AURORA | Fans of traditional ballets like “Swan Lake” and “The Nutcracker” may be thrown for a loop when they sit down for a performance of “Carry On.”
The joint project between the Broomfield-based Ballet Nouveau Colorado troupe and the Denver alt-folk band Paper Bird veers away from traditional cues such as tutus, Tchaikovsky and surreal landscapes. In lieu of Victorian waltzes, dancers move to the strains of live folk music provided by a seven-piece band. Projections of grainy, black-and-white film clips from the turn-of-the-century places the action in a vaguely modern context. The choreography is closely tied to the mood and feel of the music, songs that feature elastic harmonies, old-timey banjo solos and a foundation of upright bass lines.
“The dancers are dressed in kind of a country, old-world aesthetic with a contemporary twist,” said Garrett Ammon, choreographer for “Carry On” and the artistic director of Ballet Nouveau Colorado. “You don’t have a specific sense of when this is. It could be today, it could be 40 years ago … What we’ve created together is a non-linear, semi-narrative work. It’s going to touch different people in different ways.”
Ammon and the rest of the creative team behind “Carry On” are looking to reach a new audience with their fusion of folk, ballet and film. Two years after the ballet debuted at venues in Lakewood and Denver, a slightly updated version of the piece will run at the Parker Arts, Culture and Events (PACE) Center for a single performance Feb. 16. According to Ammon, the venue offers an opportunity to reach a new crowd of modern art lovers, patrons who live in eastern suburbs like Parker and Aurora who are looking for nearby
entertainment.
“Something that we’ve really been committed to as an organization is trying to make our art not only in the kind of work we’re creating, but also in how we reach our audiences,” he said. “It’s a big metro area. What we try to do is have performances in venues across the city. I think PACE has been a wonderful addition.”
Since the PACE Center opened in 2011, its fare has ranged from traditional to contemporary. The center’s main, 500-seat auditorium has hosted productions of familiar ballets like “The Nutcracker,” as well as concerts by Baroque orchestras and other classical ensembles. But Ammon insists that the PACE staff has committed to including new work in its lineup.
“It’s not only a phenomenal facility, but a phenomenal group of people who are running it and committed to bringing high quality art to the area,” Ammon said, adding that he’s looking to attract audience members from Parker and south Aurora to next week’s
performance.
The show has already earned praise from critics and audiences for its combination of different styles and structures. “Carry On” started simply enough, after Ammon reached out to members of Paper Bird more than three years ago. The band’s take on traditional folk structures intrigued him, Ammon said, and the band’s sound hearkened back to his own early work as a choreographer working in Memphis, Tenn.
“The first work that I did was created to blues music and Appalachian music. That’s been common throughout my career,” Ammon said. “I never put music in categories of saying, ‘This is what I normally choreograph to.’”
In the music of Paper Bird, Ammon found a muse in the three-part harmonies from vocalists Sarah Anderson, Genevieve Patterson and Esme Patterson, as well as instrumentation from guitarist Paul DeHaven, upright bassist Macon Terry, drummer Mark Anderson and Caleb Summeril on the banjo. The ballet started with casual meetings over coffee, and progressed as each band member wrote songs for the piece.
“The band went on tour for the summer and they were on the road a lot. All of them were writing music for this,” Ammon said. “What they started sending were these different songs that had come out. Each of them wrote at least one song for the show.”
In announcing the ballet in late 2010, members of Paper Bird called it the “longest, most involved project we have ever embarked on,” and added, “it is going to be an awesome ballet, the likes of which I don’t think the world has ever seen before.”
“Writing music for the ballet was an amazing experience for Paper Bird. It changed our band, and the way that we thought about making music,” said guitarist Paul DeHaven. “Before this project, we had only written music to be performed in front of an audience, so a lot of our decisions were generally informed by the effect on the observer and their experience and reaction to it. ‘Carry On’ added another element, the onstage dancers. During the initial stages, before we started writing, I recall some conversations we had with the dancers, trying to understand what it was that made them move, literally.”
The creative process didn’t end with the debut of the show in 2011, Ammon said. The show that will run at the PACE Center includes a new song, as well as slight tweaks to some of the dance moves and the film footage. Still, the basic heart of the show remains the same.
“I feel like we have become an orchestra, conductor, and composer all in one,” DeHaven said.
It’s a dance piece that’s rooted in live music, a modern ballet that relies on contemporary sounds. Having the band onstage to provide the music remains a big part of the show, Ammon added.
“That’s been something that’s been really high priority for me,” he said. “There’s nothing compared to having an experience and seeing live dance with live music. It’s a depth and a kind of complete experience that you can’t duplicate.”
That dynamic is something the show shares with traditional ballet. But the role of the music is different in “Carry On,” Ammon said, partly for its themes and its basic questions.
“What we do is based in ballet and though our dancers take a classical ballet class every day to start their work day. But what we do doesn’t really look like ballet.
“It’s a much more grounded and human aesthetic rather than the kind of otherworldly reality of classical ballet. We end up exploring more themes as folk music does, our humanity on a root emotional level.”
Reach reporter Adam Goldstein at agoldstein@aurorasentinel.com or 720-449-9707
“Carry On”
Will run at 7:30 p.m. on Feb. 16 at the PACE Center, 20000 Pikes Peak Ave. in Parker.
Tickets start at $18.
Information: 303-805-6800 or parkeronline.org.