Les Bal­lets Ac­tu­els

The Staatstheater Nürnberg Ballet of Difference is closing its first season with “Les Ballet Actuels,” a programme that is expanding the season’s vision of redefining ballet’s relationship with the present. The evening brings together three different choreographic voices to explore the relationship between ballet and contemporary music and culture, forms of movement, interaction and coexistence.

Richard Siegal’s Spiral (originally titled All for One) starts out the evening with a cinematic interplay of bodies, sound, light and the innovative costumes designed by Flora Miranda. The dance piece pushes the boundaries of what ballet can be by speaking in the sensory language of contemporary art to a playful composition by Markus Popp and a dazzling light installation made in partnership with Matthias Singer.

The programme also includes Overcast by rising choreography star Kirsten Wicklund, who currently directs the Ballet Edomonton. In this sparse pas de deux, with lighting design by James Proudfoot, the relationship is explored at its most basic structure. The evening culminates with Justin Peck's Hurry Up, We're Dreaming, originally created for the San Francisco Ballet in 2018. Set to the pulsating music of French electro-pop group M83, the work, with a trainers-wearing ensemble, catapults ballet into the rhythms of modern life, blending classical and contemporary in an explosion of energy and joy. "Les Ballets Actuels" presents ballet not as a rigid art, but as a constantly evolving expression of the here and now. It creates a bold vision of ballet as about the present—an art form shaped by, and influencing, the ways we interact with one another now and in the future.