A black and white photo of a performance featuring Donna Wood, Peter Woodin, Freddy Romero, Sylvia Waters, Clive Thompson, Melvin Jones, and John Parks in Choral Dances. The dancers are grouped closely together, striking expressive and dynamic poses with their arms extended and faces turned upward. They are wearing light-colored costumes, and the background is dark, highlighting the dancers.

Repertory

Choral Dances

CHOREOGRAPHER

WORLD PREMIERE

New York City Center, 1971

MUSIC

Benjamin Britten

COSTUMES

A. Christina Giannini

LIGHTING

Nicola Cernovitch

RUN TIME

10 Minutes

Set to six choral dances from the second act of Benjamin Britten’s opera Gloriana, which premiered at London’s Covent Garden in June 1953 in honor of the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II, Choral Dances is a gentle, majestic work about community and nature. Though the work contains echoes of Alvin Ailey’s earlier works, including the postures and groupings of Revelations, in Choral Dances he creates a stylized but universalized folk vocabulary expressive of the most basic emotions—joy, peace, and strife. At its premiere, a live chorus sang the score.