Miami City Ballet Blog

After much anticipation, Liam Scarlett’s Viscera opened on January 6 to standing ovations, and received rave reviews by The Miami Herald and Dance Magazine. Before returning home to the Royal Ballet, Liam reflected on the World Premiere in this emotional video by corps dancer Rebecca King, which takes us back to the joyous night.

If you missed Viscera at Adrienne Arsht Center, you can see it this weekend (Jan. 27-29) at Kravis Center and at Broward Center on February 3-5. Click here for more information.

Post by Ashley Knox, Corps de Ballet

This weekend, Miami audiences will have the unique opportunity to enjoy a performance by Miami City Ballet in the intimate setting of the Lynn & Louis Wolfson, II Theatre. This venue also offers the dancers a unique onstage experience. For us, inviting you to our Open Barre Dance Series is like inviting you into our living rooms. We perform in the very studio where we approach the barre each day to prepare for the rehearsals needed for every show MCB presents. This is where we dance, but also where we laugh, cry, sweat, stumble, persevere, create, and breathe as people, friends, and artists. It becomes our second home. In this setting, the audience is able to get up close and personal to the performers. You are able to hear each step we take as our pointe shoes lightly tap the floor, see every detail of our costumes where each bead has been carefully hand sewn, and practically hear the beating of our hearts as we dance solely from them.

But how are things seen from behind the barre? Open Barre is certainly a bonding experience for the dancers. Getting ready and warming up in one studio all together while blasting our favorite songs, definitely generates high energy and lots of laughs. Usually we listen to the orchestra while warming up, here we listen to the crowd settling in just five feet away from the edge of our dancing space. The closeness of the audience is our main challenge as we try to stay focused. While performing at Adrienne Arsht Center, for example, looking out from the stage we see mainly darkness and only the outline of the audience seated in their seats. During performances of Open Barre, there are times where we actually feel as if we meet eyes with our spectators which can be somewhat alarming. We can also make out familiar faces, and find our family and friends. Even though we are used to being on display and always giving our all, feeling the presence of the audience so close makes us even more aware of our every move. Everything from our facial expressions to our ballet technique is more pronounced and exposed. Like looking through a magnifying glass. It does, however, add a certain thrill to our performance.

This weekend I will have the chance to reverse roles and be among the audience! I’m looking forward to watching the concert version of Balanchine’s Who Cares? and Edward Villella’s “Mambo: Mambo No. 2 a.m.”  Who Cares? has fun yet extremely challenging variations and three different pas de deux set to jazzy, romantic Gershwin music. “Mambo” gives the dancers a chance to let loose and shake it to some latin rhythms. This program demonstrates the Company’s diversity, from ballerina to ballroom, and will be followed by a Q&A with Edward Villella.

Hopefully, insight from a dancer’s perspective will enhance your experience at the Open Barre Dance Series. See you there!

Post by Rebecca King, Corps de Ballet

As we gear up for the World Premiere of Viscera tomorrow evening at Adrienne Arsht Center, we’d like to continue the conversation on the music: Lowell Liebermann’s Concerto No. 1 for Piano and Orchestra.  I had the pleasure of discussing the piece with Mr. Liebermann earlier this week to get his perspective on the powerful score. Today we bring you a conversation with our very own, Maestro Gary Sheldon.  Throughout the season, audience members will spot him in the orchestra pit, leading the Opus One Orchestra.

Mr. Sheldon and I talked a little bit about the music and it’s interpretation through dance:

RK: Have you ever conducted a Lowell Liebermann work before?
GS: This is the first time I’ve conducted a work by Lowell Liebermann.  It’s especially helpful and inspiring to be able to consult with the composer and I’ve had the opportunity to discuss the music with Mr. Liebermann who lives in New York.

RK: What do you see as the defining element of this piece?
GS: I can see why Liam Scarlett was drawn to the music.  The accents and phrases in the music are clearly defined, making it inviting to choreograph.  While the idiom is relatively modern, with clashing dissonances, the form of the music is quite classical, making this music easy to digest on first hearing.

RK: As you anticipate conducting this piece for Miami City Ballet for the first time on Friday, January 6th, what do you most look forward to?  What element, if any, do you anticipate to be a challenge?
GS: It’s always exciting to work with a choreographer on a new work for me as a musician, just as it is for the dancers.  As part of the creative process, I have the opportunity to shape the music in ways that support the dancers and meet the choreographer’s vision.
I always enjoy presenting a new work to the orchestra.  My greatest challenge in conducting a new score is to reflect the nuances of the music as represented by the choreography to the orchestra.

