Joffrey Ballet Launches 2012-13 Season with HUMAN LANDSCAPES, Now thru 10/28

The Joffrey Ballet's 2012-2013 season launches this fall with a mixed repertory program titled HUMAN LANDSCAPES, featuring three choreographers exploring principles of the human spirit through dance. The Joffrey brings James Kudelka's critically acclaimed Pretty BALLET back to the stage along with Jirí Kylián's rarely seen work FORGOTTEN LAND. A highlight of the season is the ground-breaking anti-war ballet THE GREEN TABLE, choreographed by Kurt Jooss in the aftermath of World War I. The HUMAN LANDSCAPES program is presented in 10 performances only at the Auditorium Theatre of Roosevelt University, 50 E. Congress Parkway, tonight, October 17 – 28, 2012.

"The artists whose work we present this season hold a special place in Joffrey history," noted Ashley Wheater, Joffrey Ballet Artistic Director. "Not only is THE GREEN TABLE recognized as one of the most important works of German Expressionism, it was the first ballet Robert Joffrey saw as an audience member when he was 11 years old. The impact of that experience prompted him to restage the ballet with the Joffrey in 1967. In the 1980's, Robert Joffrey was a champion of the choreography of Jirí Kylián and James Kudelka, artists who were not well known to American audiences. Their works have been part of our repertoire ever since."

James Kudelka's Pretty BALLET returns to the stage after the Joffrey presented its World Premiere in 2010. Set to Bohuslav Martinu's Symphony No. 2, Kudelka's four-movement work uses demanding movement phrases full of quick, sharp changes of direction, along with intricate spatial patterns and a haunting adagio pas de deux with a ballerina in blood-red pointe shoes, all to explore the subject of ballet itself as a balance between romantic ideals and industrious principles.

Also on the program will be Jirí Kylián's 1981 work FORGOTTEN LAND, not performed by the Joffrey since its Company Premiere in 1985. With music by Benjamin Britten (2013 will be the 100th anniversary of Britten's birth) and inspired by a painting of women on a beach by Edvard Munch, this dance uses a motif of pulsing, circular movements reminiscent of waves to invoke treasured memories of lost homelands, lost lovers and lost time.