Arpino Announces Joffrey ‘89-90 Season

A 1989-90 Joffrey Ballet season that mixes new productions of early 20th-Century masterworks with ballets commissioned from contemporary choreographers has been announced by company artistic director Gerald Arpino.

“It’s a great time for the arts because the world is in need of the arts . . . ,” Arpino said in a news conference at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion on Monday. “It’s a world that’s in turmoil and it will take a great city like ours to set new ideals, new goals.”

The highlights:

“Les Noces,” the 1923 collaboration between choreographer Bronislava Nijinska, composer Igor Stravinsky and designer Natalia Goncharova, will be danced on the same programs with works by Vaslav Nijinsky (Nijinska’s brother): “L’Apres-midi d’un Faune” (1912) and “Le Sacre du Printemps” (1913).

A severely modernist depiction of a Russian peasant wedding, “Les Noces” was created for the Diaghilev Ballets Russes and has previously been danced in Los Angeles by the Royal Ballet and, more recently, the Oakland Ballet. It will be staged for the Joffrey by Irina Nijinska, Bronislava’s daughter.

“Les Noces” is as modern today as it was when conceived in 1923, Nijinska said. “I am so pleased to have it preformed by such a wonderful company.”

New works include the first Joffrey Ballet commission for post-modernist Charles Moulton and a ballet about vaudeville to be co-choreographed by Arpino and Louis Johnson.

Moulton is best known locally for his “Nine Person Precision Ball Passing” (danced by the Lar Lubovitch company and on the PBS “Alive From Off-Center” series). The Arpino-Johnson ballet is based on a 1963 Arpino work, “The Palace,” and will be set to music by Rebekah Harkness and Peter Link. Johnson is well known for his film choreography (including “Cotton Comes to Harlem” and “The Wiz”) and his ballet “Forces of Rhythm” for Dance Theatre of Harlem.

In addition, the company is negotiating for another ballet by Sir Frederick Ashton. The Joffrey Ballet has the largest Ashton repertory of any company in the United States and rumors suggest that Ashton’s full-evening “Cinderella” is highest on the list of company priorities.

Revivals for the 1989-1990 season include John Cranko’s full-evening “Romeo and Juliet” and Arpino’s rock ballet “Trinity.”