‘Terra’ Is One Intense Ballet
Willamette Week | April 19, 2017

 

 

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Terra: of, from, pertaining to the earth… Terra signifies a return to life, a celebration of the life-impulse as well as our joy in the world around us.

When we first presented Helen Pickett’s Petal (Celebrate/2014) – you could feel the shivers of pleasure cascade through the audience – the sheer pleasure of discovery. We’ve made you all wait long enough, and now Petal is back, and this time we’ve asked the incredibly talented Ms. Pickett to create a new work to serve as a counterpoint to the brightness and effervescence of her prior ballet. To complete this phenomenal program we bring, for the very first time, a work by Spanish choreographer Nacho Duato that is every bit as iconic as Balanchine’s Serenade or Forsythe’s In the Middle – Jardí Tancat. Jardí was Duato’s very first ballet and the work that catapulted him to fame. Jardí Tancat, (Closed Garden in Catalan), to the music of Maria del Mar Bonet, is full of the lyrical and emotionally charged poetry of movement that Portland audiences have already learned to love through Por Vos Muero and Cor Perdut. Additionally, and in a coup for OBT, Duato is allowing for the first time ever, his stunning pas de deux, El Naranjo (from the longer work Gnawa), to be staged. Petal, Naranjo, Jardí Tancat, and a new work by Helen Pickett – as we welcome spring and light back into our lives, we take inspiration from the earth – from which all things grow.

1 hour and 49 minutes
2 intermissions