Displaying items by tag: Stefan Goncalvez

Marking 70 years of bold, expressive movement, American Icons from The Joffrey Ballet shines as a vibrant salute to the choreographers who shaped American ballet and helped define the company’s enduring legacy. Presented at the stunning Lyric Opera House in the heart of downtown Chicago, the program unfolds under the leadership of The Mary B. Galvin Artistic Director Ashley Wheater, MBE, and President & CEO Greg Cameron. With live accompaniment by members of the Lyric Opera Orchestra, the evening feels grand from the very first note.

Act 1 opens with Kettentanz, choreographed by Gerald Arpino, set to music by Johann Strauss Sr. and Johann Mayer. The curtain rises on a large, beautiful tree center stage, instantly setting a tone of elegance and celebration. The women are dressed in flowing pastel dresses that move effortlessly with each turn, while the men match them with buoyant, precise footwork. The live orchestra, including the delicate, beautiful sound of a harp, adds warmth and richness to the entire act. The dancers are often grouped in pairs, completely in sync, creating a sense of harmony and lightness. The overall feeling is joyful and fresh, almost like welcoming spring. While the choreography feels simple and not overly complex, it works in its favor, allowing the dancers’ technique and musicality to shine. One standout is Hyuma Kiyosawa from Nagano, Japan. He moves with sharp yet graceful precision and a swiftness that immediately draws the eye. His energy radiates across the stage, and when he finishes his time in the spotlight, the audience erupts in applause even as the performance continues. Throughout the act, many dancers take turns in short solos, duets, and pairings, with the men effortlessly lifting the women as they glide through the Viennese-inspired choreography.

After a brief 15- minute intermission, Act 2 shifts dramatically in tone with Secular Games by Martha Graham, set to music by Robert Starer. The curtain rises to reveal six male dancers, shirtless, barefoot, and wearing tights, a striking visual that immediately changes the atmosphere. A woman seated behind me audibly gasps “whoa,” and the audience seems just as captivated. The set includes three ropes, rounded seats, and a ball that the men toss between them. The ball cleverly shifts the audience’s focus, highlighting each dancer in turn as they show off both strength and control. The stage feels almost like a gymnastics practice space, and the opening section carries an intense, competitive energy, as though the dancers are vying for attention and dominance. Each man impresses with powerful movements, one even executes a cartwheel, blending athleticism with artistry.

Eventually, the female dancers enter in leotards of varying colors, adding contrast and balance to the stage. The first duet feels deeply emotional, conveying closeness and intimacy through challenging lifts and seamless transitions. As the act unfolds, the choreography becomes more dynamic and layered, with multiple interactions happening across the stage at once. There is an underlying story of desire and rivalry, a male dancer drawn away from one female partner toward another, competition bubbling beneath the surface. It feels as though everyone is dancing to impress, to attract, to win. One standout here is Lindy Mesmer from Blacksburg, Virginia. She moves with grace and strength, especially during lifts where she holds extended poses high in the air with remarkable control. Her presence feels both powerful and poised, capturing the tension and emotion of the piece.

Act 3 transitions into Postcards, choreographed by Robert Joffrey, set to music by Erik Satie. The mood softens immediately. A male and female dancer, dressed in white, the woman in a flowing white dress, begin a tender duet. Anais Bueno from Córdoba, Mexico and Stefan Gonçalvez from São Paulo, Brazil glide across the stage with a slow, romantic energy. An opera singer enters and begins singing live, a beautiful and fitting addition given the Lyric Opera setting. The dance feels intimate, emotional, and filled with love. Their movements are smooth and connected, almost as if they are breathing in unison. It is a quiet, reflective moment in the evening that allows the audience to pause and feel.