RK: What should the audience be listening for when they are sitting in the audience?
GS: I think that the music will be quite accessible to the audience, as Liam Scarlett’s choreography itself is so ‘musical’.  The choreography mirrors the music in a natural and beautiful way.

RK: You have sat in on quite a few rehearsals for Viscera.  Mr. Scarlett told the dancers how important the music is to his piece, citing it as the main source of his inspiration.  After studying the music, how was the experience of seeing the music come to life?
GS: There is nothing quite as exciting as seeing the music come to life onstage when the choreography is so naturally entwined in it.  Liam has created an outstanding ballet that audiences are sure to enjoy.

Come and experience this powerful piece of music come to life through Miami City Ballet’s World Premiere of Liam Scarlett’s Viscera! For ticket information, click here.

Post by Rebecca King, Corps de Ballet

Miami City Ballet will be premiering Viscera, a new work by emerging young choreographer Liam Scarlett this Friday, January 6, 2012!  On the first day of rehearsals for Viscera, Mr. Scarlett told us that the music was his main source of inspiration and gathered us around him to just listen to the entire work.  Three weeks later, upon the ballet’s completion, he left us with an extremely musical piece to sink our teeth into.

In anticipation of the World Premiere, I’d like to give you a sneak peak into the orchestra pit for a discussion of the music, Concerto No. 1 for Piano and Orchestra, with American composer Lowell Liebermann. Mr. Liebermann composed this work in 1983, at age 22. This was his first time combining a piano with an orchestra.  In the orchestra pit there will be strings, a piccolo, two flutes, two oboes, an English horn, two clarinets, a bass clarinet, two bassoons, a contrabassoon, four French horns, three trumpets, three trombones, a tuba, and a percussion section with the timpani, a small triangle, cymbals, a suspended cymbal, a bass drum, and a ratchet!

In order to find out more, I spoke with Mr. Liebermann about the piece:

RK: First off, could you give us a little bit of your personal history with Concerto No. 1 for Piano and Orchestra?  What were you looking to accomplish with this work?
LL: It’s actually hard for me to remember where my mind was that far back!  I do remember that I wrote the work in a white heat during the summer in Southampton.  The whole piece was written and orchestrated in 11 days.  The second movement was inspired by a passage from De Quincey’s “Confessions of an Opium Eater” called “Dream Fugue.”  And all three movements quote a tune from the “Anne Cromwell Virginal Book” called “Fortune is my Foe.” The last movement, called “Maccaber’s Dance” was written after reading an account of the Black Death, which told the story of a Scotsman named Maccaber, or MacCawber, who moved to France in medieval times and instituted a Dance of Death to try to ward off the plague, which came to be known as the “Danse Macabre.” Evidently I was a quite serious 22-year-old!

RK:  How do you orchestrate a 20 minute piece in only 11 days?!
LL: By staying up all night and drinking heavily.

RK: On average, how long does it take you to compose new works?
LL: It depends on the length of the work, but I am a procrastinator, so I tend to think about pieces for a very long time, and scribble them down on paper in a very short time.  Nowadays the process of orchestrating and copying is much speeded up by music notation programs, but when I wrote the 1^st Piano Concerto, that was all written in pen and ink.

RK: During the writing process, did you ever envision ballet being set to this piece?
LL: No, not at all.  But ballet was actually my first big love: my introduction to classical music was with some old 78’s I had as a 5-year-old of the Nutcracker Suite. I would put them on the record player and attempt to pirouette and mimic ballet steps that I saw on TV. I wanted to take ballet lessons at that age, but my parents wouldn’t let me…

RK: In 2002, Robert Hill choreographed a ballet on American Ballet Theatre set to this piece of music.  What was it like to see your work come to life through ballet?
LL: It was exhilarating! Normally a composer doesn’t see physical manifestations of the effect of his music, so to see all those bodies set into motion is a wonderful thing.

RK: Has technology changed the process of composing in recent years as compared with the year 1983 when you wrote this 1^st Concerto for Piano?
LL: It hasn’t changed the process of composing at all:  I still compose at the piano with pencil and paper.  But again, the process of orchestrating (which is a much more mechanical thing than composing) and copying are much speeded up and enhanced.

