Sarasota Ballet’s Program Four connects earlier modern dance choreography with style of later pieces

This is a scene from Rococo Variations. Photo from the Sarasota Ballet website

I did not know what to expect from the afternoon’s program of the Sarasota Ballet when I entered the theater at the Florida State University Center for the Performing Arts on Feb. 2.

There was a time when I used to take a ballet class on Sunday afternoons, but this first Sunday in February, I was a member of the audience waiting patiently for the curtain to rise; for the music to fill the air; and for the performance to begin.

And I was curious to see the ballets of two of the program’s choreographers: Renato Paroni (Rococo Variations) and Gemma Bond (The Beginning), who belong to a younger generation. I do believe that Paul Taylor’s Brandenburgs — the third performance on the bill that day — connected the early days of bare feet choreography with Gemma Bond’s challenging acrobatic, pointe work, common in today’s world of continuous dance energy.

Paroni has said that his admiration of George Balanchine influenced his own understanding of classical ballet and the Baroque Period. His ballet had the dancers — in beautiful blue-and-gold, traditional tutus — gliding through one of Tchaikovsky’s gloriously sunny scores, Variations on a Rococo Theme for cello and orchestra. During three pas de deux this day, Samuel Gest and Jordan Micallef were like two sides of a coin as they mirrored each other’s movements; and then Bel Pickering, with Gest, and Kennedy Falyn Cassada, with Micallef, evoked the overall structure of the ballet’s contrasts between individual dancers and the entire corps of 12 dancers.

Altogether, Rococo Variations was a lovely, beautiful and happy start to the afternoon program.

As for The Beginning: In a recorded interview with a member of the Sarasota Ballet, Bond said her career as a dance maker started when she was 13 and entered a competition connected with her ballet classes in London. Today, a quick look at her resume reveals a busy, international schedule of new ballets, with Sarasota’s commission at the top of her list. Selections from Rachmaninov’s six piano preludes set the mood of romantic despair, with the dancers in Lauren Starobin’s sparkling unitards. The Beginning quickly became the program’s’ favorite ballet.

It is difficult to express emotion in a ballet without the help of some form of narration. In Bond’s notes, she speaks of time and memory and emotion as underlying the intent of The Beginning. However, the choreography for the ballet was fast and furious, with intricate rhythms, acrobatic feats of balance and leaps in a blend of classical ballet and contemporary, full body movements.

Individual dancers would leave the group and adopt a crumpled expression of despair — shoulders bent, heads bowed inward — before Jessica Assef and Ivan Spitale once again led the 11 dancers — women in pointe shoes — as they raced across the stage, a surrealist vision of sparkling jewels.

With Brandenburgs, Paul Taylor choreographed a work based on two of Bach’s powerful and beautiful Brandenburg concertos. Yes, both the choreography and the choreographer come from another time, when the early modern dancers did not wear any shoes; they danced with their bare feet, as the dancers of today do in honoring those who came before them.

Actually, the Brandenburgs was first performed by the Sarasota Ballet in January 2021. The company has grown both in numbers and in ability since then.

The Brandenburgs is a simple ballet built on the dancers running in circles, jumping in place, and leaping across the stage. Five men, three women and a leader, all dressed in black, slowly built up a level of strong energy. Arms led the way, constantly swinging in the air like a windmill’s blade.

At one point, the members of the group came together, appearing to honor their leader.

Somehow, as the dancers followed their outstretched arms, their movements blended with the powerful music. They kept running like a herd of elephants, and the level of energy displayed in the running and jumping continued to increase. Add in the boost in speed and the rising volume of sound, and the dancers ultimately created a hypnotic aura of beauty that lingered over the stage and suffused this member of the audience.