Sarasota Ballet calls on angels

Do you believe in angels? 

Choreographer Jessica Lang does — at least as the source of inspiration for "A Time of Beauty," her ballet making its world premiere at Sarasota Ballet on Oct. 25-27.

Lang, whose official title at Sarasota Ballet is the Virginia B. Toulmin & Muriel O’Neil Artist in Residence, got the idea for "A Time of Beauty" a few years ago. She was in London near St. Paul's Cathedral when she discovered an installation called "Lunch Break." 

The piece by architects KHBT in collaboration with artist Ottmar Hörl featured 40 golden angels resting on swings.

Even guardian angels need a break every now and then. They've since flown away — the installation ran from June 2019 to March 2020 — but their celestial cousins will grace Lang's second ballet choreographed exclusively for Sarasota Ballet.

To some, a ballet featuring ethereal creatures cavorting on swings suspended over the stage might sound schmaltzy, right up there with Thomas Kincade paintings and garden gnomes.

But anyone who makes that assumption can't be familiar with Lang, a former dancer for Twyla Tharp's traveling company who has choreographed for American Ballet Theatre, Alvin Ailey and Birmingham Royal Ballet. 

A varied body of work

"Some choreographers have a style," says Iain Webb, director of the Sarasota Ballet. "Jessica’s got the ability to create these incredible works that are very different to each other. For the audience, it’s going to be tremendous."

In addition to the angelic sculpture in London, Lang drew on the music of George Frideric Handel for "A Time of Beauty."

Courtesy image

"I wanted to do something ... with classical music, but I wanted to go a step further to include voice," Lang said in a joint interview with Webb in the Sarasota Ballet's offices. 

"I do a lot for opera and a lot for oratorio music," she says. "This is Handel’s first oratorio that he ever wrote. He wrote it at 19 and he revisited it three times throughout his career."

According to Lang, Handel first called the music "Triumph of Time and Dissolution." He came back again with "Triumph of Time and Beauty" and then "Time and Truth." 

Lang says she is quite fond of a particular aria that Handel borrowed from himself for his opera "Rinaldo," which she says is one of her favorites.

A series of life-altering encounters

Lang, who divides her time between New York City and Sarasota, says Handel's oratorio could be used to accompany a full-length ballet if she used the entire hour and a half of the composition. Instead, she picked six selections of music to help her embody the battle between time and beauty. Spoiler alert: Time wins. "It always does in the end," notes Lang. 

Speaking to Lang about her life as her 50th birthday approaches, one can't quite decide whether the random encounters that have helped shape her career are fated or serendipitous. For Sarasota ballet fans, they are certainly fortuitous since they have brought one of the world's leading choreographers to the community.

After dancing for two years for Twyla Tharp's "Tharp!" company, Lang had her own eponymous dance company from 2011-2019. During this time, both Jessica Lang Dance and the Sarasota Ballet were part of the Fall for Dance program at New York City Center in 2016. 

Lang's company was performing her work, "Tesseracts of Time," while Sarasota Ballet was on the bill with Sir Frederick Ashton's "Marguerite and Armand" featuring Johann Kobborg and Alina Cojocaru.

During the 2016 Fall for Dance gala and dinners Lang and Webb met for the first time and talked informally about collaborating. The two were aware of each other because Lang had choreographed dances for the Birmingham Royal Ballet under artistic director Sir David Bintley, beginning in 2012 with "Lyric Pieces."

All roads in English ballet lead to Ashton

Webb knows Bintley from their days dancing together at Sadler's Wells Royal Ballet, where Bintley was also a choreographer before becoming artistic director of Birmingham Royal, as Sadler's Wells is now known.

"We danced together and I danced in his ballets before he became artistic director. I was already gone by then, but we go back a long time," Webb says.

With name changes like Sadler's Wells becoming Birmingham Royal Ballet in 1990, tracing the provenance of English ballet can get confusing. 