RK: What is now playing on your iPod?
LL: I’m not even sure where it is right now! The only thing on it is actually my own complete works: I only use it when travelling to do a residency at whatever university or school so that I don’t have to lug along a suitcase of CDs. Otherwise, since I spend my working days either composing or practicing for performances, I tend not to listen to a lot of music in my down time. And when I do, I prefer it live.

Come and experience this powerful piece of music come to life through Miami City Ballet’s World Premiere of Liam Scarlett’s Viscera! For ticket information, click here.

On the twelfth day of Christmas, my true love gave to me

10 hours of Production Load-In

9 Mischievous Mice

8 Miniature Italian Polichinelles

7 Fly Men (who make it snow!)

6 Prop People

5 Marzipan Shepherdesses

4 Call Lights

3 Giant Gifts

2 Colossal Bags of Snow

and

Miami City Ballet’s production of George Balanchine’s The Nutcracker^TM.  Choreography by George Balanchine © The Balanchine Trust. Photos © Kyle Froman, Leigh-Ann Esty, Nicole Mitchell

Spoiler alert: the following video contains Nutcracker secrets!  With the help of our dancers and Pico, our wardrobe master, we’ve documented some of the behind-the-scenes secrets from our production of George Balanchine’s The Nutcracker™.

We can’t reveal how all the magic happens — we have to keep some tricks up our sleeves!

This adorable two-part series comes to an end as Rebecca King talks to the Delgado sisters, Jennifer Lauren, and Tricia Albertson about their Nucracker memories!

Click here to see Our Nutcracker Memories – Part 1.

Post by Leigh-Ann Esty, Corps de Ballet

As a professional ballet dancer, my life is very busy. I am always learning new techniques, rehearsing five different ballets at a time, and traveling to different places every weekend. However, there is one thing about my crazy life that always stays the same…The Nutcracker. It comes once a year, EVERY year! When we begin to perform The Nutcracker, it means that the holiday season has begun. It is one of my favorite times of year! I began to photograph this ballet about three years ago. The colors are so vibrant in this production, which helps the photographs to be quite visually pleasing. There are five different parts of The Nutcracker that are my favorite to watch and photograph as well.

My first favorite part in The Nutcracker is the snow scene. This is such a magical moment in the ballet. Little pieces of white paper fall onto the stage, portraying the illusion of a blustery snow-covered forest. As the dancers jump around, “snow” is kicked into the air. Then, all of a sudden, the whole group of dancers run to the corner and stop abruptly, folding in half. Just when you think they are done, they start up again, shaking their pom poms that look like snow balls. I love the dramatics of this part! The music and choreography fit perfectly together.

In the second half of The Nutcracker, there are a number of divertissements. These act as entertainment in the Land of the Sweets. One of my favorites is the Candy Cane dance. The male lead in this has a very impressive part. He performs all of these tricks while jumping through a hoolahoop! It is quite exciting! I also love this music. It really gets me into the holiday spirit!

My all time favorite dance in The Nutcracker is the dance of the Dew Drop in Waltz of the Flowers. Her choreography is so musical and fluid. She gets to fly and spin across the stage. I get chills every time I watch this part, especially at the end when the music builds and explodes into a burst of energy. This is a dream role of mine!

Nutcracker would not be the same if it weren’t for the children. In this production, there are over 60 kids that get to participate. I love seeing their joy and excitement. It makes me remember when I was just starting out as a ballet dancer. My first role in The Nutcracker was a pollychenell. I will never forget feeling tears of joy every time I ran out from Mother Commedia’s skirt to bow. Now when I see the kids smile and beam on stage, I know exactly how they are feeling!

Click here to see Leigh’s Behind-the-Scenes of Nutcracker album on Facebook.

Click here to check out Leigh’s website.

Photos: Miami City Ballet dancers in George Balanchine’s The Nutcracker^TM.  Choreography by George Balanchine © The Balanchine Trust. Photo © Leigh-Ann Esty.

Principal dancers Patricia Delgado and Yann Trividic began their partnership not too long ago yet have amazing chemistry! This season the duo had the opportunity to learn and perform Christopher Wheeldon’s  Liturgy. Watch as Patricia and Yann chat about how they prepared for the piece, and how they feel about this sensual and haunting pas de deux.

Liam Scarlett’s new ballet is about two months away from its world premiere on the Adrienne Arsht Center stage! Before he went home to The Royal Ballet, Liam chatted with us about naming the plotless ballet and finally voiced the name of the piece!

Liam Scarlett’s new ballet premieres in January 2012 at Adrienne Arsht Center, followed by performances at Broward Center and Kravis Center. Click here for more information.