Sarasota Ballet welcomes back live audiences with world premiere

In creating a new piece to welcome back audiences to The Sarasota Ballet after a long break from the coronavirus pandemic, resident choreographer Ricardo Graziano was seeking something celebratory.

“I didn’t want to open with anything dramatic and sad. This is a joyful moment for us, and I think I found that joy in what we’re doing,” he said in a recent Zoom interview. “I hope it’s pleasing to watch.” 

For the season-opening “New World” program next weekend in the Mertz Theatre at the FSU Center for the Performing Arts, Graziano will be both performer and creator. He will be seen dancing in “Appalachian Spring” featuring Martha Graham’s choreography set to the familiar music by Aaron Copland, which had its company debut in 2018. And he will be standing in the back watching his fellow dancers perform the world premiere of his latest creation, “Sonatina,” featuring music by Anton Dvorak. 

Director Iain Webb, in a statement, said the “New World” program expresses the company’s feelings about returning to the theater.

“You have the hope for a new future that comes from the pioneer era so perfectly brought to life by the legendary Martha Graham, and you have the excitement that comes from a world premiere through Ricardo’s ‘Sonatina,’” he said.

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It’s Graziano’s first new work since the 2019 premiere of “Amorosa” and is his first classical style ballet in a while. 

“I haven’t created a classical ballet in a few years,” Graziano said. He initially planned to finish a piece he started during the pandemic “while we were experimenting with things.” But Webb thought “it would be nice to open the season with a classical ballet with all the company so I had to put my idea aside and look for a classical piece.”

Finding inspiration

Sometimes, Graziano gets an idea and seeks out music that will fit. In other cases, he hears music that inspires him, which is what happened with “Sonatina.”

“I found the music, heard it a few times and started picturing the ballet. It’s almost like the music tells you what to do,” he said. “I start picturing things the more I hear it. I see entrances. I see the guys. I see the girls. I see lifts and turns.”

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Movements would come to him as he listened to the music over and over again.

“I like to go into the studio by myself and just play the music, play with movement and see what works, what fits. I videotaped myself a little bit so I don’t forget,” he said. Once he starts working with the dancers, it becomes more of a collaboration. “I like to hear their ideas. I try to keep an open mind in case things don’t work.”

It helps that he knows the company so well and he adapts steps and moves to fit each of the different combinations of dancers who will be performing during the weekend production.

Richard House, who joined the company in 2018 as a soloist, will be sharing his part with principal dancer Luke Schaufuss and soloist Yuri Marques.

“What’s exciting about this piece is we all do the same steps, but there’s something special in the movements,” House said. “We can all be ourselves and show ourselves in our own way. You just feel comfortable to express yourself in a piece. You don’t feel you’re trying to be someone else, and you can just rejoice in feeling like an artist as well.”

Graziano said he tried to create something that will fit every cast “while also challenging them. In many instances, when I’m working with three casts of principals, certain things may not look best on this couple, but may be good for another couple and so we make adjustments. We all have different bodies and different abilities, and I try to help them as much as I can look their best while staying true to my ballet and my vision.”

House said Graziano told the dancers that, unlike some ballets where they must do an exact arm movement or pose, “this is about movement and it’s how we get to each movement. We have the freedom to use the music to get to that shape.”

Graziano said that freedom fits into his desire to “create something that was pleasing and joyful to watch and you can only do that if the dancers are enjoying what they’re doing. That’s what I’m trying to portray.”

But he also stretched himself to do something he hadn’t done before and said it the piece that is most influenced by the choreography of Frederick Ashton, whose work has become a specialty of the company. 

“I’ve learned a lot since joining this company (in 2010) and doing many Ashton ballets,” Graziano said. “I have used that knowledge in my contemporary ballets. It just wasn’t obvious because it wasn’t classical.” 

He said “Sonatina” is a tour de force for the principals, mainly for the principal girl. “It’s a lot of work. I usually have the corps work and then the principal comes on, and in this one, the principals are in every section.”

House said the dancers aren’t complaining because they’re happy to be able to perform in front of live audiences again after a season of video streaming performances filmed on the Mertz Theatre stage. They have even gotten used to wearing masks in rehearsals and going through safety checks.

“It’s strange, but it almost feels normal because it’s been going on so long,” House said. “It’s hard to think what it was like before this COVID stuff happened. It almost doesn’t feel real that we’re going to have an audience sitting in front of us and we’re not going to be recorded. We know it’s coming, but it’s not real yet.”

Graziano said the only real difference from last season is that more people can be in a rehearsal room at the same time now.

“We’ve reached a different normalcy and we are going full-on, rehearsing multiple ballets at the same time,” he said. “We started at the end of august with and only about a month and a week of work, we’ve already learned five different ballets. It’s almost like a normal season.”

‘New World’

The Sarasota Ballet presents Martha Graham’s “Appalachian Spring” and Ricardo Graziano’s “Sonatina,” 7:30 p.m. Oct. 22-24 and 2 p.m. Oct. 23-24 in the FSU Center for the Performing Arts, 5555 N. Tamiami Trail, Sarasota. Tickets start at $35. 941-359-0099; sarasotaballet.org

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