Tonight we went to see The Fiddle and The Drum at the Paramount Theatre, its U.S. premiere. It was an amazing production! STG billed it as “neo-classical style” but The Victoria Times goes further:
The work is genre defying. While much of it is en pointe, other sections are urban club, hip hop, or African in tone, with low, to the ground slithers, deep knee bends and tribal circles.
The ballet opened with The Fiddle and the Drum and finished (encore-like) to Big Yellow Taxi with Woodstock appearing in the first act. Other songs: The Beat of Black Wings, Ethiopia, For The Roses, If, If I Had A Heart I’d Cry, Passion Play, The Reoccurring Dream, Sex Kills, Shine, Slouching Towards Bethlehem, and The Three Great Stimulants.
My favorite dancers: Nicole Caron (United Arab Emirates), Yukichi Hattori (Japan), Victoria Lane Green (Alberta), Kelley McKinlay (Alberta).
The ballet premiered in Alberta in 2007. The tour is supported by the Banff Centre for the Arts, the Vancouver Organizing Committee for the 2010 Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games (VANOC), Canada Council for the Arts, and Alberta Foundation for the Arts.
For the Californians: it is being performed in Irvine on Thursday and at UCLA on Friday and Saturday.
Some clips:
