Event Details

Cornell at the New York City Ballet: Brunch, Lecture and Performance



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Join Cornell for a day at the ballet! Seasoned ballet patrons and first-timers alike will delight in contemporary ballet. This performance features four exemplary works from the 2017 Here/Now festival and “celebrates ballet today and what its future may hold”. Over brunch, College of Arts & Sciences Senior Lecturer Byron Suber will teach us about ballet history and share insights on understanding and appreciating what you’ll see on stage. Your experience features:

• A pre-performance lecture and discussion on “The Classical, the Neoclassical, the Modern, and the Post-Modern in New York City Ballet” by Byron Suber.
• Full buffet brunch
• Transportation to Lincoln Center
• Side Orchestra seating

Event Details:
Date: Saturday, March 3, 2018
Time: 11:00 a.m. – 4:30 p.m.
11:00 a.m. – 12:30 p.m. Brunch and lecture/discussion
12:45 p.m. – Departure for Lincoln Center
2:00 p.m. – 4:30 p.m. – Performance (2 hours 32 minutes run time) 
Brunch Location: The Cornell Club-New York, 6 East 44th Street, New York, NY 10017 
Performance Location: David H. Koch Theater, Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts
20 Lincoln Center Plaza, New York, NY 10023
Tickets: $155 each including brunch, performance and transportation to Lincoln Center
Seating is limited and all tickets sales are final
Cornell Club – New York members may also purchase tickets directly through the Club on their member account. Please contact Kirsten Alman at k.alman@cornellclubnyc.com 
Menu:
Mains

Eggs Florentine – Poached Egg, Smoked Salmon, Baby Spinach, Sauce Maltaise
Bouillabaisse – Market Seafood, Saffron, San Marzano Tomatoes, Baby Fennel
Bleu Cheese and Pear Stuffed French Toast
Monte Cristo – Speck Ham, Old Chatham Camembert, Honey Dijon
Breast of Chicken Perigourdine w/ Roasted Root Vegetables
Sides
Lacinato Kale Salad – Marcona Almonds, Medjool Dates, Parmesan, Panisse Croutons
Winter Chicory Salad – Creamy Dijon Dressing
Cranberry-Almond Scones – Sea Salt and Honey
Sweets
Carrot Cake Blintzes – Cream Cheese Frosting and Walnuts
Assorted Mini Pastries

ABOUT BYRON SUBER:
Byron Suber is originally from New Orleans, LA, and has been teaching at Cornell since 1991 after ten years of living and working in New York City. His work in NYC and at Cornell includes choreography, dance-theatre, music and sound design, playwriting and directing, costume design, performance art and gallery installation work. His creative work has been shown at La MAMA Inc., Performance Space 122, the Kitchen, DANSPACE, the American Dance Festival and The Wigstock music festival. He has received grants and awards from the Harkness Foundation, Art Matters Inc., New York Foundation for the Arts, and the Cornell Council for the Arts. He has taught at the American Dance Festival at Duke University, Dance Space and Steps in NYC as well as various universities in the States and Europe. Since coming to Cornell he has continued to create work in dance and theatre as well as entering the realm of digital media, for instance in collaboration with professors and students from MIT on a pair of digitally wired sneakers that produced music when the dancer moved. At Cornell, Suber teaches ballet and modern technique, history/criticism/criticism of spatial organizational practices, dance composition, and digital media. Suber founded a European summer study abroad program combining many of his varied and diverse inteterests and explores the urban environments of Dublin, Paris, Marseille, Barcelona and Rome. Outside of his position in the Department of Performing and Media Arts, he completed an M.A in the History of Architecture and Urbanism in the School of Art, Architecture and Planning at Cornell.

MORE ABOUT HERE/NOW: In spring 2017, The New York City Ballet’s season featured 43 ballets by 22 different choreographers, commissioned by the Company from 1988 to the present. Titled the Here/Now Festival, “its repertory underscored the diversity and range unleashed during the last three decades”.  The winter 2018 performance features an assortment from this festival and “celebrates ballet today and what its future may hold. Dark sophistication and otherworldly movements join the latest from Peck and indie stalwart Sufjan Stevens, their third collaboration in five years. Concluding the program is Ratmansky’s epic abstraction of a comical 19th-century story ballet, a stylized series of witty and animated dances for seven featured performers and a large ensemble.” Works include:

Neverwhere
Music by: Nico Muhly
Choreography by: Benjamin Millepied
Dark and sophisticated, Neverwhere sets its three couples in an otherworldly landscape as they swirl and swoon through Drones and Viola by Millepied’s frequent musical collaborator Nico Muhly.

Mothership
Music by: Mason Bates
Choreography by: Nicolas Blanc
Prepare for liftoff with four couples as they launch into spinning lifts, swiveling walks, and racing slides danced to Mason Bates’ electro-acoustic orchestral score of the same name.

The Decalogue
Music by: Sufjan Stevens (Commissioned by New York City Ballet)
Choreography by: Justin Peck
Building on an already popular partnership, indie stalwart Stevens’ commissioned score for solo piano lays the groundwork for Peck’s 10-dancer ensemble ballet, their third NYCB collaboration following Year of the Rabbit (2012) and Everywhere We Go (2014).

Namouna, A Grand Divertissement
Music by: Édouard Lalo
Choreography by: Alexei Ratmansky
A truly monumental work, Ratmansky abstracts Édouard Lalo’s comical 19th-century story ballet into a stylized series of witty and animated dances for seven featured performers and a large ensemble.

Watch an excerpt from “Mothership”
 

Registration questions? Please contact Karen Barnes at karen.barnes@cornell.edu
Event questions? Please contact Ilana Dimbleby at ilana.carlin@cornell.edu

Banner image: A still from “Namouna, A Grand Divertissement” © Paul Kolnik