CHOREOGRAPHY by JAMES CLOUSER

BALLABILE

Every summer I make a dance for the pre-professional students at the David Taylor Summer Intensive.  This year I had a particularly talented group which included three young men.  I used music from the not-usually-remarked-upon first scene of Rieti's arrangement of Bellini's
"La Sonambula" done for Balanchine's "Night Shadow."  It was very italianate, a dance for energetic but  fussy traveling players.   Each young woman got lifted and supported and all had to do a double pirouette at the end.   A challenge which they met with success.

 After successfully reviving my "Carmina Burana" (Orff, 1972) and "Surprise Symphony" (Haydn, 1976),Thom Clower, then Director of Ballet Dallas, approached me about creating a ballet based on Bram Stoker’s "Dracula". I resisted at first, for I am not drawn to melodrama. But after a long study of all the Vampire legends, I agreed. First, I made and performed a solo for myself which explored the three aspects of the legends which I knew I could best present through dance….mystery, sadness and humor. By 1994 it had grown into a full-length ballet premiered in Dallas as "The Vampire Follies". A subsequent production in 1996, for the Greensboro Ballet gave me the opportunity to fine-tune its vaudeville-olio qualities. Now titled, "Dracula – a Comedy Noir". It will be presented this fall in Des Moines, Iowa and Yuma, Arizona.The musical score is a carefully arranged amalgamation of the 30’s and 40’s music of Shostakovitch.

 DESERT LORELEI

 When making dances for pre-professionals, the choreographer becomes also a teacher. Last year I made three pieces for young groups in Denton, Fort Worth and Houston that were presented at the National Association for Regional Ballet’s national showcase in Houston. This year I was proud to present my University of North Texas students in "Desert Lorelei" at the American College Dance Festival's  national showcase at the Kennedy Center in Washington.  This dance for nine fluid and strong young women, to a fascinating score by the jazz saxophone soloist, John Klemmer, began in Tucson, Arizona. It is my reaction to the seductive qualities I discovered there in the desert.  I will be staging it for the Dance Ensemble at Bucknell University next February.

 I entered a choreography contest last year, and submitted a tape of the Dayton Ballet performing my duet, "Ear to Stone" (Giorno-Puccini-1989) as evidence of my past work and in hopes of winning the financial support for the production of a new work. Instead, I found myself invited to present "Ear to Stone" at the Festival Off d’Avignon in France, July of 1998. The invitation may have been more prestigious for me and my wonderful students who will dance it, but the costs of production fall on the presenter not the Festival. The University of North Texas has been most helpful in identifying travel funds for the project and in setting up an Account for Applied Research in Dance in the Office of Special Projects to which individuals and corporations and even the Texas Commission on the Arts have contributed.

CARMINA BURANA

First created for Houston Ballet, it has been produced by the Dallas Ballet, the Chicago Ballet, the Washington Ballet, The David Taylor Dance Theatre, and the Dayton Ballet.  This year it was produced for the second time at the Summer Wind Festival held at the University of Oklahoma.

WHAT'S NEXT?

Some street dances for Paris...a student piece in the fall...a short Romeo and Juliet for the opening of the Concert Hall...and an exciting collaboration with composer Robert Avalon.