Festival Ballet Providence

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
August 3, 2004

Festival Ballet Providence, 401.353.1129

27th Season Opener:
The World Premiere of Chris Van Allsburg’s The Widow’s Broom!

Providence, RI - Festival Ballet Providence opens its 27th Anniversary Season main stage season October 22-24, 2004, at VMA Arts & Cultural Center with the world premiere of Viktor Plotnikov’s exciting adaptation of Chris Van Allsburg’s The Widow’s Broom.

A work in the planning for several years, Festival Ballet Providence Artistic Director Mihailo Djuric has at last made his dream come true, that of creating a world class ballet inspired by The Widow’s Broom. Based on the book of the same title by Providence author and illustrator, Chris Van Allsburg, The Widow’s Broom is a fairy tale with all the elements of a great ballet: drama, magic, good and evil, and a happy ending.

Mr. Djuric chose Boston’s Viktor Plotnikov to create the world premiere. Plotnikov, who won critical and popular acclaim for his dramatic, hot-blooded production of Carmen for Festival Ballet Providence last season, has tackled this challenging project with his innovative, dynamic choreographic style and a pool of talented collaborators assembled by Djuric.

Joining Mr. Plotnikov is Mr. Van Allsburg, who has been involved from the outset of the project, adapting his award-winning book to maximize the story’s stage-appeal. The author of numerous other books, two of which have been turned to films, he is a big fan of collaboration, and anxious to see the results of this group effort. “I can imagine what has to take place on stage, and so I write visually rather than in a narrow literary sense.”

Aleksandra Vrebalov, a talented young composer whose previous commissions include one for the Kronos Quartet, has delivered a powerful original score to be played live by a 10 piece ensemble. From a witch’s dance to the awakening of a morning farmyard, Ms. Vrebalov’s music captures a vast array of moods, enhancing the work and providing further inspiration to the artistic team.

The look of the stage will be created by award-winning set designer and Providence resident Eugene Lee. Approaching the work by finding a detail of the story and conveying it to the audience, Lee sees the set design as a visual metaphor, one to be sparingly created with insight to the essence of the story’s choreography to be most effective for dance. A life spent in the theater with accolades that include Tony’s for “Candide”, “Sweeney Todd” and “Wicked”, Lee approaches the other artists involved in the project as resources for his own creativity, relating to Destination Providence, “Theatre means collaboration.”

Designing the lighting for the production is Alan Pickart, a faculty member at Rhode Island College and an emphatic proponent of collaboration, insisting that while the process may at times be rough, the combined efforts more often than not create diamonds.

This is the story of a witch’s worn-out broom that befriends a widow and her son to the growing distrust of her neighbors. From a broom-riding convocation of witches swirling around a boiling cauldron, to a magical broom helping the lives of a kind-hearted widow and her son, and the ultimate outwitting of a xenophobic neighbors by a simple woman only wanting peace and quiet. The ending of The Widow’s Broom is a triumph that is both satisfying and delicious.

The live musical ensemble conducted by Dr. Edward Markward will feature eleven players with the following instruments: string quartet (2 violins, viola and cello), flute, piccolo, clarinet, bass clarinet, horn, percussion (2 players), harp and piano.

This production promises to be an intriguing, world-class, world premiere, with some of the best of Providence’s creative talent joined by equally talented collaborators from Boston and New York. Providence continues to be an arts incubator, where artists are creating exciting work.

This production of The Widow’s Broom is made possible in part by 2004/2005 Season Sponsor Sovereign Bank, Widow’s Broom Principal Sponsor The Providence Journal, University Orthopedics (underwriting the choreography), Houghton Mifflin (underwriting the music composition), The City of Providence, season television sponsor NBC10, ClearChannel Communications, Cox Business Services, a planning grant from the Rhode Island Foundation, an anonymous donor underwriting the music ensemble, an anonymous donor underwriting the set construction, Walpole Woodworkers, and ongoing operating support from the Rhode Island State Council on the Arts.

