The Royal Ballet presents a revival of Jerome Robbins’s timeless classic of pure dance. Available to watch via our streaming service.
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Jerome Robbins, letter to the editor of Ballet Review, in 1972:
For the record, would you please print in large, emphatic and capital letters the following:
THERE ARE NO STORIES TO ANY OF THE DANCES IN DANCES AT A GATHERING. THERE ARE NO PLOTS AND NO ROLES. THE DANCERS ARE THEMSELVES DANCING WITH EACHOTHER TO THAT MUSIC IN THAT SPACE.
Thank you very much.
Jerome Robbins
The Royal Ballet perform Dances at a Gathering, Jerome Robbins's fluid exercise in pure dance, to music by Chopin, broadcast online as part of the Royal Opera House's #OurHouseToYourHouse series.
The film will be available to watch from 7pm BST Friday 25 September.
Dances at a Gathering by Jerome Robbins is a fluid exercise in pure dance for five couples, set to piano music by Fryderyk Chopin. It was created for New York City Ballet in 1969, when it was an immediate success. The following year, it was performed by The Royal Ballet in London to similar acclaim and returns this Season to the repertory after more than ten years.
Robbins initially intended to choreograph just a single pas de deux for a gala, but in rehearsal it grew into this major modern classic. The subtle interplay in performance between dancers and dances is extraordinarily atmospheric and suggestive of relationships and personalities, although Robbins was insistent that any story is simply that of a community of dancers dancing. The first Royal Ballet cast included such leading lights as Monica Mason, Lynn Seymour, Antoinette Sibley, Anthony Dowell, Rudolf Nureyev and David Wall, and this revival presents a wonderful opportunity for audiences today to see the current generation of Royal Ballet dancers take on such a milestone work.
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