Bach And Balanchine Close Out American Contemporary Ballet's Season

Bach and Balanchine Close Out American Contemporary Ballet’s Season

American Contemporary Ballet will wrap up their 11th season with a program featuring two of the biggest names in the classical music and ballet spheres – Bach and Balanchine.

“I didn't know if [ballet] could feel contemporary, and gut-punch you in the visceral way that a film can today. But when I saw Concerto Barocco, I knew it could. It’s one of the reasons I became a choreographer. You don't have to 'get' ballet to see Barocco. There is no story. It simply relies on beautiful execution by highly trained bodies. It’s like a film in that it matches image to music, but a film created by two of the greatest artists of all time."

Lincoln Jones

Artistic Director of American Contemporary Ballet

In Barocco, one finds two geniuses working across a span of more than 200 years. Balanchine introduced a pared-down, jazz-infused aesthetic that somehow perfectly complements Bach’s immortal Concerto for Two Violins in D minor.

George Balanchine‘s Concerto Barocco accompanies a complementary world premiere by ACB’s Artistic Director Lincoln Jones set to jazz music.

“Baroque era music has a lot in common with early jazz; much of it was improvised off familiar melodies, and based on dance music,” says Jones. “Composers made music for every occasion – it wasn’t the ‘sit down and think about your first symphony for 20 years’ approach that came later. That’s why it works so well for dancing.”