Joffrey’s American Icons is Nostalgic AND Right Now

Joffrey Ballet is now onstage at the Civic Opera house with a wide ranging program of iconic ballets originally premiered in the 60’s through 1980’s. Even as we are watching all the stellar athletes at the Olympics we can head to the Lyric Opera house and see another kind of super human.  The company is a testament to the beauty and complexity of what a human body can achieve, and it is a show that will impress even a newcomer to ballet. These dancers make the nearly impossible look effortless.  The sheer athleticism of both sexes, the speed and agility are astounding.  It is an exquisitely lovely and inspiring evening. 

Kettentanz by Gerald Arpino kicks off the program with joy and geometry. Originally premiered by Joffrey in 1971, it's a lush salute by a dozen dancers to another time: Vienna’s balls and weingartens. In couples, trios, circles and lines set to music by Johann Strauss Sr. and Johann Mayer ably played by the Lyric Opera orchestra under the baton of Scott Speck the dancers galop, polka and waltz with intricate formations and impeccable technique. 

After intermission we return to the newly acquired work Secular Games by Martha Graham.  One of her more “danc-y” works, it is described as a witty romp through the games men and women play in three sections set on literal little islands. Originally premiered in 1962 at the American Dance Festival, in the Joffrey’s version it is a light, fun work for 12 talented dancers.  As an historic presentation, it demonstrates how much dancers have changed since the 1960’s.  The highly athletic cross trained dancers of today can literally do anything,  but they lack the specificity that dancers who joined the “cults” of Martha Graham or Hanya Holm or Alwin Nikolai had.  In particular, Graham dancers had a use of weight that made the ballon of a jump feel like tearing away from gravity, whereas today's dancers can seem to ignore gravity altogether. There is also a particular use of the torso and contraction that was once a hallmark of a “modern” dancer as compared to the held together and lifted torso of a ballet dancer.  In part because of current dance training and in part because of who Ashley Wheater selects for the Joffrey ensemble and how they work together, that distinction no longer exists. Choreography needs living dancers to recreate works to stay alive since scant video exists of seminal works of the early 20th century.  And our bodies have changed.  The work is still brilliantly realized and an important piece for the Joffrey repertoire. 

Next we have the pas de deux from Robert Joffrey’s longer 1980 ballet Postcards. Anais Bueno and Stefan Gonçalvez delight in this reminiscence of 1900’s Paris.  Camille Robles, mezzo soprano, who recently joined Lyric’s Ryan Center, sang the Satie music gorgeously. This piece showcases these virtuosic dancers in a way that is uplifting.  It’s interesting to note that Joffrey, an American, captures our rose colored ideal of what the Parisian past was like. 

The two hour program concludes with Glen Tetley’s 1973 elegiac Voluntaries set to Francis Pulenc’s organ music. Tetley choreographed this moving masterpiece as a tribute and memorial to John Cranko whose untimely death led to Tetley assuming the director role at Stuttgart Ballet.  Tetley was an original member of the Joffrey and was known for his fusion of dance techniques having studied and performed with everyone from Hanya Holm and Jerome Robbins to Anthony Tudor and Margaret Craske.  His work is absolutely perfect for the current Joffrey company, and this deeply resonant work calls on the prodigious dramatic and physical talents of Victoria Jaiani and Dylan Gutierrez as the lead couple. This is a ballet about life and it's big and beautiful and sad and reflective. In our troubled times it is a balm. 

The entire program invites us to escape from our difficult era and look at the achievements of our past and the art that these choreographers contributed to who we have become.  This is an evening that must be experienced live and in person. AI cannot attain the heights or replicate the beauty and emotion that this company can evoke.  There is never a long run at the Joffrey so hurry to get tickets before this is over: American Icons is on stage at the Lyric Opera House 20  N. Wacker in Chicago  Thursdays through Sundays until March 1, 2026. For tickets and information go to  https://joffrey.org/performances-and-tickets/25-26-season/american-icons/

Photo by Cheryl Mann

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