Justin Peck, Herman Cornejo, and Christopher Grant rehearsing in 2018. Photo by Erin Baiano.
Calvin Royal III and Pam Tanowitz in rehearsal in 2015. Photo by Erin Baiano.
DANCING BALLET FORWARD
“Growing up on Guam,” she says, “adds to myself as an artist.” The matriarchal society is rooted in a celebration of life through music and dancing, and it is from that culture of community that Quan creates dances rooted in joy and resiliency.
Tony Award winner Justin Peck will choreograph to music by MacArthur “Genius” Fellow and Punch Brothers leader Chris Thile (who will perform in the new creation), officially marking the Festival’s 100th new work under Woetzel’s artistic direction. Both artists are hailed as important torch bearers in their respective fields, leading American ballet and bluegrass music into meaningful new territory. As resident choreographer at NYCB, Peck is known for creating invigorating dances that are at once architectural and sweeping yet intimate and familiar. His origin of choreographing on friends as a dancer is felt in the way he breaks down typical ballet hierarchies. Additional inspirations abound from his first love for tap dance to the George Balanchine and Jerome Robbins lineages that formed him at NYC Ballet. Peck’s recent acclaimed work as choreographer for director Steven Spielberg’s new West Side Story film marked his standing as one of ballet’s preeminent creators. The Peck and Thile collaboration is sure to push dance another step forward into the future. Atlanta Ballet resident choreographer Claudia Schreier creates thrillingly intricate work that embraces complex music, dancing, and themes. Her new ballet will be accompanied by the classical prodigyturned-decisively-21st-century composer Conrad Tao. The two artists are forged in classical work yet remain responsive to modern-day life. Regarding the past two tumultuous years of social reckoning, Schreier recalls, “There was a seismic shift in how I identify as a Black woman in America and the daughter of an immigrant.” Her recent creative output reflects this shift in its evolution from pure visceral musicality to incorporating narration. Schreier, a Princess Grace Awardee, speaks also of significant life experiences that influenced her as an artist. Notably, she interned at the Vail Dance Festival in 2007 and 2008. In between duties, she spent her time soaking up the intoxicating creative excellence that makes Vail so formative for so many artists. “I didn’t know at the time that I would be fortunate enough to have a career in choreography,” she says, “but Vail was my jumping off point. Being surrounded by that environment, it had an indelible impact.” Caili Quan, one of this summer’s Artists-In-Residence, also regards Vail as a source of artistic inspiration. She returns after several summers at the Festival performing as a dancer with leading contemporary ballet company BalletX. “It always starts with the music,” says Quan, who will collaborate with Caroline Shaw, the Grammy and Pulitzer Prize winning Festival Composer-In-Residence. Quan’s dynamic musical interpretations make it easy to be carried away by her dances.
MODERN MAVERICKS Pam Tanowitz’s choreographic career has skyrocketed since first creating work for the Festival in 2015. Her signature wit and rigor have crossed borders, from NYCB to The Royal Ballet and Australian Ballet. This summer, Tanowitz looks forward to collaborating with composer and vocalist Kate Davis. “I want to work with jazz and pop music, something totally different,” she says in her constant search for new creative challenges. Clearly a modern dance maker (Tanowitz takes her bows barefoot), she enjoys bending rules, particularly those inherent to ballet. She reconstructs the syntax of specific dance languages in conversation with the originators — whether that is the dancer in front of her or a known dance maker. The more distinct her dancers, the richer her work, as the movement languages each artist brings with them become material to be remolded. The dances she makes in Vail, varied in cast by the nature of the Festival itself, are rare feats of choreographic dialogue. Jodi Melnick is a choreographer-dancer whose dancing spills from her pores. “She is like water made human,” The New Yorker stated. Drawing from the lineage of postmodern dance master Trisha Brown, Melnick’s work feels endlessly spontaneous, radically present. Her precision reveals discipline while her lithe movements confirm a vital sense of freedom. Melnick’s commission will be accompanied by Portuguese composer Andreia Pinto-Correia. Her music is meditative yet energetic, calling to mind windstorms and landscapes racing past. Both artists carry a certain electricity; moments of dense sound and movement are held together by undercurrents of calm clarity. The collaboration between these two dynamic creators is sure to captivate.
FINDING FREEDOM IN AUTHENTICITY Bobbi Jene Smith, the fierce former star of Batsheva Dance Company, searches for virtuosic emotionality. Her work is grounded in Gaga, the movement language of Batsheva’s previous longtime Artistic Director Ohad Naharin. From this technical base, she researches the subconscious to choreograph interior lives into physical presence. �VAILDANCE
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