After a second intermission, Act 4 brings the final piece, Voluntaries by Glen Tetley, set to music by Francis Poulenc. The curtain rises to a striking image: a giant white sphere speckled with color dominates the background, echoing the tones of the dancers’ costumes. Victoria Jaiani and Dylan Gutierrez begin the pas de deux in silence, moving without music in a way that immediately captivates. Suddenly, the organ erupts with a dramatic sound reminiscent of Phantom of the Opera, filling the theater with an almost eerie intensity. The duet is fluid and daring, their bodies contorting and intertwining with precision and trust. There is something celestial about the staging, the moonlike sphere, the unusual music, the almost otherworldly costuming. As more dancers join in a pas de trois and multiple couples take the stage, the choreography grows expansive and technically demanding, filled with lifts, flips, and sweeping transitions. While the opening moments are mesmerizing, some sections with the larger groups feel slightly repetitive. Still, the athleticism and difficulty of the choreography are undeniable. The piece ends as it begins, returning to the single couple in silence, bringing the evening full circle.

Overall, the two-hour program moves quickly, each act distinct in tone and style, giving the audience just enough time with each choreographer’s vision. The talent within The Joffrey Ballet is truly remarkable, from the precision of classical pairings to the raw athleticism of modern movement. American Icons is a colorful, dramatic, and thoroughly entertaining night at the theater.

Performances run February 19 through March 1, 2026, at the Lyric Opera House, 20 N. Wacker Drive, Chicago. Showtimes include 7:30 p.m. evening performances (Thursday through Saturday) and 2:00 p.m. matinees on select Saturdays and Sundays. Tickets are available through joffrey.org or directly at the Lyric Opera House box office. For anyone looking for an evening filled with live music, emotional storytelling, and truly impressive dancers, this is a performance well worth seeing.

For more information, click here.

The Little Mermaid at Lyric Opera House is an incredibly beautiful and massive production that holds the audience spellbound from the moment it begins until the final magnificent scene of love transcendent. 

This ballet created by John Neumeier for the Royal Danish Ballet in 2005 was way ahead of its time in that it tackles a lot of somber adult themes including surviving assault, struggles with mental health and physical disability when the little Mermaid is confined to a wheelchair and sees all the healthy young people around her dancing through their lives, falling in love and marrying while she is pushed and carried through human life by the adoring Poet who feels everything she feels. This ballet is so wonderfully choreographed and danced, the music and lighting and set design so sumptuous, that the audience is allowed to fill in their own blanks of this timeless tale of unrequited love through the wordless yet completely emotive dancers of the Joffrey Ballet Company, the highest caliber of dancers in the world today.  

The brilliant Neumeier also created fantastic sets that include giant arcs of white light that represent the moving seas, a starry night that descends into their bedroom and carries the lovers into heavenly bliss. Also impactful is a white box shaped room with a ceiling that frighteningly closes in on the Little Mermaid, as she the incredibly expressive Victoria Jaiani literally "climbs the walls" while struggling to maintain her sanity working out her deep grief and anxiety over human love and life in her final transformation to immortality.

According to the program notes, this production has reinterpreted Hans Christian Andersen's dark yet uplifting fairy tale to include the unrequited love of The Poet, played with wonderful intensity and longing by Stefan Goncalvez, for the Prince (Dylan Gutierrez) a gallant, athletic alpha male. However, the Prince, it appears, is actually more suited for the cheerful blonde debutante Princess (Anais Bueno) that he eventually marries than either the Poet or The Little Mermaid who, in this interpretation, both long to win his heart and marry him, but this amazing interpretation represents archetypes of human personalities not genders. 

Again, it is important to mention this is NOT the Disney version of The Little Mermaid, and there is a scene described as violent in her transformation that has sexual assault undertones as she is stripped naked by the Sea Witch and left on the beach alone. In the 1838 original and the Disney film, the moral message or warning to girls and women was more about The Mermaid giving up her VOICE, when she agrees to be made mute by the Sea Witch who cuts off her tongue as payment for the spell to pursue her beloved Prince. Yet, I loved that Neumeier focuses on the disability that crushes her spirit by sacrificing her beautiful, graceful and strong swimmer's tail because even though she is still able to dance better for the Prince than any human, the Sea Witch has ensured that every step she takes for her Prince will hurt her terribly, "filling her shoes with blood". 

