The Sarasota Ballet Closes a Remarkable Season

April 1, 2022 – Sarasota

Rounding out the Company’s 2021 – 2022 Season, The Sarasota Ballet takes a trio of ballets to the Sarasota Opera House stage with their seventh and final Program, Serendipitous Movement. Performing 29 – 30 April, this vibrant triple bill includes the Company Premiere of eclectic choreographer Mark Morris’s The Letter V, alongside the neoclassical beauty of George Balanchine’s Serenade and the rambunctious ragtime affair of Sir Kenneth MacMillan’s Elite Syncopations. Serendipitous Movement will also see the Sarasota Orchestra joining to accompany the Ballet, with American Ballet Theatre Music Director Ormsby Wilkins conducting for Serenade and The Letter V, and Key Chorale Artistic Director Joseph Caulkins conducting for Elite Syncopations.

“With The Letter V seeing its Company Premiere, we continue our celebration of the artistry of Mark Morris that began last month with the Mark Morris Dance Group’s performances,” says Iain Webb, Director of The Sarasota Ballet. “I have long been eager to incorporate Morris’s choreography into our repertory like this; his fundamental understanding of the interplay between dance and music lends a vivacious quality to many of his works. Juxtaposed between the timeless magnificence of Balanchine’s Serenade and the delicate balance between technical finesse and playful cabaret of MacMillan’s Elite Syncopations, The Letter V richly complements the artistry on display in this deeply engaging triple bill.”

Serendipitous Movement opens with Balanchine’s Serenade, the choreographer’s first full-length ballet created in the United States. Representing a transition in style from his earlier works for the Ballets Russes to his American ballets that would follow, Serenade originated out of Balanchine’s study of the rehearsal process over an extended period, with dancers’ entrances and exits from rehearsal and even their real-life mistakes incorporated into the choreography to allow for a distinctly “human” dynamic. Serenade’s music by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky further reinforces the bridging between Balanchine’s artistic chapters. Next, the Company Premiere of Morris’s The Letter V, first created for Houston Ballet in 2015, applies the choreographer’s signature flair to Joseph Haydn’s Symphony No. 88 in G Major. In her review of a 2019 performance by Houston Ballet, The New York Times’ Gia Kourlas called The Letter V “gorgeous…[a] pastoral delight” and “unexpected and fresh.” The Program closes with the virtuosic uproar of MacMillan’s Elite Syncopations; dancers in brightly colored attire casually vie for attention with one another, set to the ragtime-era tunes of Scott Joplin and others. Elite Syncopations is a jovial creation that masterfully interweaves classical technique and jaunty melodies, demonstrating MacMillan’s artistic versatility and wit.

Performance Schedule and Ticket Information
29 – 30 April 2022
Sarasota Opera House

Friday, 29 April at 7:30 PM
Saturday, 30 April at 2:00 PM
Saturday, 30 April at 7:30 PM

Serenade
Choreography by George Balanchine
Score by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky

The Letter V (Company Premiere)
Choreography by Mark Morris
Music by Joseph Haydn

Elite Syncopations
Choreography by Sir Kenneth MacMillan
Music by Scott Joplin et al.

Single Tickets

Individual tickets for Serendipitous Movement, starting at $30, are on sale now at www.SarasotaBallet.org or by calling 941.359.0099.