Get ready for a spectacular new program from the American Contemporary Ballet.
The American Contemporary Ballet, or ACB, is back with its June program of “Spectacular Balanchine!” featuring ballet legend George Balanchine’s choreography in a quintessentially American style of music and dance. As a company rooted in classical ballet, combined with rhythmic dance as a medium of entertainment, “Spectacular Balanchine!” will showcase a unique side of Balanchine’s choreography that is joyful, unconventional and undoubtedly spectacular.
Lincoln Jones, founder and director of ACB, spoke with BruinLife’s Birka Chen on the legacy of Balanchine and his influence on the company.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
BruinLife: How did this particular ACB program, “Spectacular Balanchine!,” come to be?
Lincoln Jones: I love Balanchine. I think he’s the greatest ballet choreographer that has ever lived and he choreographed something like 400 different ballets. He was an immigrant from Russia and he loved America. He basically redefined ballet by how he saw American women moving. There are a number of ballets that he made based on essentially different aspects of American culture. It’s just these very rhythmic, upbeat, fun, exciting dances and so I thought I’d put this together, showing this particular genre of Balanchine ballet.
BL: As an audience member, how can we see aspects of jazz, Hollywood style and other influences in Balanchine’s choreography?
LJ: For instance, in “Who Cares?,” you’ll see a lot of rhythms, hip movements and things that you might be familiar with from Broadway, Fred Astaire and that kind of 1930s-New York jazz feel. It’s pretty amazing how Balanchine can take something and just draw out the essence of it. So with “Western Symphony,” you might think of cowboys in ballet and that’s going to feel silly— but it’s not. He draws out the humor and the feeling and the optimism of Westerns in just a very short ballet. And then with “Stars and Stripes,” you can sort of get this feeling of American parades, drill teams and baton twirling. And then in “Union Jack,” there’s a lot of military movements but used to great effect. It almost feels like a military recruitment poster from World War II.
BL: “Spectacular Balanchine!” is a celebration of the American style of music and dance. Is there a significance in programming this now, in this particular season?
LJ: I’m not unaware that it’s the America 250, but we didn’t make it officially about that, just because we tend not to program based on outward anniversaries or things like that. But for anybody wanting to celebrate that … this is some of the very best artistic work that has come out of the United States, and so I think that there’s almost no better way to celebrate than to experience what America in the 20th century contributed.
BL: How have the greats, like Balanchine and Astaire, affected the direction of ACB in general?
LJ: So much. I believe that to make something great, you have to look at who’s done it the best in the past and learn as much as you can from them. One of the things that influenced me the most, even just to pursue ballet, was how great an artist Balanchine was. … In terms of Fred Astaire, if I were to sum up the goal of [ACB] in one word, it would be rhythm. I think that’s the one thing, today, that ballet often lacks the most. Ballet makes beautiful shapes and it has a whole science behind making gestures look beautiful … but [the rhythm] is what connects to the music, and is the center of its meaning. Fred Astaire was the ultimate at that. A lot of people might say “I don’t really get dance,” but nobody watches Fred Astaire and says “I don’t get it.” It’s like, “oh, wow, that’s just super fun to watch, it’s amazing, it’s cool.” And I think that that’s my goal: to get the dancers to all have an Astaire-like sense of rhythm.
BL: What is unique about ACB’s approach to the classical style of ballet?
LJ: In one sense, classicism is what I aim for in terms of balance and composition and in terms of trying to achieve the highest level of expression of the dancers. But in terms of how it compares to 19th century ballet, or what you might see a lot today, is [ACB’s] emphasis on rhythm and emphasis on dancing. A lot of times when I see ballet, what I see is difficult technical movements being executed in a sequence that is more or less related to the music. On the other end of the spectrum would be just somebody on a dance floor having the time of their lives. So, I’m really emphasizing the dance aspect of it, where it feels like dancing and it looks like dancing but then the whole [classical] technique is there in service of that to make it visually beautiful, visually sensible.
BL: Music is a huge part of dance and ACB incorporates musicians and live music into their shows. Do you take inspiration from musicians and composers as well?
LJ: For me, I have to work as hard to understand music as I do to understand dance on a deep level. It’s really in the connection of those two elements where all the magic happens, and so I spend a lot more time with musicians than is typical of ballet companies. It’s hard, it’s an expense but it’s very necessary, so that they’re making the music in the best possible way and also in a way that is going to be best for the dancers and the dancers have an expectation of what [the musicians] are doing. I very much take inspiration from music. In fact, I think I learn a lot about ballet composition from studying music.
BL: What is one thing that you would want audiences to take away after watching “Spectacular Balanchine!”?
LJ: You know, I get asked this question a lot and I never think about that. It’s not that I want them to take something from it. [Audiences], they come to the theater to see themselves. And I think that one of the great things about art is that it can feel so personal and so universal at the same time. I just want them to have a great experience, and whatever that means to them is not really my business.
