UMS Concert Program, March 6, 1984: Oakland Ballet --

Season: 105th
Concert: Thirty-sixth
Power Center For The Performing Arts Ann Arbor, Michigan

THE UNIVERSITY MUSICAL SOCIETY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN
Oakland Ballet
RONN GUIDI Artistic Director
Mario Alonzo Jane Beuthet David Blood Diane Cassou Richard Chen-See Tony Cirella Susan Fulton Joy Gim
Steven Bayati Aileen Bibaoco Audrey Broyles Jade Lynne Ching Berkeley Choate
Carolyn Goto Douglas Hevenou David Kleine Jon Konetski Erin Leedom Julie Lowe Michael Lowe Michael Myeus Karen Persson
Vincent Cowart Jane Edwards Monica Gcrhart Alison Huff Miriam Kantor Carlos Lopez
Deuouah Pitts Shiulee Reevie Summer Lee Rhatigan Deura Rose Aura Rudisill Susan Taylor Ron Thiele Jennifer Young
Julie Martin Scan Ramirez Michael Ryan Joral Schmalle Adam Sklute
Ron Thiele, Associate Artistic Director
Howard Sayette, Ballet Master Lanc:e James, Company Manager
Robert KLEMM,Technical Director Peter Butt, Stage Manager
Gillian Holaday-Klemm, Wardrobe Supervisor
Tuesday Evening, March 6, 1984, at 8:00
Power Center for the Performing Arts
Ann Armor, Michigan
The Oakland Ballet performances this week are wade possible, in part, by a grant from the Great Lakes Arts Alliance, with the support of the Michigan Council for the Arts and The National Endowment for the Arts.
Thirty-sixth Concert of the 105th Season Thirteenth Annual Choice Series
STREET SONGS
Choreography: Val Caniparoli Music: Caul Ouff
Decor: Richard Carter, after Galen Garwood
Lighting: Robert Klemm, after Randall G. Chiarelli
Costumes: Gillian Holaday-Klemm, after Sue A. DuPuis
1. Ensemble
2. Michael Lowe, Erin Leedom
3. Mario Alonzo, Susan Taylor, Douglas Hevenor
4. Ensemble
5. Ensemble
6. Summer Lee Rhatigan
7. Abra Rudisill, Michael Myers
8. Ensemble, with Mario Alonzo
9. Jon Konctski, Jennifer Young
10. Ensemble
Carl Orff is mostly known for his music-theatre classic Carntina Burana, but this German composer devoted a great deal of his life to music education. He is well-known in Europe and parts of the American teaching community as a teacher and inventor of a pedagogical system -the Orff "Schulwerk." In 1923 Orff met Dorothee Gunther, who invited him to teach music at her newly founded gymnastics and dance school. Here he experimented with his musical ideas and the school flourished. They even started a professional performing company, but grew in disfavor with the Nazi government. A recording from the Orff Institut, founded after the war, served as the source and title for Val Caniparoli's Street Songs, which was premiered in 1980.
Charmed by hearing the delicate sounds of Orffs music for children, Caniparoli selected a sequence of pieces and began work: "I had a clear idea of the ballet in my head from the beginning, and had a little story to go with the piece. I don't tell the dancers the stories I have in my head -they are free to find their own characters within the movement. The fun of the ballet is that the audience makes up their own stories from what they sec."
Street Songs was first presented by Pacific Northwest Ballet on August 8, 1980; Oakland Ballet's premiere took place on October 16, 1983.
INTERMISSION
BILLY THE KID
Choreography: Eugene Loring Music: Aaron Copland Costume design: Robert Fletcher Lighting: Robert Klemm
Costume interpretation: Sandra Woodall Scenery painted by Susan Paigen, after Jcrad French
William H. Bonney was born in New York City at the close of the Civil War. His life coincides with the opening of the last frontier. At the age of twelve, "Billy the Kid" killed his first man to revenge his mother's accidental death. Before he reached the age of twenty-one he had shot a man for each year of his life "not counting," as he boasted, "Mexicans and Indians." In the ballet, the character of Alias recurs in different episodes as a symbol of those men whom Billy shot with no sense of guilt. He carried the border law of "get your man before he gets you" to its logical conclusion. When Billy's only friend Pat Garrett turned Sheriff, Billy knew that it was a question of his getting Garrett or of Garrett getting him. After innumerable captures and escapes, Garrett finally ambushed The Kid as he lay unarmed and asleep.
Billy ................................................................Jon Konetski
Pat Garrett............................................................ Ron Thicle
Alias...............................................................Michael Lowe
MotherSweetheart...................................................Jennifer Young
Dispatch Officer...................................................... David Kleine
Prospector............................................................Tony Cirella
Cowboy in Red.......................................................Mario Alonzo
Dance Hall Girls...............................Joy Gim, Shirlee Reevie, Susan Taylor
Mexican Girls.........................................Jade Lynne Ching, Julie Lowe,
Deborah Pitts, Abra Rudisill
Housewives............................................. Patti Owen, Karen Persson,
Summer Lee Rhatigan, Debra Rose
Cowboys........................................... Richard Chen-Sec, Tony Cirella,
Michael Myers, Sean Ramirez
Gun Girls in Gray......................................... Julie Lowe, Deborah Pitts
Gnu Girls in Tan.......................Jade Lynne Ching, Patti Owen, Karen Persson,
Abra Rudisill, Debra Rose
Eugene Loring choreographed Billy the Kid in 1938, one of his earliest and strongest successes. He danced with Fokinc's company and the American Ballet Theater and, after a period on Broadway, went to Los Angeles in the mid-1940s where he began a long and distinguished career for motion pictures and television. He provided choreography for many films including Silk Stockings and Funny Face, and also served as Chairman of the Dance Department at the University of California at Irvine.