The Widow’s Broom premieres October 22-24th at the VMA Arts & Cultural Center, 1 Avenue of the Arts, with performances at 7:30 pm Friday, 7:30 pm on Saturday, and 2:30 pm on Sunday. This season Festival Ballet Providence is offering a special Five Dollar Off Fridays promotion, to encourage audiences to experience the excitement of opening night. Reserved tickets (priced from $15 to $50) and season subscriptions are available by contacting www.tickets.com, 800.919.6272, Festival Ballet Providence, 401.353.1129, the VMA Arts & Cultural Center (401.272,4862) during box office hours, or by visiting www.festivalballet.com <http://www.festivalballet.com/> . Email inquiries may be directed to info@festivalballet.com. Group discounts are available.

Special related event:

Friday October 22nd Black, Festive, Premiere attire world premiere reception for The Widow’s Broom, attended by the production’s creative team of Viktor Plotnikov, Eugene Lee, Chris Van Allsburg, Aleksandra Vrebalov, Artistic Director Mihailo Djuric and the performers. Pricing is $125 for pre-performance reception, premium mezzanine seating, and post-performance dessert and champagne reception with the cast and creators. Contact Festival Ballet Providence for details, 401.353.1129.

Widow’s Broom Summary:

The Widow’s Broom, a thrilling world premiere adapted from the book by renowned Providence author/illustrator, Chris Van Allsburg, opens the Festival Ballet Providence season at the 2,100 seat VMA Arts & Cultural Center. This story of a witch’s worn-out broom that befriends a widow and her son to the growing distrust of her neighbors has been choreographed by Viktor Plotnikov, acclaimed for creating last year’s outstanding production of Carmen. Eugene Lee, winner of many awards including his recent Tony Award for the Broadway production “Wicked”, has created the sets for the production. Aleksandra Vrebalov will create the score, which will be played by an11-member chamber ensemble. This is a stellar creative team bringing an exceptionally magical work to the dance stage.

Summary:

A large group of witches in striped stockings dance together at night around a cauldron with brooms. As they fly off, we notice one who is moving slower eventually being left behind and finally falling from the sky to a hard landing.

The witch is found the next morning by the widow and her son in the middle of a vegetable garden. The widow takes her into the house to rest. The son, frightened by the witch, runs away, and finds the broom nearby, and brings it into the house.

Inside the widow’s cottage the widow is doing her housework, sweeping. The son brings the fallen broom to his mother, who compares the two, which are by all appearances, identical. She puts the broom away and they go to sleep. The witch soon awakens, searches unsuccessfully through the house for her broom, and leaves. As soon as she leaves the house, the broom emerges from the closet. It begins vigorously sweeping the floor, and in the process wakes up the boy, who immediately starts to play with the broom. The have such fun, they don’t realize they have disturbed the widow from her sleep. The broom would like to dance with the widow, but she refuses, demanding it return to the closet. The widow keeps her distance from the broom, eventually not so antagonistic toward the broom, but still not dancing with it. She does allow the broom to help with the household chores.

Eventually the neighbors, the Farmer Spivey and his children, and a number of the villagers, spy on the broom as it does more and more chores for the widow. The women in the group tend to see the value in such a broom, whoever the men are much more suspicious. At one point the Spivey children torment the broom as it works outside, so much so that it finally retaliates. The Spiveys and some friends soon come to the widow, demanding the broom. She gives them the broom from the closet. They take it into the forest and set fire to it. The Spiveys, happy with their successful burning, celebrate in the forest. A white broom appears as a ghost, menacingly threatening the Spiveys with a white ax and frightens them. They are so affected by this apparition that they move away from the village.

In the last scene, the white broom appears to the widow. She wipes white paint from it’s face and we realize she has helped in the disguise. She at last she accepts his invitation to dance.

