Graham, Duncan ballets premiere Joffrey's season

Graham, Duncan ballets premieres Joffrey's season

Choreographer Randy Duncan, whose ballet skills were perfected at Sammy Dyer School of Dance and Joseph Holmes Dance Theatre, has his ballet "Copland Motets" featured with Martha Graham's "Appalachian Spring" during the celebration of Aaron Copland's centennial.

The Joffrey Ballet, Gerald Arpino artistic director will be honoring the 100th anniversary of the birth of the quintessentially American composer Copland.

Opening the evening's program Thursday, Oct. 19 at 7:30 p.m. at the Auditorium Theatre, 50 E. Congress Pkwy. will be the company's first Graham acquisition, her masterpiece, "Appalachian Spring," set by choreographer Yuriko Kikuchi.

As a special part of the program, the Joffrey Ballet of Chicago commissioned the Washington D.C.-based multi-disciplinary artist Tony Powell to write and choreograph a Copland-inspired world premiere entitled "Lyric Discourse."

Duncan is reviving his 1991 trio "Copland Motets" that will be performed to the live accompaniment of the Oriana Singers.

Eugene Loring provides an interpretation of the life, loves and folklore of that famous work in tribute to an American personality, "Billy The Kid."

Supported in part by a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts, Joffrey's celebration of Copland's 100th anniversary, the performance will be held Thursday, Oct. 19 at 7:30 pm., Friday, Oct. 20 at 2 and 7 p.m. Saturday, Oct. 21 and Sunday, Oct. 22 p.m. the curtain is at 2 p.m.

Continuing for "Fall, Part 2," the Arpino program features choreography of Joffrey's artistic director Arpino, who is submitting four of his best ballets this year.

The ballets Arpino is presenting are "Reflections," "Footnotes for RJ," "Secret Places" and "Suite Saint-Saens."

"Reflections" set to the music of Tchaikovsky is the result of Arpino's innovative interweaving supple body movement to the romanticism of the composer.

In "Footnotes for RJ," Arpino provides another exciting imaginative dance esthetics in the style of Robert Joffrey. The driving music of Teo Macero contributes to the work's sense of minimalism and abstract expressionism.

Other musical styles are blended into the pas de deux "Secret Places," with clarity of movement that has thrilled audiences throughout the world.

Said Agnes de Mille about Arpino's "Suite Saint-Saens" is "like standing in a flight of meteors." Its explosive energy and breathtaking pyrotechnics have made "Suite Saint-Saens" a much-requested JBC signature piece.

Article Copyright Sengstacke Enterprises, Inc.

Photo (Randy Duncan)