Los Angeles Times - 05.03.2020

LATIMES.COM/CALENDAR THURSDAY, MARCH 5, 2020E5

After 12 years as artist-in-
residence at American Ballet
Theatre, choreographer
Alexei Ratmansky is making
his first long-form ballet for
the company. “Of Love and
Rage” premieres Thursday at
Segerstrom Center for the
Arts in Costa Mesa before
traveling to New York in June
as part of ABT’s 80th anniver-
sary season.
It was only January when
the eminent dance master
first presented his steps to
the company, “and now there
is no time for thinking or pre-
paring anything,” he said re-
cently during a break in re-
hearsals. “The dancers need
to learn it and get it under
their skin.”
If it’s not the greatest love
story ever told, then it might
very well be the oldest. The
new dance is based on “Cal-
lirhoe,” written by 1st century
Greek novelist Chariton, a ro-
mantic adventure about the
renowned beauty Callirhoe
and her beloved Chaereas.
Jealous suitors, bewitched by
Callirhoe’s charms, conspire
to trick Chaereas into think-
ing his new bride is unfaithful.
The pair is parted and forced
to endure war and mayhem
before being reunited, wiser
and deeper in love.
“The center of the story is
love, very passionate love,
which, of all the emotions and

themes, lends itself best to

dance and ballet,” Ratman-

sky said. “The classic vocabu-

lary is very heavily influenced

by ancient Greek visuals,

their sculptures. So, I think

the language that I used,

which is neoclassical, there is

no conflict between the style

and the story. There are con-

temporary touches there,

but it’s more a neoclassical

style of dancing.”

Ratmansky has numer-

ous stories that he would love

to tell, if only he could find the

right music. Likewise there is

music he hopes to set steps to

one day, if only he could find

the right story. “Of Love and

Rage” is matched with com-

poser Aram Khachaturian’s

score, which consists mostly

of selections from his second

ballet, 1941’s “Gayane,” rarely

performed in the West and

not nearly as well known as

his most acclaimed work,

“Spartacus.”

Having matched story

and music, Ratmansky be-

gan paring down the libretto

with renowned filmmaker,

actor and writer Guillaume

Gallienne. Once the libretto

was matched to Khachaturi-

an’s score, Ratmansky began

sketching out movements.

The cast is chosen long

before rehearsals so costume

designers can begin work,

press releases can be issued

and ticket presales offered.

The leads, Callirhoe and

Chaereas, rotate among

three pairs: Catherine Hurlin

and Aran Bell, Hee Seo and

Calvin Royal III, and veter-

ans Christine Shevchenko

and Thomas Forster. The

last pair danced a pas de

deux from the new ballet at

the December ABT gala in

Beverly Hills, although the

dance has since been deleted

from the finished work.

“Christine and Thomas

are more experienced.

They’re like late bloomers,”

Ratmansky said. “It’s only

last season that both of them

started to really shine with

everything they did on the

stage. So, this is an exciting

couple.”

Shevchenko and Forster

were paired in Ratmansky’s

“Nutcracker” in recent years

and will pair again in “Swan

Lake” later this season.

“The wedding duet, it’s so

powerful and there are really

cool lifts and beautiful move-

ments. Definitely the strong-

est parts are the duets,”

Shevchenko said of her role

as a woman so beautiful that

all who gaze upon her are be-

witched. Naturally, her

charms are best represented

through movement.

“Beauty in ballet is de-

fined by how the body moves

in space,” said Ratmansky, a

MacArthur fellow who was

artistic director of the Bol-

shoi Ballet for four years be-

fore joining ABT. “I give them

material that will challenge

them and they can show their

technicality, their virtuosic

technique and also their lyri-

cism and dramatic abilities.

It’s quite a challenging role.

They have a lot of dancing.”

The one doing the lifting,

Forster, a soloist since 2015,

finds the duets demanding.

For reference and inspiration

the cast has been studying

old black-and-white footage

of dancers performing ath-

letic lifts that have left some

of them gobsmacked.

“The audience can tell

whether a lift is physically

challenging,” Forster said. “I

think you appreciate some-

thing that looks difficult, and

our job is to make it not look

difficult. But I think for an au-

dience to see a big lift that can

go wrong is probably more

exciting to them than a bor-

ing one.”

Shevchenko joined ABT’s

corps in 2008, made principal

dancer in 2017 and, like

Forster, has been working

with Ratmansky for years.

“It’s contemporary and

classical ballet together. It’s

his own creation,” she said of

the new work. “He’s done a

lot of staging work but this is

different. And I would say

this is what he’s so good at is

creating his own thing.”

