Twenty-one dancers, one pianist and the music of Chopin will combine on this coming Friday and Saturday nights as for the first time in the United States, Houston Ballet artists will be performing Artistic Director Stanton Welch\u2019s Sons de L\u2019\u00e2me (Sounds of the Soul) in its entirety.<\/p>\n
The Asia Society is presenting this two-act ballet in partnership with Houston Ballet and in addition to the dancers, will feature internationally known American concert pianist George Li.<\/p>\n
First performed in Paris in 2013, the ballet explores the relationship between one pianist \u00a0and the dancers. Since then, parts of it had been performed at Miller Outdoor Theatre and at different jubilees, Welch says, but this is the first time the whole ballet will be danced on U.S. soil.<\/p>\n
Most of Houston Ballet\u2019s regular season performances go on in the Wortham Theater Center, but Welch felt that might be too large for this particular ballet. \u201cThe audience needs to be a bit closer. So you can see the sweat; you can see the concentration,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe set off to try to find a venue that was really beautiful and unique and could support this sort of project. We\u2019ve done a lot with Asia Society and I\u2019ve seen a couple of ballets in there and I kept thinking we really ought to be in this space.\u00a0 And that collaboration was born.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s a rare ballet because there\u2019s no scenic element to it. It\u2019s intimate and meant to be the sort of relationship between the dancers and the pianist. It can fit on many different spaces. It\u2019s fortunate because we were looking for a way to bring it into Houston and I think it\u2019s such a lovely theater.\u201d<\/p>\n
The ballet itself doesn\u2019t have too many group scenes and the dancing is classical, Welch says. \u201cChopin is the whole evening. Two acts. The concept of it was the relationship a dancer has with the pianist and, of course, music. And we share this passion. Everything we do is about the sound and the music \u2013 it\u2019s what feeds our souls \u2014 and how much time as a dancer you spend with a pianist. Nearly every day, your whole workday, your class. There\u2019s just some special connection there.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201c[It\u2019s] kind of like an unplugged, raw, naked version of dancing.\u201d<\/p>\n
Superstar pianist Lang Lang \u00a0approached Welch with the original project. They met in Los Angeles to go over the plans and Welch says he convinced Lang Lang to use the Houston Ballet company and to make it about the relationship between dancers and the musician.<\/p>\n
Lang Lang was about to release a Chopin album and sent Welch a copy. \u201cAnd I really fell in love with it,\u201d Welch remembers. \u201cOf course as a ballet dancer we\u2019re sort of surrounded by Chopin all the time. We feel really familiar with it. But when you really hear it played by a beautiful pianist very simply I just re-fell in love with the music. \u201c<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd the piano doesn\u2019t move and the dancers move to him. He was fascinated by it.\u201d As were the audiences in Paris who were won over by the chemistry between dancers and pianist. Twelve performances sold out, Welch says.<\/p>\n
So now, 13 years later, Houston audiences will have a chance to watch the entire ballet.<\/p>\n
\u201cBallets are like wine. I think the longer they live and the longer they get repeated and retaught and re-rehearsed, the stronger they get,\u201d Welch says. \u201cI love seeing these dancers, some are returning to these roles and haven\u2019t done for more than a decade. But also, of course, new people coming into things and moving up into larger roles.<\/p>\n
\u201cBecause it\u2019s so intimate you\u2019re really getting to have a lot of self-expression. It\u2019s not a character you\u2019re being, you\u2019re being yourself. You\u2019re very much your own artist in this piece.<\/p>\n
Performances are scheduled for April 10 and 11 at 7:30 p.m. Friday and Saturday at the Asia Society, 1370 Southmore. For more information, call 713-4969901 or visit asiasociety.org. $45.<\/p>\n
\n\tRelated<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Twenty-one dancers, one pianist and the music of Chopin will combine on this coming Friday and Saturday nights…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":238538,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[226,56,25741,58,57,91680,44129],"class_list":{"0":"post-238537","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-houston","8":"tag-homepage","9":"tag-houston","10":"tag-houston-ballet","11":"tag-houston-headlines","12":"tag-houston-news","13":"tag-sons-de-lame","14":"tag-stanton-welch"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/238537","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=238537"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/238537\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/238538"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=238537"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=238537"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=238537"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}