“Widows Broom” Vision Statement
by Mihailo Djuric, Artistic Director - Festival Ballet Providence

When I was first hired as Festival Ballet Providence’s Artistic Director in 1998, I planned seasons that included programming specifically geared to family audiences. It was clear to me that one of the best ways to build future dance audiences is to create engaging, multi-layered productions that entertain and educate children, and are often based on favorite children’s literature. Performances took place at RISD Auditorium or Rhode Island College as part of our “Dance Me a Story Family Series” in intimate theater settings. Children sometimes were asked to assist performers with final make-up and I introduced each program. After each performance I fielded questions from the audience, and children were given the opportunity to meet each character and get autographs. Those productions have included unique collaborative works including Snow White, Alice In Wonderland, King Arthur and the Knights of the Square Tables, Gertrude McFuzz (with permission from Herb Cheyette, Dr. Seuss Enterprises), Peter and the Wolf, and The Unicorn the Gorgon and the Manitcore. Thousands of New England children have found great joy in these works, and adults have expressed great amusement, since these works have a level of subtle humor that is very appealing to mature tastes. I have always tried to use works that not only tell the story, but also lend themselves to dance to capture the emotional tone set by the author.

In 2002 Festival Ballet Providence grew to a point that the early intimate Family Series format at RISD Auditorium and Rhode Island College no longer worked for a variety of reasons. To raise our profile in the community, we moved all of our productions to the city’s premiere theaters, the Providence Performing Arts Center (seating 3,100) and VMA Arts and Cultural Center (seating 2,100). Programming for families has since included larger productions such as The Nutcracker, Cinderella and The Sleeping Beauty.

Through a Board member, I had the great fortune to meet Chris Van Allsburg several years ago. His creative, imaginative stories are perfect for the type of production I enjoy presenting. I found myself particularly drawn to “The Widow’s Broom”. It has all the elements that have worked well for me in creating ballets with appeal across the age spectrum; quirky characters, a simple story-line, a very basic moral, forces of good and evil, and some very comic situations whose sense can be reproduced onstage in dance.

Since meeting Chris, I have enjoyed getting to know him better. I have chosen a very talented choreographer to create the piece for Festival Ballet Providence. His name is Viktor Plotnikov, a talented principal dancer at Boston Ballet for 10 years, who has become, in my estimation, one of the most promising of the emerging young choreographers in this country. I commissioned Viktor to create a completely new Carmen to open Festival Ballet Providence’s 2003/2004 season. It was nothing short of magnificent, and received standing ovations for all the performances. I work very well with Viktor and I have my utmost confidence that he will do outstanding work on “The Widow’s Broom.” We have also been fortunate to complete the creative team with the renowned Providence-based set designer Eugene Lee, composer Aleksandra Vrebalov and lighting designer Alan Pickart.

What I envision is a dance work that will play well on large stages as well as more intimate performing spaces. We have recently opened a 90-seat black box theater at our Providence facility that provides a wonderfully intimate experience for not only the audience but for the performers as well. I hope The Widows Broom will be the kind of production that has long-lasting appeal, for both large audiences and small, and continues to build new readers of Mr.Van Allsburg’s books. Having such a work in our repertory means that it can be easily toured to many different kinds of venues, and will have a long life.

Selected Bios:

Viktor Plotnikov (choreographer)
Viktor was born in Kharkov City, Ukraine, and began his training at the age of 11 at the Kiev-Ukraine School and continued at the St. Petersburg Ballet Academy. From 1987 to 1990 he was a soloist with Donetsk Ballet Company in the Ukraine. In 1990 Viktor joined Ballet Mississippi as a principal dancer. Additionally he has appeared as a guest artist with Tulsa Ballet Theatre and Dance Inc, and has toured Russia and the US.

In 1993 he joined Boston Ballet as principal dancer, performing major roles in the company’s classical and contemporary repertory including the title role in Onegin, Conrad in Le Corsaire, Albrecht in Giselle, Prince Desire in The Sleeping Beauty, Cavalier, Snow King and Dr. Drosselmeyer in The Nutcracker, Solor in La Bayadere, Dracula in Dracula, and “Tico-Tico” in Paul Taylor’s Company B. He has created roles in the World Premieres of Tharp’s Waterbaby Bagatelles, Spencer/Colton’s Before Ever After, and Daniel Pelzig’s Nine Lives: Songs of Lyle Lovett, The Princess and the Pea, and Flights and Fancy. His repertoire also includes Balanchine’s. Divertimento No. 15, Theme and Variations and The Four Temperaments, Roland Petit’s Le Jeune Homme et La Mort, Mark Morris’ Maelstrom, Rudi van Dantzig’s Four Last Songs, and Laszlo Berdo’s Below Down Under.