New short ballets pose

less of a challenge for a com-

pany and are therefore more

common. But in a market

driven by subscribers and

their preference for familiar

titles, ABT assumes some

risk mounting a brand-new,

full-length ballet.

“It’s vital to try on new

things and create new titles,”

Ratmansky said. “When it

comes to the full-length, it’s

difficult to make a successful

work that will be loved by the

audience. So, it is very risky

but it’s very important to try.”

ABT has an important first in Orange County

Segerstrom hosts

world premiere of

Alexei Ratmansky’s

full-length ballet.

By Jordan Riefe

ARAN BELL, left, and Catherine Hurlin perform in “Of Love and Rage.”

Erin Baiano

‘Of Love

and Rage’

Where: Segerstrom Center

for the Arts, 600 Town

Center Drive, Costa Mesa

When: 7:30 p.m. Thursday

and Friday, 2 and 7:30 p.m.

Saturday, 1 p.m. Sunday

Tickets: $28-$189

Info:(714) 556-2121,

scfta.org

Running time:2 hours, 20

minutes (one intermission)

While many industry pro-
fessionals are trying not to be
alarmist, they are making
plans for the possibility of the
virus — or even just fears of it
— having a deep impact on
the concert business this
year.
“If a pandemic like this re-
stricts travel, if bands from
here can’t tour Asia and K-
pop and J-pop acts can’t
come here, everyone’s going
to take a hit,” said one high-
level concert promotion exe-
cutive in the U.S. who re-
quested anonymity to be able
to speak freely. “You’ll see
venues closed down. If people
become alarmed and alert,
they’re more likely to stay
away from air travel or large
groups.”
So far, most of the bigger
concert cancellations have
been in China, South Korea
and Japan, where Western
acts like Green Day, Khalid,
New Order and Stormzy, and
K-Pop groups like Seventeen
and Twice, have canceled
planned appearances.
Even K-pop juggernaut
BTS, which planned a mas-
sive stadium tour tied to its
“Map of the Soul: 7” album,
has canceled hometown gigs
in Seoul. Several acts, includ-
ing the metal band Testa-
ment, have also canceled
dates in Milan, Italy, where
the virus has also spread in
the northern part of the coun-
try.
That’s left U.S. promoters
wondering whether acts that
have passed through affected
countries may eventually be
hit with travel restrictions
preventing performances, or
if risks of the virus spreading
could shut down U.S. shows
as well.
Several prominent book-
ing agents, when reached for
comment, acknowledged the
seriousness of the fears but
declined interviews, citing
the uncertainty around the
possibility of a pandemic in
the U.S. Others were already
making plans should it prove
to be an obstacle to touring.
“There’s a general fear.
Other offers for later in the
year are still being enter-
tained, but we’re wondering,”
said Eric Dimenstein, presi-
dent of Ground Control Tour-
ing, a booking agency that
handles rock acts like Bright
Eyes, Jenny Lewis and Deaf-
heaven. Ground Control han-
dles Asia touring for several of
its acts, and one of its U.K.
acts has already canceled
tour dates in an affected
country over fears of being let
back into Britain afterward.
Dimenstein acknowl-
edged that COVID-19 will
likely have an impact and said
he is in conversations with
managers about potential
fallout. But he was cautious
about making assumptions
in either direction.
“Right now, we’re just
watching. Some artists seem
to understand that the media
makes things bigger than

they are,” he said. “But no one

wants to do it and then have

the consequences and bad

PR for going ahead when oth-

ers don’t. I wouldn’t be sur-

prised if in the next week or

two, we see more cancella-

tions. Some shows didn’t

even get to confirmation be-

cause of these fears. It’s

gonna take a hit, everyone is.”

Festival concerns

So far, not much has

changed for major U.S.

events. Marquee events like

Indio’s Coachella Valley Mu-

sic and Arts Festival, sched-

uled for April 10-12 and 17-19,

have already sold out dates,

and beyond the Korea Times

event, no major U.S. concerts

have been affected yet.

Kim Saruwatari, director

of public health for Riverside

County, in which Indio is lo-

cated, said the county is well

aware of how COVID-19

might affect the festival,

which draws 125,000 fans over

each weekend.

“One of our tasks is to sur-

vey any large event in the

county over the next several

months, and we’ve been

reaching out to organizers to

have conversations. We’re not

ready to pull the trigger on

anything, but we want to

make sure we can protect the

community,” Saruwatari

said.

