ballet Chicago
Lyric Opera House, 20 N. Wacker Drive
ends on March 2, 2025
for tickets, visit Joffrey
