Set to Shaker Loops by John Adams and commissioned by Birmingham Royal Ballet, Will Tuckett’s Lazuli Sky is a timely addition to the contemporary dance repertoire. The piece is named after the deep blue gemstone lapis lazuli, often used in Renaissance landscape painting to conjure the beauty of the sky. Months of gazing skyward during lockdown have inspired the creative team to develop this hopeful, regenerative ballet. The public was ready: in-person tickets are sold out. It will be streamed online beginning 1st November 2020.
John Adams Shaker Loops
World Premiere production: Luzuli Sky
Birmingham Royal Ballet
World Premiere 22nd October 2020
Streamed as pay-per-view from November 1 - 8 exclusively at Birmingham Royal Ballet.
“Working on this score has been an absolute joy and its genuinely transcendent beauty and startling complexity has lost none of its freshness since it was written,” observes Tuckett. “I am incredibly excited that I have been able to use it for the first new commission under Carlos Acosta’s Directorship of BRB and can’t wait to get the dancers onstage and the septet from Birmingham Sinfonia into the pit under the baton of Paul Murphy. As a piece that marks a hopeful return to theatres, dancing and music making across the UK, Shaker Loops with its combination of optimistic drive and contemplative slow sections is everything I could wish for as a choreographer. I feel incredibly lucky to be bringing it and Lazuli Sky with a wonderful cast of BRB dancers to the Rep stage this week.”
Watch a preview of Lazuli Sky performance from Birmingham Royal Ballet.
Tuckett’s Lazuli Sky is inspired by ideas of “social distancing.” Tuckett and his team, including designer Samuel Wyer and projection designer Nina Dunn, created a unique piece set to Shaker Loops performed live.
Tuckett’s work for The Royal Ballet includes the Olivier Award-winning The Wind in the Willows (the first Royal Opera House show to move to the West End), Diana and Actaeon (Metamorphosis: Titian 2012), The Seven Deadly Sins, The Soldier’s Tale, Pinocchio, Sondheim’s Into the Woods, Faeries, The Thief of Baghdad, and Pleasure’s Progress.