It's helpful to remember that all roads lead to Ashton, whose legacy has been preserved by Sarasota Ballet under the leadership of Webb and his wife, Margaret Barbieri, assistant director, both former dancers with Sadler's Wells.

Image courtesy of Mikenna Bowers

Lang calls receiving her first commission from Bintley for the Birmingham Royal a "Cinderella" moment. "My husband Kanji (Segawa) went to the mailbox and came back with a thin letter with a big gold royal seal. 'Look what you got!' he said. I was afraid because the envelope was so thin. I assumed it was a polite rejection."

When she opened up the letter and read it, Lang was "flabbergasted," she says. "It was a beautiful letter from David articulating how he had watched my work and how much he loved it. It said he was commissioning me for a new work and asked whether I would come over next year," Lang recalls.

Lang's potential collaboration with the Sarasota Ballet got a boost when her parents decided to relocate from Bucks County, Pennyslvania, where Lang was raised. She gave Webb a call when her parents were house hunting in Sarasota, renewing th ir acquaintanceship and the possibility of working together. 

But the idea began to take form after a dinner with Lang, her parents, Webb and Barbieri in a restaurant where Roxie Jerde, head of the Community Foundation of Sarasota, happened to be sitting at the next table. "Roxie said, 'If you can sign Jessica up, we want to be involved straight away,'" Webb recalled.

A small town with cultural connections

After relaying the anecdote, Webb exults that he loves "the creative energy of Sarasota, where everything is connected, like having dinner and Roxie being on the next table."

That chance restaurant meeting led to the Community Foundation’s support of Lang's artist-in-residence position, which also received backing from the Virginia B. Toulmin Foundation. 

Fast forward to Monday, Oct. 7, 2024. As Hurricane Milton approached, the Sarasota Ballet canceled rehearsals for Program One, "Relative Beauty," which will feature Lang's world premiere.

During the storm, Lang sheltered with her parents at their home in The Meadows. She said they experienced minor damage, but was spared the brunt of Milton, which made landfall on Siesta Key on Wednesday, Oct. 9. 

Meanwhile the clock was ticking down toward Lang's world premiere on Oct. 25. "We lost four and a half days of rehearsal, but the show must go on," Webb says, invoking the theater adage.

A time for healing

Originally, "A Time of Beauty" was going to be the first ballet in Program One, followed by Ricardo Graziano's romantic "Amorosa" and wrapping up with Kobborg’s production of “Napoli Act III,” which continues the legacy of Danish choreographer August Bournonville.

But after Hurricane Milton, Webb and Lang decided the audience should leave on a note of angelic healing. They tweaked the lineup so "Napoli" is the opener and "A Time of Beauty" is the closing performance of Program One.

Now, about those swings. How do they work? "Sarasota's a circus town so we went to the Wallenda family to get their help," Lang says. 

Asked specifically which Wallenda lent their aerial expertise to the ballet, Webb demurred. "The people in the IATSE (International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees) union know the right people to call," he says. "They have the contacts."

As a choreographer, Lang has been able to bring to life the kinds of dance-fueled tales she had glimmerings of as a child. Even then, she says, "I was dreaming about ideas, movement and stories. But at that age, I don't think you're mature enough to know what your vision is."

Lang spent years preparing for her career as a dancer, but when she finally achieved her dream, she discovered it wasn't what she wanted after all. 

"When I went to Juilliard, I assumed I would dance forever," she says. "I loved it. Then I got into Twyla’s company and we started touring. The job was very different from the education. I didn’t enjoy it. I didn’t like the repetition."

Lang adds: "Some people love to perform and that’s a good thing. As a choreographer, I need dancers who love to perform and go deeper into the role. They have to be willing to try again and get enjoyment out of the repetition. I just didn't have that."

Webb interjects, "George Balanchine was known for saying, 'I don't want people who want to dance. I want people who have to dance.'"

But that's not enough. Choreographers like Balanchine and Lang don't exist in a vacuum. They need audiences who want to see their dances. Sarasota's got them, come hell or high water.