{"id":2455123,"date":"2020-02-27T16:00:00","date_gmt":"2020-02-27T23:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.aspentimes.com\/?p=321665"},"modified":"2020-02-27T16:00:00","modified_gmt":"2020-02-27T23:00:00","slug":"aspen-santa-fe-ballet-stages-winter-production-of-beautiful-decay","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/local-news\/aspen-santa-fe-ballet-stages-winter-production-of-beautiful-decay\/","title":{"rendered":"Aspen Santa Fe Ballet stages winter production of \u2018Beautiful Decay\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n
Aspen Santa Fe Ballet will perfrom the evening-length ballet “Beautiful Decay” on Friday and Saturday at the Aspen District Theatre.<\/strong>
Sharen Bradford<\/em><\/figcaption><\/div>\n<\/figure>\n

\u201cBeautiful Decay\u201d was a creative breakthrough for Aspen Santa Fe Ballet and a high-water mark of the year when it made its local debut last summer<\/a>. Running for three performances in July and August, it marked the first evening-length contemporary ballet ever produced by the company.<\/p>\n

A poignant meditation on mortality and a celebration of aged bodies rarely seen in ballet, the piece features a multi-generational cast and returns for a two nights on Friday and Saturday, marking the highlight of a relatively quiet local winter dance season (this weekend is the Aspen Santa Fe\u2019s only run of performances here besides its \u201cNutcracker\u201d run in December).<\/p>\n

\u201cBeautiful Decay\u201d is the 10th ballet that choreographer Nicolo Fonte has staged with the company \u2014 including eight original creations \u2014 over the past 20 years. His aesthetic has helped define Aspen Santa Fe as it rose to international prominence, while the company also has pushed Fonte to make some of the definitive works of his globally acclaimed career.<\/p>\n

\u201cBeautiful Decay\u201d debuted in 2013 at BalletX in Philadelphia. It is a two-act exploration of the cycle of life, the inevitability of aging and time\u2019s whittling away of youth. Produced here with original set design by Tony Award winner Mimi Lien, it calls for two older dancers \u2014 in this production they are longtime Aspen dance instructor Hilary Cartwright and Oregon dancer Gregg Bielemier, both in their 70s \u2014 to perform alongside the younger company cast, providing contrast between the youthful vigor of professional dancers in their prime and a pair decades older.<\/p>\n

Watching the ballet with audiences, Fonte has found that as soon as the older dancers enter, all eyes focus on them.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere is something beautiful in experiencing 40 years of experience onstage, where physical prowess morphs into something else and becomes much more of an emotional, reflective way of moving,\u201d Fonte said.<\/p>\n

Fonte prepared his cast physically as well as emotionally for \u201cBeautiful Decay,\u201d pushing dancers to communicate the depths of the work.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen I say, \u2018Do it,\u2019 I mean do it on a cellular level,\u201d he told the cast at June rehearsal in the Aspen Santa Fe studio. \u201cSo that every cell in your body is committed to that one moment and the next moment, and the one after that. That\u2019s a long, grueling process.\u201d<\/p>\n

He gave the dancers a rarely heard rehearsal prompt in the studio last week: It\u2019s OK to cry.<\/p>\n

\u201cAt the end, it has that impact, you\u2019re going to want to bawl,\u201d he told the dancers while they ran through the powerhouse finale. \u201cIn rehearsal, I need you to start to feel that.\u201d<\/p>\n

The result, for the audience, is a gut-level connection. Viewers can see themselves in the performers, young and old.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou\u2019re not going to see yourself in them hoisting their legs in the air and doing the incredible things they can do,\u201d Fonte explained between rehearsals last summer. \u201cBut you might be able to transfer your emotions to them \u2014 you might be able to recognize you\u2019ve felt that or experienced that. That\u2019s super important. Otherwise it\u2019s just some kind of aerobic exercise that might be impressive, but it\u2019s an empty gesture.\u201d<\/p>\n

Fonte\u2019s original inspiration for the concept was inspired by a 3-D photo exhibition in Portland, Oregon, which brought viewers inside of nearly dead flowers.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt touched me in my core,\u201d Fonte said. \u201cSomething about it was so powerful, and the element of 3-D you were inside the flower petals. These decaying flowers retained so much of their flower-ness. It was this undeniable identity screaming at me: \u2018I was once a flower!\u2019 My heart was racing. And that\u2019s really where the idea came from.\u201d<\/p>\n

Working regularly with Aspen Santa Fe Ballet over the past two decades, Fonte describes artistic director Tom Mossbrucker as a collaborator whose ideas in the studio have helped shape Fonte\u2019s work. He pointed to his 2003 Aspen Santa Fe creation, \u201cLeft Unsaid\u201d \u2014 his fourth piece for Aspen \u2014 as a breakthrough in his creative life. It\u2019s gone on to become one of his most successful works, performed by seven companies since its Aspen premiere. Fonte recalled how he knew he would set it to Bach violin music, but how he created the work without music in rehearsals.<\/p>\n

\u201cI created almost the entire piece in silence before I put the music on,\u201d he said. \u201cOf course it was running in my head the whole time, but not in the dancers\u2019 heads. So we were creating true human interaction that wasn\u2019t dictated by the music.\u201d<\/p>\n

That deeply felt humanity has become a driving force in his work since then. The supportive environment here and the bond between Fonte, the company leadership and its dancers let him take that creative leap.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think it had to do with the fact that I was here and I trusted them and they trusted me,\u201d he said. \u201cI was forced to figure something out in that creation process. It was kismet. It had to happen here, based on the repetition of creations that I was making for them.\u201d<\/p>\n

Back when he premiered \u201cBeautiful Decay\u201d in Philadelphia, Fonte sent a video to his frequent collaborators here at Aspen Santa Fe Ballet. When Aspen Santa Fe directors Tom Mossbrucker and Jean-Philippe Malaty decided they wanted to bring a full-length ballet to the local stage, Fonte\u2019s work was an ideal fit.<\/p>\n

\u201cI feel honored and touched that they trust me and that they believe in the work,\u201d Fonte said. \u201cI think it has relevance everywhere, but I thought it would have real relevance here where there is a substantial segment of the community that is getting up there and we\u2019re living in this ageist society.\u201d<\/p>\n

atravers@aspentimes.com<\/a><\/p>\n

via:: The Aspen Times<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Aspen Santa Fe Ballet will perfrom the evening-length ballet “Beautiful Decay” on Friday and Saturday at the Aspen District Theatre.Sharen Bradford \u201cBeautiful Decay\u201d was a creative breakthrough for Aspen Santa Fe Ballet and a high-water mark of the year when it made its local debut last summer. Running for three performances in July and August, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[49],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2455123","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","category-local-news"],"acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-08-18 13:12:40","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"distributor_meta":false,"distributor_terms":false,"distributor_media":false,"distributor_original_site_name":"KSPN The Valley's Quality Rock","distributor_original_site_url":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn","push-errors":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2455123","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2455123"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2455123\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2455123"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2455123"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2455123"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}