Recently Plotnikov has created works specifically for Boston Ballet dancers and members of Boston Ballet II. He has choreographed a number of works for institutions throughout the region, including performances in Boston Ballet’s Grand Studio, Dance on the Top Floor, Company performances in Nantucket, and Khachaturian’s Centennial at Boston Conservatory. Plotinokov created solos and duets, performed at International Gala Performances. His most recent creations include works for the 2002 International Ballet Competition in Jackson MS. Plotnikov also created two one act ballet’s My Impressions, set to symphonic Pink Floyd and Short Stories for A Small Magazine for the Dancer’s Resource Fund, and at the well received choreographic event Raw Dance in collaboration with Boston Ballet and Boston Center for the Arts.

In 2003 Festival Ballet Providence Artistic Director Mihailo Djuric commissioned Mr. Plotnikov to create a two-act production of Carmen. The world premiere took place October 3-5, 2003, opening Festival Ballet Providence’s 26th season with standing ovations for all three performances. Following the premiere of The Widow’s Broom, Viktor will begin work on a commission from the Bolshoi. to create a new ballet for that company.

Mr. Plotnikov is married to Boston Ballet principal dancer Larissa Ponomarenko.

Chris Van Allsburg (adaptation / libretto)
Parents, educators, and kids have a certain obsession with the books of Chris Van Allsburg. So many different people appreciate his work because there is nothing simplistic or formulaic about anything he’s produced. Van Allsburg doesn’t write with an eye toward what an 8 year-old boy would enjoy, but rather what he himself would like. The only consistent element of his books is the fascinating, often mysterious, and sometimes menacing way he approaches the question, “What If?” What if a boy woke one night to find a massive steam engine in front of his house? What if the roll of the dice on a simple board game could actually take you into the game? What if a witch has to retire her flying broom?

Chris Van Allsburg was raised in Grand Rapids, Michigan, where the only thing people expected to see in a boys’ hands was a football, not a paintbrush. He attended the University of Michigan with the vague idea of studying law, but after a freshman course in drawing he decided to study sculpture. In 1972 he moved to Providence, Rhode Island, for a graduate degree in sculpture at the Rhode Island School of Design. Shortly after he received his degree, Van Allsburg began to show his sculptures in New York City galleries where their surreal imaginativeness quickly won him a reputation as an artist to watch. He didn’t begin drawing until his teaching commitments at RISD and a cold studio too far across town kept him from his sculpture.

The black-and-white artwork he started to create in graphite pencil and some charcoal was so appealing to his wife, Lisa, and their friend, the illustrator David Macaulay, that she decided to show the work to children’s book editors. In Boston, Lisa visited Walter Lorraine at Houghton Mifflin, Macaulay’s editor. Lorraine looked at a drawing, which showed a lump in a carpet and a man raising a cane to hit it (the illustration now printed in Van Allsburg’s The Mysteries of Harris Burdick) and said, “If he can get this much story-telling content into one piece of art, I know he can create a children’s book.“ Lisa Van Allsburg walked out with the promise of a contract and the rest, as they say, is history.

Houghton Mifflin has published fifteen of Van Allsburg’s books—from his Caldecott Honor Award-winning first book, The Garden of Abdul Gasazi, to his most recent space adventure, Zathura. The success of Van Allsburg’s Jumanji and The Polar Express is no less than phenomenal: both received Caldecott Medals, Jumanji was made into a movie in 1995, The Polar Express has become a classic with millions of copies sold, and will be released as a major motion picture on November 10, 2004. The Widow’s Broom, The Sweetest Fig, and Zathura are also in various stages of production for the movies.