From Hans Christian Andersen's The Little Mermaid;

"Every footstep felt as if she were walking on the blades and points of sharp knives, just as the witch had foretold, but she gladly endured it. She moved as lightly as a bubble as she walked beside the Prince. He and all who saw her marveled at the grace of her gliding walk. Graceful slaves now began to dance to the most wonderful music. Then the little mermaid lifted her shapely white arms, rose up on the tips of her toes, and skimmed over the floor. No one had ever danced so well. Each movement set off her beauty to better and better advantage, and her eyes spoke more directly to the heart than any of the singing slaves could do." 

Although her name and the other leads, like The Poet and Prince and Princess are only listed in alphabetical order in the program as a member of the company, this ballet is not a true ensemble piece. 

I want to acknowledge the superb dancer, the superstar who brought to life and danced the lead character of the Mermaid, Victoria Jaiani, throughout this two-and-a-half hour long, highly emotionally and physically demanding role. Jaiani is absolutely stunning and heartbreakingly expressive in this sublime role with every single move of her graceful expressive hands, legs and face. 

"The most eager of them all was the youngest, She was an unusual child, quiet and wistful, and when her sisters decorated their gardens with all kinds of odd things they had found in sunken ships, she would allow nothing in hers except flowers as red as the sun, and a pretty marble statue. This figure of a handsome boy, carved in pure white marble, had sunk down to the bottom of the sea from some ship that was wrecked. Beside the statue she planted a rose-colored weeping willow tree, which thrived so well that its graceful branches shaded the statue and hung down to the blue sand, where their shadows took on a violet tint, and swayed as the branches swayed. It looked as if the roots and the tips of the branches were kissing each other in play."

Stefan Goncalvez as The Poet in 'The Little Mermaid'

The choreography was spectacular and modern, like watching a silent movie wherein the actors express everything they are feeling through their faces and bodies without words. 

The costume design also by Neumeier was lush and rich in every scene, especially in its ingenious depiction of the underwater world in which Jaiani appears to swim, float and twist in the water like a real fish, suspended in the air by three black-clothed dancers who disappear in the wake of her beauty like puppeteers. 

A final note from Hans Christian Andersen on the relationship between The Poet who watches The Little Mermaid and literally carries and comforts her emotionally throughout her ordeal on earth is that everyone can identify with the Poets' quest to find his own true self and love through the Little Mermaid, who represents his Everlasting  Soul, which is not truly in his control nor is the Little Mermaid his "Creation". 

“Who are you, toward whom I rise?" she asked, and her voice sounded like those above her, so spiritual that no music on earth could match it.

"We are the daughters of the air," they answered. "A mermaid has no immortal soul and can never get one unless she wins the love of a human being. Her eternal life must depend upon a power outside herself. The daughters of the air do not have an immortal soul either, but they can earn one by their good deeds. We fly to the south, where the hot poisonous air kills human beings unless we bring cool breezes. We carry the scent of flowers through the air, bringing freshness and healing balm wherever we go. When for three hundred years we have tried to do all the good that we can, we are given an immortal soul and a share in mankind's eternal bliss. You, poor little mermaid, have tried with your whole heart to do this too. Your suffering and your loyalty have raised you up into the realm of airy spirits, and now in the course of three hundred years you may earn by your good deeds a soul that will never die."

The little mermaid lifted her clear bright eyes toward God's sun, and for the first time her eyes were wet with tears.

"We may get there even sooner," one spirit whispered.

I was so moved by this piece I will see it again before the short run ends. I highly recommend this explosive, hypnotic and mind-bending extravaganza of superb dancers for everyone over the age of 16. 

Through April 30^th at Lyric Opera House. For tickets and/or more show information, click here.