Ravinia 2024 Issue 6

Above: The Joffrey Ballet’s own Nicolas Blanc’s Beyond the Shore marked the company’s return to the Pavilion stage in 2021. Previous page: AndrewMcNicol’s Yonder Blue —featuring Joffrey dancers Jeraldine Mendoza, Dylan Gutierrez, and ensemble members—closes the company’s September 13 program at Ravinia. In addition to helping fulfill the wish of Jeffrey Haydon, Ravinia’s president and chief executive officer, to put a renewed accent on dance (in keeping with the festival’s long history with the music-adjacent art), the company’s per- formances in 2021 and again this year are part of his desire to more frequently collaborate with other prominent Chica- go-area cultural institutions. “I’m really thrilled getting to know Jeff Haydon,” says Ashley Wheater, Jof- frey’s Mary B. Galvin Artistic Director. “He’s passionate about all things Chica- go, and he wants the Joffrey there more often. So, we’re all really happy, and we have a huge audience there.” For its latest appearance at Ravinia, Joffrey is presenting two programs on the Pavilion stage—an evening perfor- mance September 13 with live music and, reprising a tradition from the past, a morning presentation September 14 as part of the festival’s Kids Concert Series. Joffrey’s first Ravinia visit took place in 1972, long before it was based in Chi- cago, and at that time it became some- thing of a perennial presence, appearing in weeklong residencies each year through 1979. But subsequent returns were more sporadic: a series of multi- date stands occupied the calendars of 1997 through 2000, and performances dropped off after 2008. Wheater is glad now to be back on a more regular basis. He believes Joffrey’s Ravinia appearances are an ideal com- plement to its main season at the Lyric Opera House, attracting audiences who typically don’t go downtown to see the company or who eschew formal the- ater-going experiences altogether. “It’s been really amazing,” the Joffrey leader says. “Ravinia is such a special place that going to a performance there is a heightened experience just because of the open air, and you are at one with nature. It’s just a more relaxed feeling than going into a theater.” Keen eyes may have noticed that the September 13 program underwent a sea change in late July. Because the com- pany is embarking on a European tour right after its Ravinia engagement, set pieces, costumes, and stage equipment necessary for the original repertoire would have to be aboard a ship bound for Germany starting in August. In the present lineup are two works by Gerald Arpino, the New Yorker who co-founded The Joffrey Ballet in 1956 and choreographed nearly 50 works on it during his more than 50-year tenure with the company—first as a dancer and later Artistic Director. The Gerald Arpino Foundation celebrated the 100th anniversary of his birth with a pair of performances of his works in Septem- ber 2023 at the AuditoriumTheatre, featuring eight major American ballet companies, including American Ballet Theatre, San Francisco Ballet, and, of course, the Joffrey. As a spiritual extension of that event, Joffrey will present Birthday Variations (1986) and Round of Angels (1983), which the company brought back to its repertory for the Arpino celebration. The company performed the former, a neoclassical work suffused with gentle, unhurried elegance and performed in tutus and opulent jackets, as part of a mixed-rep program in 2021. The evening’s finale is British cho- reographer Andrew McNicol’s Yonder Blue , which Joffrey premiered in 2019 on a program titled Across the Pond and re- vived in February 2024. Inspired by Siri Hustvedt’s book A Plea for Eros , it is set to a minimalist score by Peter Gregson. RAVINIAMAGAZINE • SEPTEMBER 2 – SEPTEMBER 15, 2024 16 PREVIOUSPAGE:CHERYLMANN THISPAGE:KYLEDUNLEAVY/RAVINIA