Chris Van Allsburg lives in Providence, Rhode Island, with his wife, Lisa, and their two daughters, Sophie and Anna. For a wealth of information about Mr. Van Allsburg, please visit www.chrisvanallsburg.com

Eugene Lee (Scenic Design)
Eugene Lee has been the resident designer at Trinity Repertory Company since 1967. He has BFA degrees from the Art Institute of Chicago and Carnegie Mellon University, an MFA from the Yale Drama School, and honorary doctorates from DePaul University and Rhode Island College. He has been production designer on "Saturday Night Live" since 1974. Mr. Lee is the recipient of the Tony Award (for “Candide” and “Sweeney Todd”), the American Theatre Wing's Design Award, an Outer Critics Circle Award, a Drama Desk Award, the Pell Award, and the Rhode Island Governor's Award for the Arts. Mr. Lee’s other New York productions include “Slaveship”, “Alice in Wonderland”, “The Normal Heart”, “Agnes of God”, “Grandchild of Kings” and “Uncle Vanya”. Film credits include “Easy Money”, Francis Ford Coppola’s “Hammett”, John Huston’s “Mr. North”, and Louis Malle’s “Vanya on 42nd Street”. His most recent award was a third Tony for the Broadway production, “Wicked”. An adjunct professor at Brown University, Mr. Lee lives in Providence with wife Brooke and son Teddy.

Aleksandra Vrebalov (Composer, original score)
Aleksandra Vrebalov received her Bachelor of Music in Music Composition from Novi Sad University, Yugoslavia (1992), a Master in Music Composition from San Francisco Conservatory (1996) and a Doctor of Arts in Music Composition from the University of Michigan (2002). Ms. Vrebalov completed additional composition studies in Kazimierz Dolny, Poland (1990) and Sombathely, Hungary (1992) in collaboration with IRCAM, Belgrade University (1993-1994), New York University Summer Composition Workshop (1996), Prague Academy of Music (1997), Apeldoorn Young Composer’s Meeting, Holland (1998), Tanglewood Music Center (1999) and Darmstadt International Music Courses, Germany (2000). Her teachers include Evan Chambers, Michael Daugherty, Andrew Mead, George Benjamin, Osvaldo Golijov, Ivana Loudova, Justin Dello Joio, Elinor Armer, Conrad Susa, Zoran Eric, Miroslav Statkic, and Slavko Suklar.

She has received fellowships from the Yugoslavia Ministry of Culture and Education, the Open Society/Soros Fond Grants, San Francisco Conservatory, the Gaudeaumus/Gigant Center for the Arts Fellowship, Otto Eckstein family Fellowship, Rockefeller Bellagio Center Fellowship, University of Michigan Regents Fellowship and Humanities Fellowship, the Rackham Block Music Grant, ASCAP Leonard Bernstein Fund and Standard Award, Meet The Composer, and the Douglas Moore Fellowship. Aleksandra has receive several prizes for her works including form the Friends and Enemies of New Music, NY, the Vienna Modern Masters Recording Award and the Highsmith Composition Competition at SFCM.

Ms. Vrebalov’s commissions include Kronos Quartet, Merkin Concert Hall Composer’s Zoom Series, Ad Libitum Ensemble, Barbara Jancic, Dr. John Psarouthakis, and One Whole Half Step. Her residencies include the Gaudeamus Seminar, MacDowell Artist Residence, Rockefellar Bellagio Center, Other Minds Festival, Cabrillo Conductors/Composers’ Workshop, American Opera Projects, June in Buffalo and New Dramatists. Her works have been played around the world by artists including the Kronos Quartet, Onyx String Quartet, the Moravia Philharmonic and the Utrecht String Quartet. She has taught composition and music theory at Novi Sad University, University of Michigan and CUNY/City College of New York.

Aleksandra lives in New York. The score for The Widow’s Broom is her first commission by Festival Ballet Providence.

Alan Pickart (Lighting Design)
Alan Pickart is a member of the theatre faculty at Rhode Island College, having relocated from Niagara University in New York. A designer and technical director, Pickart has created designs for dance that have been seen around the country and abroad, working with the Tampa Ballet, Colorado Ballet, Columbia City Ballet and the European Ballet in London. He holds a B.F.A. from the University of Florida and an M. F. A. in set design from the University of South Carolina. Other work includes three seasons as a designer and production manager with Artpark in Lewiston, New York. Alan has also served as a production manager and technical director for several facilities, including the Tampa Bay Performing Arts Center and the David Falk Theatre in Florida.