Sarasota has an economy powered by the Arts, which generated $342 million in 2022, a larger contributor to the local pocket than construction, which is impressive given the number of tower cranes evident throughout the city. Sarasota Ballet is a key ingredient of this cultural hothouse, a company that punches well above its weight in relation to the city’s population of 55,000 (broadly equivalent to that of Brentwood)!
The company has established a significant international reputation during Iain Webb’s seventeen-year tenure as director. Together with Margaret Barbieri, he has created something akin to The Royal Ballet of Florida with a particular dedication to preserving the choreographic legacy of Sir Frederick Ashton amidst an emphasis on presenting works as a triple bill.
Conflicted Beauty exemplified this twin ideal: an excellent and diverse mixed programme with an Ashton gem at its centre, albeit one that has been refashioned and given an extra polish. Ashton created Dante Sonata for the Vic-Wells Ballet in 1940, shortly before being called up for service in the Royal Air Force. It fell out of the repertoire in the early 1950s and, after an absence of half-a-century, was recreated by David Bintley for Birmingham Royal Ballet, painstakingly piecing it together from the memories of surviving cast members. There is a sequence in Constance Lambert’s orchestration of Franz Liszt’s Fantasie, quasi sonate: d’après une lecture de Dante that no-one could remember and Bintley (unquestionably the best person for the job) filled it in with 90 seconds of his own movement. To his credit, it’s impossible to tell where that choreographic Elastoplast sits!
Faced with the uncertainty of war, Ashton’s abstract ballet is bleak and austere, featuring a struggle between two tribes – the Children of Light versus those of Darkness. At the world premiere (Sadler’s Wells, 23rd January 1940) Margot Fonteyn and Pamela May were amongst the former with Robert Helpmann in the Darkness crew (a prelude to his future role as Vulgaria’s evil Child Catcher in Chitty Chitty Bang Bang)!
Sarasota Ballet is the perfect foil for a work that still seems surprisingly modern, even 83 years after its creation. In 1939, Ashton declined an invitation to join the emerging American Ballet Theatre in New York and there is an obvious American feel to both the strong sense of drama and Sophie Fedorovitch’s original designs. Ashton saw many performances of Martha Graham’s work at the Guild Theatre in New York during his 1933/34 visit and Dante Sonata suggests Graham's dramatic influence (and certainly one also detects references to Isadora Duncan). The Duncan connection is most obvious here in the loose, flowing blonde hair of Lauren Ostrander, superbly delivering June Brae’s original role of prominence amongst the Children of Darkness, alongside their leader, played by Ricardo Rhodes; in Fedorovitch’s diaphanous dresses; and in this being Ashton’s first choreography for dancers in bare feet. Jennifer Hackbarth shouldered the responsibility of Fonteyn’s creation with charismatic effect, leaving the ballet with a scintilla of optimistic hope at its impactful climax as the lifeless leaders of both tribes are held aloft, perhaps Ashton’s way of declaring that there are no winners in war.
The programme closed with an outstanding performance of Paul Taylor’s Company B, danced in ten episodes to the songs of The Andrews Sisters, which provided America’s soundtrack to the second world war. Created by Taylor for his own company in 1991, the ballet has been in the Sarasota rep for a decade and it’s a style in which the company excels with a strong sense of exuberance.
Particular highlights included the opening and closing full ensemble performance of Bei Mir Bist du Schön (a song that one can’t help humming for days to come); the bouncy Pennsylvania Polka duet danced by Anna Pellegrino and Daniel Pratt; bespectacled Ivan Spitale being pursued by seven women in Oh Johnny, Oh Johnny, Oh!; and the sex reversal in Dominique Jenkins and a cast of guys performing to the evocative Rum and Coca-Cola (The Andrews Sisters’ affected Caribbean accents would probably be seen as culturally inappropriate today).
The futility of war is shockingly evidenced in the sudden death by sniper fire of the Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy of Company B (Yuki Nonaka). The romantic duet of Emelia Perkins and Maximiliano Iglesias to There Will Never Be Another You also has the poignant ending of Iglesias leaving his sweetheart to join a line of silhouetted men marching off to war. With a similar spark of optimism to Ashton in the earlier work, Taylor didn’t end Company B on that sad note but revisited the upbeat message of Bei Mir Bist du Schön for his finale.
Set against these classics of yesteryear, the company premiere of Edwaard Liang’s The Art of War (created on Liang’s BalletMet in 2015) provided an exhilarating opener with its innovative beginning as two men walk from the audience to pull red silk fabric forward and backwards over the stage for the surprising reveal of a dozen dancers. Liang’s choreography is made on Michael Torke’s Ash composition and inspired by both Sun Tzu’s eponymous book and the art of calligraphy (the silk slashing across the stage a metaphor for ink filling the page). It is fast-moving choreography with splashes of unusual movement: one cantilevered lift, like a piece of human structural engineering, seemed so risky that it provoked an audible group gasp from the audience!
The exciting news is that balletomanes in London will no longer need to fly to Florida to experience this outpost of Ashtonian excellence since the company has been invited to perform in the Royal Opera House’s Linbury Theatre from 4th to 9th June 2024. The two programmes will, of course, feature works by Ashton, including Dante Sonata. It promises to be a short season to savour.
Graham's trip was funded by Visit Sarasota County
