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Photo by Karyn Photography
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Photo by Karyn Photography
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Photo by Marianne Leach
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Photo by Karyn Photography
This Valentine's weekend, the Nashville Ballet presents their contemporary series Attitude in creative collaboration with the Bluebird Café. The ballet and Bluebird come together February 12-14 and transform TPAC's Polk Theater to mirror a writers' round experience at the acclaimed music venue. Nashville Ballet artistic director and CEO Paul Vasterling worked with the Bluebird Café's chief operating officer and general manager, Erika Wollam Nichols, in selecting the best musicians for this unique event.
'We were looking for songwriters that would be unafraid to take a chance, yet we also needed to keep in mind how the artists and songs would flow together,” says Vasterling. 'There needed to be inherent differences between them, yet continuity. The three Bluebird artists featured in Attitude have a special chemistry and balance that works beautifully for this performance.”
Songwriters Georgia Middleman, J.T. Harding and Victoria Banks will play their hit songsmade famous by artists like Keith Urban, Blake Shelton and Reba McIntireacoustically and alongside company dancers performing original works by choreographers Christopher Stuart, New Dialect's Banning Bouldin, Brian Enos and Gina Patterson. Banks' 'City of Dreams” is one of the chosen songs as well as the title and theme for this year's show, paying homage to the creative vitality of Music City. Nashville Ballet dancer and choreographer Christopher Stuart created three of the nine separate sections making up City of Dreams.
'We're all separately creating pieces and then coming together to present one ballet,” says Stuart. 'My approach has been treating each song as a little vignette with a different story to tell.”
Nashville Ballet and Bluebird Café took special considerations in order to enhance the visual effect of bringing the world-famous listening room to the ballet stage.
'The musicians will also share the stories behind their hits, which is an aspect we've never incorporated into a ballet performance,” says Vasterling.
Attitude is an integral part of the ballet's regular season, an opportunity to showcase the company's creative range through contemporary ballet and musical collaborations.
'These contemporary performances allow audiences to see our company in a completely different light and transform the way they see and think about dance,” says Vasterling. 'Attitude has become a staple in Nashville's arts scene because it's representative of the magic that can happen when the creative community comes together.”
A blend of classical ballet and modern dance, contemporary ballet is a genre that attracts new audiences of all ages to the art formeven new choreographers. Stuart debuted an original piece in the 2014 Attitude series, which was set to the music of Johnny Cash and performed live by Nashville's Sugar + The Hi-Lows.
'Attitude is my favorite series that we do because we're able to perform new and different work,” says Stuart. 'I always tell people that if you have never seen the ballet before, Attitude is the perfect place to start.”
City of Dreams will be joined by two other contemporary pieces: Petite Mort, choreographed by Jiří Kylián and set to the music of Mozart, and James Sewell's Chopin Tributes, accompanied by Nashville Symphony principal pianist Robert Marler.