State Street Ballet (SSB) has given us some of the Granada’s greatest nights. The theater was remodeled with the intent to create a permanent home for several of our city’s resident performing arts companies. It’s been a blessing to every one of them, but certainly none more so than Artistic Director Rodney Gustafson’s remarkable team of dancers, choreographers, and designers. In addition to lighting up the universal Christmas tree of happiness that is The Nutcracker every year, they charm a range of audiences, from the families and schoolchildren who came to see Cinderella to the modern dancers and their friends who turned out in force to witness the world premiere of Edgar Zendejas’s Rite of Spring. When the marquee on State reads “State Street Ballet,” you know the event will be spectacular, entertaining, and unforgettable.
And this Saturday-Sunday, May 13-14, you can follow them off State to the Ensemble Theatre Company’s gorgeous and intimate New Vic theater, where they will present Modern Masters, an original program of contemporary dance featuring the work of four brilliant choreographers. After the success of Women’s Work, last May’s SSB program, the company looks set to make this spring weekend at the New Vic a regular thing. It’s a great idea, because it provides these prolific artists with their own version of Off Broadway — a place where innovation and imagination can operate freed from the commercial considerations that sometimes constrain them in the larger venue.
Two of the four works on the program are new, and the others — one by longtime State Street associate William Soleau and the other by Boston choreographer Kevin Jenkins — have either never been seen here before (Jenkins) or haven’t been seen in a while (Soleau). Soleau’s “Sonnets of Love and Death” premiered here in 2004, when SSB performed it as part of a festival of Latin American expression at the Lobero. He said that he is looking forward to seeing it again for the first time in 13 years and described the dance as a “subtle, poignant, and emotional” exploration of the pas de deux form. It features three couples and is set to Argentine folk songs with lyrics by Pablo Neruda.