The Stravinsky Project is Open! What Did You Think?

We had a wonderful opening weekend performance for The Stravinsky Project, along with a glowing review from Martha Ullman West at The Oregonian. Here’s an excerpt: Stravinsky rocks, and so does Oregon Ballet Theatre. That was abundantly clear on Saturday night when the company opened its spring concerts at the Keller with an all-Stravinsky program… Read More

The Rite Riot: The Ballets Russes and The Rite of Spring

By Linda Besant On May 9, 1909, dancers who would come to be known as Serge Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes gave their first performance at the Théatre du Chatelet in Paris. By the time the company dissolved upon Diaghilev’s death in 1929, the “Russian Ballet” had given work to Europe’s best dancers, choreographers, composers and artists,… Read More

“It’s Exhilarating to be Someone’s Creative Instrument” : The Creation of OBT’s Firebird

From the very beginning of his time with OBT, Artistic Director Christopher Stowell intended that the company would develop a repertoire of works “to scores written specifically for ballet. For the initial effort in that direction,” he says, “I asked Yuri Possokhov to choreograph Stravinsky’s Firebird in 2004. He felt a bit confined at first.… Read More

Looking Back at the First Firebird

by OBT Historian Linda Besant The original Firebird premiered in 1910 for Serge Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes in Paris. For nearly twenty years, from 1909 to 1929, Diaghilev’s company of primarily Russian-trained dancers performed radical new ballets that gave equal expression to all the arts involved. Diaghilev and his Ballets Russes were among the greatest fruits… Read More