Eugene Loring died in the summer of 1982, leaving an extraordinary legacy of dance with the Oakland Ballet, including Sisters, The Tender Land, Time Unto Time, and Billy the Kid.
Special thanks to Suzanne Stassevitch for her reconstruction of costumes for the Sweetheart and Billy.
World premiere of Billy the Kid presented by Ballet Caravan, 1938, New York City; Oakland Ballet production restaged by Eugene Loring and premiered October 21, 1976.
Hilly the Kid has been funded in part through a grant from The National Endowment for the Arts, the S. H. Cowell Foundation, the L. J. Skaggs and Mary C. Skaggs Foundation, and the Clorox Company.
INTERMISSION
DVORAK DANCES
Choreography: Ronn Guioi Music: Antonin Dvorak Lighting: Robert Klemm Costumes: Thicia Kaye
(in order of appearance)
Abra Rudisill Erin Lccdom Carolyn Goto Deborah Pitts Joy Gim
Shirlcc Rccvic Susan Taylor Richard Chen-See David Klcinc
Mario Alonzo Michael Lowe Jon Konctski Ron Thiele Joral Schmallc
"Dvorak Dances is a choreographic frolic, a toast and celebration of the Oakland Ballet's 1982 fall season. "
-Ronn Guidi World Premiere by Oakland Ballet, September 24, 1982.
(pause)
BOLERO
Choreography: Mauc Wilde Music: Maurice Ravel Lighting: Robert Klemm
Joy Gim Erin Lccdom Julie Lowe
Deborah Pitts Abra Rudisill Mario Alonzo
Jon Konctski Michael Lowe Ron Thielc
Bolero was choreographed in 1973, one of several ballets created by Marc Wilde for Oakland Ballet since the mid-1960s. They include The Masque of the Red Death, Jazziana, La Valse, Afternoon of a Faun, Concerto Grosso No. 1 in C, The Sirens, and Brahms Intermezzi. He has created works for other dance groups and companies across the nation, and served as Artistic Director of the Santa Barbara Ballet from 1976 to 1978.
World premiere of Bolero presented by Pacific Ballet in 1973; Oakland Ballet premiere performed in 1974.
Music used by arrangement with Theodore Presser Company, Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania.
About the Artists
One of the West Coast's major professional ballet companies, the Oakland Ballet has earned an outstanding reputation for presenting innovative contemporary choreography and the preservation of balletic masterworks from the Diaghilev and 20th-century American dance eras. Under the artistic direction of Ronn Guidi, the 25-mcmber company has mounted impressive revivals of ballets by Nijinska and Fokine and is also acknowledged for its faithful re-creations of historically significant American dance works, such as Eugene Loring's Billy the Kid.
The Company maintains an extensive touring schedule which brings them to national and international dance centers approximately four months of the year. The group's recent European tour included appearances in both France and Italy. In 1982 Oakland Ballet performed as the featured attraction at the acclaimed Spoleto Festival, U.S.A., in Charleston, South Carolina. The current tour, which began February 25, includes 26 performances in 14 cities of eight states, including Alaska. Touring more widely than any other West Coast ballet company, the group also takes its popular Christmas classic Nutcracker on the road each year.
The forerunner of today's Oakland Ballet began in 1954 when Raoul Pause, a former student of the great Russian dancer and choreographer Adolph Bolm, established the Ballet Player's Guild of Oakland. In 1961, the group became Oakland Civic Ballet and Ronn Guidi, Associate Director of the Guild, began staging ballets for the new company. The group was again reorganized, and in 1965 Guidi founded today's Oakland Ballet Company and Academy.
The Company returns to Ann Arbor after its debut appearance here two years ago.
Through his artistry and unique teaching ability, Ronn Guidi has inspired students who now dance in major companies throughout the world. As Artistic Director of the Oakland Ballet, he has given it a repertoire that is both innovative and bold, yet retains an historical portfolio of works from both the classics and the Diaghilev era. A few of the works he has choreographed for the Company are Carnival D'Aix, Dvorak Dances, Hansel and Gretel, Trois Gynmopedies, Soiree Muskale, and Sibelius.
Mr. Guidi has an extensive background in classical dance. His balletic heritage is directly linked to the tradition of the Russian Kirov Ballet through his ten years of training with the late Raoul Pause. From 1958 to 1961 Guidi extended his knowledge of classical dance in Italy, Germany, and Denmark, and upon returning to the United States taught for three years as Associate Supervisor of Ballet at the University of California, Berkeley. In 1961 he choreographed his first ballet for Oakland Civic Ballet, a precursor to the Oakland Ballet Company and School which he founded in 1965.
REPUBLIC Republic Airlines is the official carrier airlines for Oakland Ballet's 1984 national tour.
Watch for imminent announcement: Ann Arbor Summer Festival, 1984
June 30 -July 24, on the U-M campus Mime Dance Music Theatre
To be announced April 9: A New Season of International Presentations, 1984-85
Ballet and Modern Dance companies,
some old favorites and some new to Ann Arbor
Watch for them!
BOARD OF DIRECTORS
GAIL W. RECTOR, President WILBUR K. P1ERPONT, Vice President
DOUGLAS D. CRARY, Secretary ALLEN P. BRITTON, Treasurer
?HOWARD S. HOLMES PAUL W. McCRACKEN JOHN I). PAUL
SARAH GODDARD POWER JOHN W. REED HAROLD T. SHAPIRO
LOIS U. STEGEMAN E. THURSTON THIEME JERRY A. WEISBACH
First term beganjanuary 1, 1984.
UNIVERSITY MUSICAL SOCIETY
Burton Memorial Tower, Ann Arbor, Michigan 48109-1270 Phones: (313) 665-3717, 764-2538