All Photos: Ballet San Jose performing Eighty One. Photos: Bob Shomler
Eighty One
Choreography: Jessica Lang
Music: Jakub Ciupinski (Commissioned Score)
Lighting Design: Jim French
Length: 20 minutes
Number of Dancers: 11
Commissioned by Ballet San Jose
World premiere: April 29, 2013
“The 11 dancers moved with extreme precision and unity, legs like swords in grand battements, fiery jumps, or for the women, streams of fluid bourrées across the stage. Here they looked like automata, until they intersected with the men, creating a jolt of breathtaking fluidity. The piece accelerated, culminating in a gorgeous sculpted tangle of dancers, their bodies stretching upward to the light.”
- Janice Berman, San Francisco Classical Voice, March 30, 2015
“Solos merge into synchronized lines like particles of space dust pulled together by gravity. The effect was hypnotic, and the audience surrendered happily.”
- Claudia Bauer, San Jose Mercury News, March 28, 2015
“a dazzling theatrical spectacle”
- Allan Ulrich, San Francisco Chronicle, April 21, 2013
“Lang's piece works as if an intricately designed machine whose interlocking parts keep the place humming yet with few of the anti-humanist implications that such an endeavor might suggest.”
- Rita Felciano, Mercury News, April 20, 2013
Performance History:
Ballet San Jose
April 19-21, 2013 in San Jose, CA
March 27-29, 2015 in San Jose, CA