Dancers navigate moving objects ‘Lyric Pieces’ at Sarasota Ballet

Choreographer Jesica Lang is becoming a more familiar presence around The Sarasota Ballet for both dancers and audiences.

She choreographed the world premiere of “Shades of Spring” for the company in 2022, and last fall was named Artist in Residence in a three-year partnership that will include a world premiere to kick off the new season in October.

But for now, she is focused on staging the company premiere of her “Lyric Pieces,” set to music by Edvard Grieg, which she created in 2012 in a commission for the Royal Birmingham Ballet.

It is part of a triple bill that closes The Sarasota Ballet season along with Christopher Wheeldon’s 2001 “The American,” which it first performed in 2010, and Frederick Ashton’s “Sinfonietta,” first performed here in 2014.

The busy weekend for the company also includes its annual gala on April 28.

In a review of “Lyric Pieces” in 2019 when it was performed by her former company Jessica Lang Dance, the San Francisco Chronicle said it “achieved what great dance should. The work invoked a singular world of its own design. Everything contributed to a feeling of exuberant liberation, the communal bond that forms when people are free to be themselves, to connect and separate and recombine in new ways.”

The piece has “had its own life elsewhere,” Lang said. “But Sarasota is the right company to be performing it now because of their technique and reverence to style.”

The title came from Grieg’s own composition, which totaled 66 short pieces for solo piano that were published in 10 volumes over 34 years from 1867 to 1901. Lang chose 10 of them and said she picked the Grieg pieces for their sound and style but also because she “wanted to work with a pianist when I created it. That makes the transition from the studio to the stage easier. I don’t have to waste time on when to start or stop.”

She describes the work as “very classic in its steps and its investigation of movement lies in the ballet technique. Those are the dancers I made it on, the Royal Birmingham Ballet. I’m a choreographer who uses the technique they use every day as a launching point. I wouldn’t do something there that I would do on Alvin Ailey dancers. They practice in a different way every day.”

The Birmingham dancers inspired what she created, just as The Sarasota Ballet dancers informed her work on “Shades of Spring,” after she observed them in classes and rehearsals.

The piece was created during a period when Lang was exploring the use of inanimate and moving objects with dance in “Lyric Pieces.”

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The MOLO interior design company created pieces made of paper. “They’re about an inch and a half wide and come in different sizes, like one foot, three feet, six feet and they accordion out. When you travel with them, they’re small, but they’re heavy and they can make these huge designs. The dancers manipulate the designs in space and use them in ways they weren’t meant to be used. At home, you could use them as a space divider.”

Lang came to her new relationship with The Sarasota Ballet after creating more than 100 original works for a range of dance companies, including American Ballet Theatre, Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, Pacific Northwest Ballet, the National Ballet of Japan and Joffrey Ballet, along with her own company which closed in 2019.

As she continues working with the Sarasota dancers, Lang said she wants to “push them as dancers and the company, push the boundaries without turning people off, or going against my signature. This is my 25th year as a choreographer. That’s a long time to know myself and my work. My essence is in there. Now I have the trust of the organization, the dedication of the organization and then we’ll have time to work and hone our craft together.”

‘Inspirations’

The Sarasota Ballet presents “The American” by Christopher Wheeldon, “Sinfonietta” by Frederick Ashton and “Lyric Pieces” by Jessica Lang. 7:30 p.m. April 26, 2 and 7:30 p.m. April 27. Sarasota Opera House, 61 N. Pineapple Ave., Sarasota. Tickets are $35-$125. 941-359-0099; sarasotaballet.org

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This article originally appeared on Sarasota Herald-Tribune: Sarasota Ballet closes season with company premiere of ‘Lyric Pieces’