Ballet Preljocaj, a leading French contemporary company, makes its local debut with a program that highlights the choreographic intelligence of artistic director Angelin Preljocaj. Angelin Preljocaj, artistic director of Ballet Preljocaj, regularly juxtaposes reinvigorated classics with original works.
Preljocaj, who previously created the acclaimed suite Hommage to the Ballets Russes, now revitalizes Le Sacre du Printemps, that famed ensemble’s daring collaboration with Igor Stravinsky, which sparked a riot with its Paris premiere.
Ballet Preljocaj’s appropriately edgy interpretation is true to the primal impulses Stravinsky’s forceful score summons. As Preljocaj expresses it, “The music unceasingly carries along with it a slowly rising force of desire…an impulse that is, when all is said and done, biological.” He continues, “the Rite of Spring reminds us that as long as men and women continue in their spiritual, cultural, or intellectual quest, they will inevitably stumble against this weakness.”