Displaying items by tag: Ruth Page Civic Ballet

With so many wonderful dance options to enjoy the classic Holiday ballet The Nutcracker, it is refreshing to find one of such high quality with easy access and parking for families of all sizes and seniors at Northeastern Illinois University Salme Harju Steinberg Fine Arts Center.

Ruth Page Civic Ballet, no longer a full-time company, has a roster that is composed of students and freelance dancers on short-term contracts, however with the original choreography by Ruth Page and additional Choreography by Dolores Long, Larry Long, and Birute Barodicaite, this production demands a high level of skill and all of the principals and children cast really deliver the thrills and magic of ballet that one expects from a professional  company based in Chicago.  

A brief synopsis of the classic Two Act Ballet The Nutcracker: Act I presents a cozy Christmas Eve party, “Party Scene”, at the Stahlbaum home. When midnight strikes, the evening takes a magical turn, and the house is transformed into a battleground. Once the battle has ended, Clara and her Prince are then transported to a beautiful pine forest: the “Land of Snow”. 

In Act 2 Clara, Isabelle Cody-Källén, and her Prince travel to the Kingdom of Sweets. In honor of our heroine, the Sugar Plum Fairy presents a celebration of sweets from around the world in the Kingdom of Sweets!

Isabelle Cody-Källén as the child dancer heroine Clara is absolutely a pleasure to watch! Cody-Källén is a star in the making, her graceful lines and form are absolutely beautiful to see in a young dancer and her angelic face gives off a thoughtfulness and maturity in this role that is exciting to see!

Costume Design by José Verona needs to be acknowledged, as the costumes for every scene and every age performer were lush and beautifully designed to give a truly festive feeling of luxury. 

The two principal adult dancers Marité Fuentes who plays the Snow Queen and American Beauty and Adiarys Almeida as the Sugar Plum Fairy were spectacular! Both ballerinas are Cuban-born and are members of National Ballet of Cuba.  

I highly recommend this full length 2-hour and 15-minute classic, yet fresh and exciting, production of the majestic Nutcracker ballet for audiences of every age to welcome the Holiday season with the love of spectacular ballet! 

Billed as Chicago’s oldest Nutcracker tradition, Ruth Page’s The Nutcracker was performed at Northeastern Illinois University Salme Harju Steinberg Fine Arts Center this past weekend but has additional performances at the College of Lake County James Lumber Center for the Performing Arts Saturday, December 16^th at 1 PM and 5 PM and Sunday, December 17^th at 1PM. For tickets and/or more show information, click here.  

Recommended.

There is something bittersweet of a one-time performance. The single moment in time displaying artistic excellence, be it music, dance, or art, retreats as quickly as it appears. The audience is often left reeling and wrestling with their emotions, reflecting on the performance, and recalling the beautiful moments they witnessed, as if trying to convert the fleetingness of the art to memory and make sense of their emotions. There is no better venue in all of Chicagoland suited to those brief artistic moments than Ravinia. 

This June, Ravinia was the backdrop for the Ruth Page Civic Ballet and Friends showcase featuring four talented dance companies (Ruth Page Civic Ballet, Deeply Rooted Dance Theater, Hedwig Dances, and Jumaane Taylor) performing classical and contemporary dance pieces that explored human nature and our emotions. More notably, the companies featured trainees of the dance companies, young burgeoning Chicago talent looking to launch their careers as professional dancers. Many of the young artists had offers in hand to prestigious programs and companies around the country with many more offers hopefully to follow.  

The showcase featured eight beautiful pieces roughly ten to twenty minutes in length. Deeply Rooted Dance Theater’s piece “Aisantnaf” featuring Ahmad Hill was a standout performance with intricate lighting highlighting the dancer’s body and movement in intricate detail, making the slow burning performance entrancing to watch. Hedwig Dances featured a single contemporary piece “Syzygy” featuring H. Meneses, Rigo Suara, and Paula Sousa that explored the power of three as both humans and something more cellular. The piece had an odd track that made it almost uncomfortable to watch and the musical accompaniment played almost too loud, distracting from the interlacing of the dancers on the stage. It would be worth a second watch and a possible track change to see the piece performed again. 

The absolute crowd favorite of the showcase was Jumaane Taylor and Kayana Latimer of Jumaane Taylor and Stone Soup Rhythms performing “Cheap Suites 1-5.” The tap dancers play in these five short lived rhythmic minutes-long wonders, scratching deep into the floor until they decide to "check-out." The ensemble taps into a determination to morph the strategi rthymic patterns of Karriem Riggins (Detroit master drummer and producer), using detailed tap steps to particularly collaborate with these intrumental vibrations. The tap number was high energy and showcased the incredible skill, speed, and mastery the craft requires. Each small tap or pounding step resonated with the stage and the music in perfect lock step. It brought a smile to every face in the audience and was a difficult act to follow within the showcase.

In every showcase there is one performance that leaves you wanting more. For me it was a Ruth Page piece. While “Pasajera La Lluvia” featuring Kaelen Gouveia and Oscar Uribe Zapata was a beautiful contemporary piece, the standout was the finale performance of “Abscission” by Adrián Marcelo Sáenz. The number featured all the Ruth Page trainees within their ballet company; Keely Clark, Kaelen Gouveia, Hannah Gonzalez, Mian Hirasawa, Alicia Rene Kenefic, and Oscar Uribe Zapata. The contemporary performance was an exploration of the most intimate and dark places of ourselves; a self-imposed chain, a toxic past, a double edged decision, are we free or lost without them? It was an intimate, technical, and passionate performance by all the dancers and truly was a culmination of their years of hard work and talent. The entire piece could be expanded on to be a standalone show.

While a single performance can leave one bittersweet, it can also be the culmination of years of training displaying the years of hard work and talent put into the artform. The young talent on display at Ravinia for Ruth Page Civic Ballet and Friends was beautiful in its fleetingness. Chicago and Ravinia should expect to see these talented artists soon as they embark on the next chapters of their careers. To learn more about the Ruth Page Center of the Arts’ programs and initiatives, please visit www.ruthpage.org. To view Ravinia’s 2023 and lineup and purchase tickets visit www.ravinia.org.