ABOUT THE PROJECT

The Yale Dance Lab is thrilled to announce the continuation of the Rite of Spring project that began in the spring of 2022 with a choreographic workshop ahead of performances in February 2023 in partnership with the Yale Symphony Orchestra and the Yale Schwarzman Center.

The Rite of Spring famously premiered in Paris in 1913 with music by Igor Stravinsky and choreography by Vaslav Nijinsky. Both the music and the choreography hit a nerve, as harbingers of modernism at the turn of the 20th century. The music lives on in orchestral repertories, and the concert dance world has seen countless restagings that formally rework the original story to speak to contemporary concerns.

The Yale Dance Lab-Yale Symphony Orchestra production will draw on maps and travel images from the Beinecke collection, tracing transnational networks of cultural exchange across time to meditate on planetary crises and care.

The production will be co-choreographed by Emily Coates and Lacina Coulibaly, with musical direction by YSO conductor William Boughton.

The creative team includes lighting designer Tom Delgado (‘09 MFA) and costume designer Aidan Griffiths (‘23 MFA).

The culminating performances will be on Saturday, February 18, 2023 in Commons at the Yale Schwarzman Center.

These performances were captured in a video recording which is available for viewing on the Yale Dance Lab YouTube page. The film was directed by seven-time Emmy Award-winning director Habib Azar.