2019-20 Season

[miliosr]

Sarasota Ballet has announced its 2019-20 season:

https://www.sarasotaballet.org/sarasota-ballet-announces-its-2019-–-2020-season

Plenty of Ashton:

Les Rendezvous

Romeo and Juliet (company premiere)

Dante Sonata (company premiere)

 

[sandik]

Dante Sonata!

[miliosr]

Luke Schaufuss has announced via Instagram that he's joining Sarasota Ballet:

 

[Roberta]

Thank you for this news. Is Luke related to Peter Schaufuss, who staged Ashton's R&J in London, when he (Peter) led ENB/London Fest Ballet?

 

I see that single tickets are now on sale for the 2019/20 Sarasota season. https://www.sarasotaballet.org/events/type/company-performances/all

Lots of Ashton, as before.

[Ashton Fan]

Luke is Peter Schaufuss' son. I don't recall him being that outstanding when he appeared with Queensland Ballet in his father's staging of La Sylphide a few years back but a lot can happen in a couple of years. Perhaps he has developed since he was last seen in London

Ashton himself staged the revival of his Romeo and Juliet for London Festival Ballet in 1985 with the assistance of Niels Bjorn Larsen who  had danced the role of Tybalt in Copenhagen in 1955. Larsen brought a film of the ballet to London as the work had not been notated. I believe that Ashton made some changes to the ballet's text . According to Katherine Healy, the first cast Juliet, Ashton, spent a lot of time working with her including teaching her stage craft. He spent much less time working with other casts, largely because he had convinced himself that the critics were not going to greet the revival with any degree of enthusiasm. My recollection of the revival is that if you saw the first cast the ballet looked good  but if you saw later casts they were less Ashtonian in their approach and performance style. The real interest in the ballet is that it is far less the story of two young people crushed by societal pressure and  much more a personal tragedy. Ashton's  Romeo and Juliet is a version of the ballet which does not rely on Lavrovsky's staging in the way that later Western stagings seem to do. He responds to the score in his own way and this produces a  staging which does not slavishly follow Lavrovsky in the way that  Cranko and MacMillan do. Schaufuss edited the ballet when he staged the work in London with his pwn company a few years ago. I hope that Sarasota sees the full version rather than the pared down one. 

If you are interested in reading about Healy's experience of working with Ashton then try to get hold of a book called "Following Sir Fred's Steps" which I think was published by Dance Books. It contains papers given at a conference about the Ashton repertory held at the University of Roehampton during the 1990's including the one she  contributed to it.

Edited August 7, 2019 by Ashton Fan

[miliosr]

I ordered my tickets for the Ashton Romeo and Juliet in March.

[sandik]

11 hours ago, Ashton Fan said:

If you are interested in reading about Healy's experience of working with Ashton then try to get hold of a book called "Following Sir Fred's Steps" which I think was published by Dance Books. It contains papers given at a conference about the Ashton repertory held at the University of Roehampton during the 1990's including the one she  contributed to it.

I've got it around here -- it is indeed full of good things.

[Roberta]

19 hours ago, Ashton Fan said:

Luke is Peter Schaufuss' son. I don't recall him being that outstanding when he appeared with Queensland Ballet in his father's staging of La Sylphide a few years back but a lot can happen in a couple of years. Perhaps he has developed since he was last seen in London

...

Most enlightening, Ashton Fan. Thank you.

 

[FPF]

Jacob's Pillow has announced that the Sarasota Ballet will be performing in the 2020 Festival August 26th to 30th. Ashton fans will be happy to note that Birthday Offering is on the program. Other ballets TBA. 

https://www.jacobspillow.org/events/the-sarasota-ballet/