''A Suite of Dances'' is a ballet choreographed by

Jerome Robbins Jerome Robbins (born Jerome Wilson Rabinowitz; October 11, 1918 – July 29, 1998) was an American dancer, choreographer, film director, theatre director and producer who worked in classical ballet, on stage, film, and television. Among his nu ...

Johann Sebastian Bach Johann Sebastian Bach (28 July 1750) was a German composer and musician of the late Baroque period. He is known for his orchestral music such as the '' Brandenburg Concertos''; instrumental compositions such as the Cello Suites; keyboard wo ...

Cello Suites The six Cello Suites, BWV 1007–1012, are suites for unaccompanied cello by Johann Sebastian Bach (1685–1750). They are some of the most frequently performed solo compositions ever written for cello. Bach most likely composed them during the ...

. The ballet was created for

Mikhail Baryshnikov Mikhail Nikolayevich Baryshnikov ( rus, Михаил Николаевич Барышников, p=mʲɪxɐˈil bɐ'rɨʂnʲɪkəf; lv, Mihails Barišņikovs; born January 28, 1948) is a Soviet Latvian-born Russian-American dancer, choreograp ...

and premiered on March 3, 1994, at the

New York State Theater The David H. Koch Theater is a theater for ballet, modern and other forms of dance, part of the Lincoln Center, at the intersection of Columbus Avenue and 63rd Street in the Lincoln Square neighborhood of Manhattan in New York City. Original ...

Production

had earlier attempted to choreograph Bach's Cello Suites with dancers Victor Castelli and

Peter Boal Peter Boal is artistic director of Pacific Northwest Ballet and director of its affiliated school in Seattle, Washington. He was born in Bedford, New York, in 1965 and began studies at the School of American Ballet (SAB) at age nine. Boal assumed ...

, although the project was abandoned. He used the music for ''A Suite of Dances'' with

, who was in his 40s, as the sole dancer instead. As Baryshnikov was touring and Robbins was staging his works in Paris and St. Petersburg, ''A Suite of Dances'' was made over the course of two years, and according to Robbins, most of the choreography was made without Baryshnikov's presence, before the ballet, a 16-minutes-long solo, premiered at a performance of the

White Oak Dance Project White Oak Dance Project was a dance company founded in 1990 by Mikhail Baryshnikov and Mark Morris. The company took the name of the animal preservation and land plantation owned by philanthropist and Baryshnikov friend Howard Gilman. Gilman buil ...

, Baryshnikov's company, with Wendy Sutter on the cello.

Music

The ballet uses the following music from Bach's Cello Suites: *Prelude from Suite No. 1 in G major, BWV 1007 *Sarabande from Suite No. 5 in C minor, BWV 1011 *Gigue from Suite No. 1 in G major, BWV 1007 *Prelude from Suite No. 6 in D major, BWV 1012

Revivals

In May 1994, at a

New York City Ballet New York City Ballet (NYCB) is a ballet company founded in 1948 by choreographer George Balanchine and Lincoln Kirstein. Balanchine and Jerome Robbins are considered the founding choreographers of the company. Léon Barzin was the company ...

performance, Baryshnikov performed ''A Suite of Dances'' as a guest artist, with Sutter also returning. The ballet then entered Paris Opera Ballet's repertory, and New York City Ballet's members danced it for the first time in 1997. In subsequent revivals, the ballet is usually danced by an experienced dancer. In March 1999, eight months after Robbins died,

Nicolas Le Riche Nicolas Le Riche (born 29 January 1972, in Sartrouville, Yvelines) is a French ballet dancer, choreographer and ballet director. Biography Le Riche entered the Paris Opera Ballet school at age ten and joined the corps de ballet six years later; hi ...

danced '' A Suite of Dances'' at a Robbins tribute gala organized by the Paris Opera Ballet. In 2008, at New York City Ballet's Jerome Robbins Celebration program, Le Riche reprised the role. The ballet has also been performed at

Carlos Acosta Carlos Yunior Acosta Quesada (born 2 June 1973) is a Cuban-British ballet director and retired dancer who is director of the Birmingham Royal Ballet. He danced with many companies including the English National Ballet, National Ballet of Cu ...

's solo program in 2009 and the Vail Dance Festival in 2018, by

American Ballet Theatre American Ballet Theatre (ABT) is a classical ballet company based in New York City. Founded in 1939 by Lucia Chase and Richard Pleasant, it is recognized as one of the world's leading classical ballet companies. Through 2019, it had an annual ei ...

's Herman Cornejo.

Videography

In light of the impact of the COVID-19 coronavirus pandemic on the performing arts, Paris Opera Ballet released a recording of '' A Suite of Dances'', as a part of the Tribute to Jerome Robbins program. The Vail Dance Festival released a video of an excerpt danced by Cornejo online.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Suite of Dances, A 1994 ballet premieres Ballets by Jerome Robbins Ballets to the music of Johann Sebastian Bach New York City Ballet repertory