Ravinia 2021 - Issue 4

George BALANCHINE . Merce CUNNINGHAM . Laura DEAN . Martha GRAHAM . Bill T. JONES . Pearl LANG . Mark MORRIS . Paul TAYLOR . Twyla THARP . While Ravinia has always centered primarily on music of all kinds, all these celebrated dance creators and more have brought their works and companies to the festival over the de- cades. Indeed, it has amassed the kind of storied performance history in the form that even some dedicated dance festivals might envy. “To me, dance with live music is really important,” says Jeffrey Hay- don, who took over last September as Ravinia’s president and chief executive officer. “We are in a very visual society right now, and I think that is a way that people can connect even more with music: by seeing it visualized through dance.” Ravinia’s dance tradition will continue September 17, when the Chicago-based JOFFREY BALLE T returns to the festival for the first time since 2008. While the company did participate in Dance for Life , a 40-troupe showcase at Millennium Park on August 26, Joffrey’s appear- ance at Ravinia will be its first live, in-person performance on its own since the Coronavirus shutdown in March 2020. “I have always loved Ravinia,” says Ashley Wheater, Joffrey’s Mary B. Gal- vin Artistic Director. “There was a time when the company was there more often, and I’ve always wanted to take the company back to Ravinia. We have a huge amount of support up on the North Shore, and it’s a beautiful venue.” Dance has played a prominent role at Ravinia at least as far back as 1926–28 when the internationally re- nowned Chicago dance pioneer Ruth Page served as ballet director for sev- eral opera productions. “That is one of the things that she did for Chicago as a whole—adding more to opera than just music,” says Silvino da Silva, acting executive director of the Ruth Page Center for the Arts, which cele- brates its 50th anniversary this year. In addition to her work at Ravinia, Page oversaw ballet for the Lyric Opera of Chicago from 1954 through 1969 and led the internationally touring Chica- go Opera Ballet, an outgrowth of her work at Lyric, starting in 1955. Page had another impact on Ravin- ia six years before her death in 1991, when she endowed an annual series of dance at the event—what has come to be called the Ruth Page Festival of Dance. Joffrey is appearing in part un- der its financial auspices. “That’s part of her lasting legacy with Ravinia,” da Silva says. In recent years, through the efforts of Haydon’s predecessor, Welz Kauffman, Page-supported events have taken place not only on the festival grounds in the summers but also at the AuditoriumTheatre and elsewhere at other times of the year in collaboration with Ravinia. Going back to at least 1947, ballet companies—full troupes and ensem- bles of star dancers—and modern dance ensembles have visited the Ravinia Festival regularly. Among the many highlights was the 1967 ap- pearance of the Merce Cunningham Dance Company just three years after it made its first international tour. The July 25 performance that year featured the world premiere of Scramble , with a set and costumes by famed artist Frank Stella. (The company returned in 1978.) Diversity has long figured into Ravinia’s dance offerings, with the festival presenting a rich range of female-led companies, including those of Pearl Lang, a Chicago native known for introducing Jewish themes into many of her pieces, and Carmen de Lavallade, a daughter of Creole parents whose multifaceted career included appearances as a principal guest performer with the Alvin Ailey RAVINIA.ORG • RAVINIA MAGAZINE 13