The Harris Theater's 2006 presentation of New York City Ballet (NYCB), one of the foremost ballet companies in the world, marked the beginning of Harris Theater Presents. Now under the leadership of Artistic Director Jonathan Stafford and Associate Artistic Director Wendy Whelan, NYCB returns to Chicago as part of its 75th anniversary season in two distinct programs celebrating past, present, and future.
NYCB highlights a new generation of iconic choreographers in 21st Century Choreography: Justin Peck, Christopher Wheeldon, Pam Tanowitz, and Kyle Abraham. Peck’s Partita, featuring eight dancers in sneakers oscillating between solo and unison movements, takes inspiration from Caroline Shaw’s Pulitzer Prize-winning a cappella Partita for 8 Voices and the art of Eva LeWitt. Shaw’s music makes another appearance in Pam Tanowitz’s Gustave le Gray No. 1, in which four dancers interact with an onstage pianist who continues to play even as the dancers move the piano and musician from one side of the stage to the other. Wheeldon’s Liturgy, set to music by Arvo Pärt, is a contemplative pas de deux with a hushed, mystical quality that builds as the two dancers separate and return to one another with increasing intensity. In Love Letter (on shuffle), Kyle Abraham inspires the dancers of NYCB to new physical and emotional heights in a mashup of phenomenal classical feats and contemporary swagger, featuring music by James Blake.
