From the Artistic Director: Welcome to West Side Story: Broadway & Beyond

BROADWAY AND BALLET

Classical ballet choreographers have played a big part in American Broadway. Luminary ballet creators such as George Balanchine and Agnes DeMille included sophisticated dances as a key part in musicals during the 1930s and 40s. 

In fact, Balanchine is often cited as the first person in musical theater to receive the official title of “choreographer” for his work on the 1936 On Your Toes. He established the role as a co-equal collaborator alongside the writers and composers.

DeMille went a step further when she revolutionized the genre with her work in the 1943 production of Oklahoma by weaving dance directly into the fabric of the plot and character development. DeMille also became the first woman to both choreograph and direct a Boradway Musical with the 1947 Allegro.

But it was arguably Jerome Robbins who completely transformed dance in the American musical theater by making the plot and action happen directly through the dancing itself.

In particular, with his work in the 1957 West Side Story, he seamlessly integrated music, dance, and drama to address serious social issues.  West Side Story broke from the tradition of “simple wholesome” musical theater by placing topics like gang violence and bigotry at the center of this popular entertainment.

Robbins broke away from many European dance traditions to build a distinctly American idiom of movement that incorporated jazz, street energy, and “pedestrian” gestures into the show’s choreography. His work as both choreographer and director of many Broadway shows catapulted dance into the foreground of musical theater.  

But Robbins also had great success with classical ballet creations, notable for many of the same aspects that made his musical theater work unique using a blending of classic European ballet technique with American rhythms, pedestrian movement, and a profound, earthy sense of humanity.

There is a natural spontaneity to Robbins’ movement that sets his work apart from all other choreographers. 

Following in Robbins’ footsteps, Christopher Wheeldon has become one of the world’s foremost living choreographers for both classical ballet and musical theater. And just like DeMille and Robbins, Wheeldon has acted as both choreographer and director for such stage shows as the 2015 An American in Paris and the 2022 MJ The Musical.

He is one of the world’s most sought-after ballet choreographers and while his work is uniquely his own, he shares Robbins’ simple spontaneity and economy in movement and a deep complex musicality which illuminates everything he does.

For this program, I chose four pieces that celebrate the diverse work of Robbins and Wheeldon in different musical and stylistic idioms.

ABOUT THE PROGRAM

The program opens with Robbins’ plotless offering Antique Epigraphs. Set to an orchestrated version Claude Debussy’s 1914 Six épigraphes antiques for piano, four hands, and his 1913 flute solo Syrinx, it is a ballet for eight statuesque women.

Debussy’s originally wrote his Six épigraphes antiques to accompany Pierre Louys’ prose poem The Songs of Bilitis. Robbins in turn uses the music to evoke Greek antiquity and with his hallmark economy of movement where he creates a pastoral world that is both natural and mystical.

I saw the New York City Ballet’s original 1984 presentation of this hypnotic dance and was transported by the soft swirling energy, elegance, and the mysterious sense that this seemingly abstract work had a deeper meaning in every gesture.

Rogers and Hammerstein’s Carousel was originally choreographed by Agnes DeMille in 1945, and it was another example of using dance to further the plot in a musical.

Based on the play Liliom by Ferenc Molnar, the show was also groundbreaking in its subject matter of spousal abuse and redemption though a good deed in the afterlife.

Even with its darker undertones, however, there is a joy and pathos to the show that made it an enduring classic. In 2002 Wheeldon made a “Piece d’occasion” for the New York City Ballet as part of a centennial celebration of composer Richard Rogers.

Taking orchestrated sections form the musical, such as the Carousel Waltz and If I Loved You, Wheeldon creates a poem or riff on the musical that is at once pure dance and a joyous invocation of the Broadway show.

With the pas de deux from After the Rain, Wheeldon moves us to a completely different world.

This delicate, intimate gem was created for two New York City Ballet Principal Dancers that Wheeldon considered to be his muses – Wendy Wheelan and Jock Soto.

The music is by Estonian composer Arvo Pärt and the pas de deux, originally the second half of a larger ballet, is now often done on its own. Here, like with Robbins’ greatest work, we experience a piece of extreme simplicity, unadorned by any mannerism or superfluous movement.

Its profundity lies in its economy of movement that allows mesmerizing music and the dancers artistry to shine through.

Robbins produced his West Side Story Suite for the New York City Ballet in 1995. This was a modification of a suite of numbers he and his co-choreographer Peter Genarro choreographed for the original musical that he produced for his Jerome Robbins Broadway.

Made for ballet dancers, this suite was unprecedented, requiring dancers to sing, speak, and act more like musical theater performers than classical ballet dancers. 

GUEST ARTISTS

I am excited to welcome our stager Robert LaFosse - former Principal Dancer with American Ballet Theater and the New York City Ballet, as well as a leading Broadway performer who worked closely with Jerome Robbins in both musical theater and classical ballet during the choreographer’s lifetime.

He has been a wealth of knowledge and an inspiration to our Ballet West Artists.  It’s also thrilling to have our guest artists.

Performing the role of Tony in West Side Story Suite, Robbie Fairchild is an alumni of the Ballet West Academy before he went to New York to become a Principal Artists at NYCB and then a leading performer on Broadway where he was Tony-nominated for his role in Wheeldon’s show An American in Paris; and Georgina Pazgoquin, former NYCB Soloist, Broadway performer, and co-founder of the advocacy group Final Bow to Yellow Face, who will be performing the role of Anita in West Side Story Suite.

Georgina was one of the last performers to be personally coached by Broadway legend Chita Rivera (the originator of the role of Anita in 1957). It is also remarkable to note how many of our Ballet West dancers are outstanding singers.

A PRODUCTION UNLIKE ANY OTHER

With our artists singing as well as dancing, this production is like none other that I have produced at Ballet West throughout my tenure. The artists have relished the unique artistic and technical challenges of this program.

Thank you for your patronage, We hope you will enjoy.