The Elements

Principals
Martha Butler, Amanda McKerrow, Kathleen Moore

Griff Braun, Wes Chapman, Keith Roberts

Soloists
Shawn Black, Sandra Brown, Ashley Tuttle

Maxim Belotserkovsky, Gil Boggs, John Selya

Chorus
Angel Corella, Andrei Dokukin, Jonathan Fagan, Vladislav Kalinin, Christopher Martin, Parrish Maynard

I. Chaos
McKerrow/Braun, Butler/Roberts, Moore/Chapman, Selya, Boggs, Belotserkovsky, Tuttle, Brown, Black, Corella, Dokukin, Fagan, Kalinin, Martin, Maynard

II. Earth and Water (Air pour les violons)
Chapman, McKerrow, Belotserkovsky, Tuttle

III. Fire (Chaconne)
Moore, Braun, Roberts, Butler, Selya, Chapman, McKerrow, Tuttle, Black

IV. Air (Ramage)
Boggs, Braun, Selya, Chapman, Roberts, Belotserkovsky

V. Nightingales
Black, McKerrow, Tuttle, Moore, Butler, Brown

VI. Loure (La Chasse)
Selya, Black, Butler, Belotserkovsky, Moore, Braun, McKerrow, Chapman

VII. Tambourin
Brown, Boggs, Roberts, Braun, Tuttle, Chapman, Selya, Belotserkovsky

VIII. Sicilienne
Roberts, Butler

IX. Rondeau (Air pour l’amour)
Butler, Selya, Boggs, Braun, Chapman, Roberts, Belotserkovsky, Moore, McKerrow, Brown, Black, Tuttle

X. Caprice
Braun, Company

The Elements follows the progression from chaos to order enacted by Rebel’s Baroque score. In the opening section, classical vocabulary clashes with disparate movement styles. The dancers move through the rapid succession of steps with uninhibited quickness. Flashing lights and the dissonant music add to the primal energy onstage.

As the ballet develops, Tharp untangles the knot of movement presented in the opening sections. The elements are distilled in turn until the final section, when they are reassembled in rational, Newtonian harmony.

From the original program: “Jean-Féry Rebel (1666-1747) was a violinist, harpsichordist, conductor, and composer at the court of Versailles. Les Élémens was his last work, which he was coaxed out of retirement to write in 1737. Composed for the dancers of the Academia Royale, it is the old master’s account of the evolution of the cosmic order from cosmic chaos.”