CORPS MEETS CORPSE: ACB DANCES
LIFE TO DEATH (AND BACK AGAIN)

Loss and longing pervade the revival of American Contemporary Ballet‘s surprisingly optimistic Death and the Maiden, now running at Bank of America Plaza through November 1, paired with a brand-new installment in the company’s Burlesque series, all accompanied by live music.

Death and the Maiden: Kristin Steckmann, Mate Szentes and corps

Choreographer Lincoln Jones tells a simple story with Death and the Maiden, set to Franz Schubert’s String Quartet No. 14 in D minor, D.810, composed in 1824. We meet Death, an imposing woman, followed by her four attendants, all dressed in shimmery black. Then our two lovers, in white, dance, but she briefly collapses (“No, really, I’m okay”), marking her for death as sure as a tubercular cough does in opera. Later, while the girl lies dead, suspended from three clear acrylic pedestals, Death arrives like a tender bird of prey, but doesn’t take her just yet. Only after the girl wanders in the underworld alone does she finally meet Death, who lovingly leads her away in what felt like a poignant ending.

Death and the Maiden: Madeline Houk

The quartet then continued for an extended period of darkness, finally giving way to the entire cast, now dressed in shocking hot pink costumes by Ruoxuan Li and Elle Erickson, furiously dancing in the underworld, with the lovers now reunited, happy and free of illness, concluding with triumphant Death leaping into the darkness (interestingly, Jones chose not to explore how the boy got to the underworld). Despite being only 13 dancers, the wide and intimate space made the finale an overwhelming experience. Other ACB ballets have struck me as too short, but Death and the Maiden felt complete and just the right length.

Death and the Maiden: Kristin Steckmann and Mate Szentes

Death and the Maiden: Kristin Steckmann

A program of Schubert lieder bookended Death and the Maiden, ably sung by mezzo-soprano Abi Levis, statuesque and under a single stark light. First was “Du bist die Ruh” (1823). It was somber and pretty enough, but in German, so nobody knew what she was singing. At least it was short and just one. However, Levis then went into another: the turbulent “Gretchen am Spinnrade” (1814), and people around me got audibly antsy. These songs needed to be sung in English, both to connect with us and let us connect them to the ballet (and no, I don’t want to read a translation, either). The main ballet left us on a high, and I heard people get excited for intermission, but there was a lengthy pause in darkness, and Levis walked back on stage. Oh. More lieder. Still in German. It was a bit of a buzzkill. Didn’t matter that it was “Death and the Maiden” (“Der Tod und das Mädchen”) (1817) or how well it was performed. It came across as yet another art song about who knows what. Sometimes this original-language elitism is really für die Vögel.

Burlesque Variation IX: Mate Szentes, Hannah Barr and John Dekle

The second half of the night was devoted to Burlesque: Variation IX, a new installment in ACB’s series of playful and sensual sketches. This one takes place in a French aristocrat’s salon. Three aloof young ladies, in enormous powdered wigs and elaborate gowns by Elle Erickson and Chrisi Karvonides-Dushenko, pose motionless in fancy chairs while a nervous male suitor repeatedly enters but fails to approach his love interest. This particular woman shows how she feels about his timidity via a very small but very funny gesture. When he finally gets the guts to talk to her, she sheds her dress, blossoming with a form-fitting bright red dress and an enormous train. She forces him to watch her lustful dance, complete with attendants manipulating the train all around her. What this could mean is open-ended; the man eventually disappears and the story is left unresolved, shifting to what appears to be a sculpture garden in ancient Greece. Jones here is far more interested in exploring the passionate natures of women than in telling a complete story. Variation IX played to three pieces by George Frideric Handel, including a song in Italian. Frankly, I was too involved in the dancing to pay much attention to the music.

Burlesque Variation IX: Hannah Barr and John Dekle

Versatile music director Morgan Jones alternated from providing a funereal atmosphere before and after on the organ, conducting the unamplified ensemble, and playing harpsichord for Handel, which began with a surprisingly big sound. The sprightly string quartet was Veronika Manchur, Michel Freed, Yu-Ting Hsu, and Clement Chow. PatriciaWang played piano and shared organ duty with Jones. Lighting by Martha Carter was minimal but striking.

Death and the Maiden: Kristin Steckmann

In the end, the pairing makes emotional sense: Death and the Maiden gives us a lucid brush with mortality that bends, unexpectedly, toward grace, while Burlesque: Variation IX loosens the corset and lets desire, and wit, have the last word. Even with my quibbles about the lieder packaging, the night leaves you buoyed by the dancers’ fearlessness, the live musicians’ color and bite, and Lincoln Jones’s appetite for risk. American Contemporary Ballet is not playing it safe, and the result is vivid, memorable, and, yes, surprisingly optimistic.

Death and the Maiden: Kristin Steckmann with corps

photos by Anastasia Petukhova

Death and the Maiden with Burlesque: Variation IX
American Contemporary Ballet
Bank of America Plaza, 333 S Hope St, Suite C-150 in Los Angeles
90 minutes with intermission
reviewed on October 10
ends on November 1, 2025
for tickets ($65-$140), visit ACB