The Sarasota Ballet will ring in the new year with Program 4 - Love & Betrayal, a featuring a splendidly imaginative mix of new and classic dance performances.
The triple bill, which runs January 27-30, 2023 at the FSU Center for the Performing Arts, opens with two world premieres. The first is “Frequency Hurtz” by company dancer Arcadian Broad and the next, “Shades of Spring,” was created by acclaimed choreographer Jessica Lang.
The program will close with “Façade,” a beloved Sir Frederick Ashton ballet known for providing viewers with high art and sheer enjoyment, with a dash of genteel camp in the mix.
Arcadian Broad calls “Frequency Hurtz’s” an "exploration of the way the brain perceives audio and visual frequencies, translated into dance, and then filtered through the viewer’s opinion." He adds that contrary to the play on words for the title, "you’ll find that these frequencies are soothing, profound, and exciting.” The dancer gained recognition for choreographing ballets for Orlando Ballet, Cincinnati Ballet, and DanceWorks Chicago.
Choreographer Jessica Lang’s “Shades of Spring” was created directly for the Sarasota Ballet to perform (a world premiere) at New York City’s Joyce Theater in August 2022. The New York Times’s Brian Seibert called it “fresh, inventive and pretty.” Seibert wrote that “the video projections by Roxane Revon give the dance a background of nature: roots and flowers and their watery reflections. The choreography picks up on the theme with images of insect life and daisy-chain connectedness.”
The evening finale, “Façade,” is Sir Frederick Ashton’s tongue-in-cheek tribute to the Bloomsbury Movement, orchestrated with composer Sir William Walton’s knowing take on the popular songs and dances of the twenties. The magazine “DanceTabs," called it “a series of giggles, poking fun at social conventions, folk dances and music hall frolics."
Founded in 1987 by Jean Weidner Goldstein, The Sarasota Ballet has continually grown and evolved through the years, led by its esteemed directors Eddy Toussaint and Robert de Warren. But it wasn’t until January 2007, when the current director, Iain Webb, took the reins, that the company began to achieve the national and international recognition it enjoys today.
Program 4 is a brilliant example of how Iain did it. "It is a perfect example of what I call the DNA of The Sarasota Ballet," he explains. "Respecting and preserving ballet history with one of the dancers' favorite works - Sir Fredrick Ashton’s "Facade," performing the Sarasota Premiere of Jessica Lang's "Shades of Spring" - one of today's leading choreographers, and then looking to the future with a world premiere by Arcadian Broad, who is one of our own multi-talented Soloist dancers."
