For the last show of the 2017-18 ballet season, the Pittsburgh Ballet premiers three dances in celebration of the 100th birthday of collaborators Jerome Robbins and Leonard Bernstein: West Side Story Suite, Fancy Free and In The Night. In West Side Story Suite, the Pittsburgh Ballet combines classic dance with the iconic music of the musical West Side Story. I was excited to see these premier dances and experience “a little rumbling” with some singing in West Side Story Suite. This was an interesting hybrid of the arts!
Reflection
The
Pittsburgh Ballet ended the season with a production which creatively merged ballet,
theatrics, and singing in three premier ballets. Parts of the show felt like we were watching a 1940’s
movie musical. It really was a hybrid of various art forms.
Fancy
Free resembled one of Gene Kelly's movies where he danced his way through his films from the 1940's to the 1960's. Three World War II sailors on
leave tried to impress and “get the girl”. They competed with dance. This was a male
dominated ballet with spectacular strength displayed in the jumps and turns. Like
a Gene Kelly movie, it was lighthearted and put a
smile on your face- it was “fancy free”.
In the Night was
“dreamy” as three different pairs danced
on a star lit stage In the Night gave us more of a classical
ballet with a flair of a 1940’s Fred Astaire and Ginger Rodgers duet. The pairs
flowed beautifully as they danced "in the night".West Side Story Suite opened with an energy filled rumble between the American gang, the Jets, and the Puerto Rican gang, the Sharks. The love connection between Tony and Maria was evident as their eyes met at a dance. This was a merger of Broadway and ballet.
One of my favorite parts of this ballet was the high kicks and turns to the show stopping song “America”, where the character, Anita (Julia Erickson) sang as well as danced. PBT managed to condense the entire musical into the ballet. An inspirational mantra for unity concluded the show as the cast sang and danced to “Somewhere” while the sun beamed over the horizon!
This was
a night to remember as the Pittsburgh Ballet took us on a creative journey that
mixed the best of theater, music, and dance in this show which was a unique hybrid of the
arts.
( Pittsburgh Ballet 's three dances premier on May 4-6, 2018 at the Benedum Theater. For tickets and more information on the upcoming 2018-19 season, go to https://www.pbt.org/.)