Abstract
This three-part ballet evening unites three luminaries of 20th-century ballet.
George Balanchine, founder of the New York City Ballet and grand master of neoclassicism, has a long tradition of performance in Zurich. A key work is The Four Temperaments, which was created in 1946 to music by Paul Hindemith and anticipated the choreographer’s future stylistic development.
After the world première of Hans van Manen’s Frank Bridge Variations in Amsterdam in 2005, ballet critic Jochen Schmidt enthused that it was “probably the most concentrated 24 minutes of dance to be produced in Europe this season”. Van Manen dresses Benjamin Britten’s suite-like variations in a supremely elegant choreography of crystalline clarity and rigorous form. Couples sense and find each other, challenge each other to an erotic duel and tender fusion, circle each other and seem to be indissolubly, invisibly linked.
Jiří Kylián’s ballet Falling Angels is “woman’s business”. The piece is one of the Czech choreographer’s so-called “black-and-white” ballets. Eight dancers are irresistibly drawn to the sounds of Steve Reich’s percussion work entitled Drumming, which is played on 16 bongo drums, and join together to pay carefree homage to female dance.