RITE, presented by Ballet BC, tonight and Saturday (May 8-9), at Vancouver's Queen Elizabeth Theatre at 8 p.m. Tickets: $30-$80, visit balletbc.com.
Ballet BC is capping off its current season with a performance showcasing two world premieres offering unique takes on a classic 1913 work for ballet and orchestra, the lasting impact of which is still being felt today.
Presented at the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées in Paris, the opening night of Russian composer Igor Stravinsky's The Rite of Spring for Sergei Diaghilev's Ballets Russes almost resulted in a riot due to the boundary-pushing nature of the work.
The Vancouver-based professional dance company's RITE is revisiting the revolutionary piece, which featured choreography by Vaslav Nijinsky, using it as a source of inspiration. The production opened last night and will be presented again tonight and tomorrow evening at Vancouver's Queen Elizabeth Theatre.
One of RITE's world premieres marks the return of San Fulgencio, Spain's Gustavo Ramirez Sansano. Ballet BC performed the Spanish choreographer's Lost and Seek, also a world premiere, in April 2014. Sansano previously served as artistic director of the Luna Negra Dance Theater, and examples of companies he's choreographed for include Compañia Nacional de
Danza, Hamburg Ballet, Budapest Dance Theatre and Netherlands Dance Theater. In 2006, he founded Proyecto Titoyaya, based in Valencia, Spain, and continues to create works for them.
"It's a wonderful place to do anything that comes through my mind that I might not be able to do in other companies because each company has its own audience. With this company I have total freedom," he says.
While he's being increasingly called upon by dance organizations around the world, opportunities he's incredibly grateful for, Ballet B.C. is the first Canadian company to commission his work. " I 'm really happy that it's with Ballet BC," says Sansano. "Canada, British Columbia, is really lucky to have such a creative and innovative company." Sansano has been enjoying working with the dancers for the second time.
"It's been really, really nice because most of the company I knew from the last piece that I did last year. So when I came to do The Rite of Spring, it's kind of like I already had something in my mind related to the dancers that I already knew," he says.
Sansano's work is for the full company is both physically and mentally challenging.
"On top of that, I 'm using the original music of period in one's life where he or she changes from a child to an adult.
"When you face this moment, we all react differently. It depends on our personality," says Sansano. The second world premiere on RITE's bill was choreographed by Ballet B.C.'s artistic director, Emily Molnar, and features set design by Vancouver designer Omer Arbel. The creative director of Bocci, Arbel recently received the Royal Architectural Institute of Canada's Allied Arts Medal for 2015. An additional collaborator on the piece is Jeremy Schmidt, of the band Black Mountain. Their work is described as a "hallucinatory, otherworldly homage to Stravinsky's provocative" work.
Reached Tuesday, Sansano says they were looking forward to this week's premiere after successful rehearsals to date. "We are in a good place. We are in that moment where all the information (has been shared), so the dancers just need to digest it and explode," he says.