Dr. Cameron Kaiser, the

health officer for Riverside

County, “has broad authority

to protect public health, and if

he deems that being at the

fest would pose a risk, he has

the authority to shut it down,”

Saruwatari said. But conver-

sations about those risks are

nowhere near that stage yet.

“This virus is changing

day by day, hour by hour,”

Saruwatari said. “We’re

monitoring it very closely. We

don’t have a timeline or cutoff.

We’re going to have conversa-

tions with the organizers and

do our best to give advance

notice, but it’s a fluid situa-

tion.”

This month’s South by

Southwest festival in Austin,

Texas, is already facing calls

for preemptive action, if not

outright cancellation.

Andy Langer, a longtime

“Austin City Limits” radio

host and Texas Monthly writ-

er who covers SXSW, wrote

this week in a widely circu-

lated Facebook post that

“the logistics and optics of 10-

day festival hosting thou-

sands from all corners of the

earth partying it up — even if

guided by an abundance of

caution — puts too many en-

tities at risk. Not just by way

of public health, but in a po-

tentially legally liable/unin-

surable way and places them

potentially sideways with the

almighty court of public opin-

ion.

“Fear is contagious and it

snowballs quickly into an icy

wall of pile-on backlash.”

The Concord record label

group confirmed that it has

canceled a planned SXSW

event over COVID-19 con-

cerns, as have executives for

Twitter, Facebook and Tik

Tok. Ruth Martinez, the sen-

ior vice president for world-

wide human resources at

Concord, said in an email,

“Our decision to cancel our

SXSW Happy Hour is based

on the travel policy that we

put into effect for the entire

company last week. For the

foreseeable future, we are not

permitting our team to travel

internationally and we are

strongly discouraging travel

domestically.”

A change.org petition to

cancel the event completely

has gathered more than

25,000 signatures. Festival of-

ficials said in a statement

that “SXSW is working

closely on a daily basis with

local, state, and federal agen-

cies to plan for a safe event.

As a result of this dialogue

and the recommendations of

Austin Public Health, the

2020 event is proceeding with

safety as a top priority.”

Resilient business

In an earnings call last

week, Live Nation President

Joe Berchtold said that while

“we expect there will be fur-

ther areas of breakouts, we

have seen no pullback in fan

demand outside of the af-

fected areas.” He added that

Live Nation, the country’s

largest concert promoter, has

canceled 17 shows in Asia so

far, and that “attendance is

weighted to the latter part of

year.” The firm has 70 shows

planned in the next three

months in Asia, and 30 in Ita-

ly.

Yet if the virus spreads

more widely in the U.S., or if

fans begin fearing that it

might, that could put the

concert business on edge if it

leads to cancellations or

slowing sales.

“Obviously, we’re going to

be monitoring it closely and

reaching out to affected areas

and governments if it goes on

and on,” said the top concert

industry executive. “It’s our

job to monitor this on a glob-

al, national and regional level

to have steps in place if it

comes to a place where we

have to deal with it. Outdoor

shows are less susceptible,

but it’s a risk for anybody.”

Still, fears of coronavrius

could snowball even if it

doesn’t rise to a pandemic in

the U.S. With some grocery

stores sold out of staple pro-

visions and a nationwide run

on hand sanitizer and face

masks, audiences are clearly

anticipating a long spring

and summer watching the

possible spread of the virus.

Perhaps with precau-

tions, most shows will even-

tually go on as planned in the

U.S. and Europe. “At the end

of the day, the venues will still

be standing and people will

still like music,” Billboard’s

Brooks said. “There’s no rea-

son to think there will be

much long-term damage.

The shootings at Route 91 in

Las Vegas and the Bataclan

in Paris didn’t stop people.”

But if fans avoid crowded

spaces like festivals, or if trav-

el becomes too difficult, this

year could be a blow to a busi-

ness that depends on touring

for its subsistence.

“There’s a lot of conversa-

tion, but until we see what

happens, it’s tough to tell,”

the anonymous concert in-

dustry executive said. “We’re

better prepared than China

was. But man plans, and God

laughs.”

Virus fears sweep concert industry

[Concerts, from E1]

COACHELLAValley Music and Arts Festival, seen in 2019, is scheduled for two sold-out weekends in April. Its plans are as yet unchanged.

Brian van der BrugLos Angeles Times

FANSwear masks at a concert in Thailand, on Feb. 1.

The spread of COVID-19 could cause cancellations.

Mladen AntonovAFP via Getty Images

County declares a

health emergency

The latest on coronavirus

cases in California. A1