Ruth Leon recommends…Liminal – Washington Ballet

Liminal – Washington Ballet  
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Choreographer Stanton Welch is the Artistic Director of the Houston Ballet and recently made his Washington Ballet debut with liminal.

In this work for 16 dancers, Stanton Welch takes inspiration from the meditative qualities of ballet practice. By definition, liminal is the transitional or initial stage of a process. As the cinematic work opens, the camera, unseen, trains on dancers entering the studio, warming up to prepare for class before easing into a powerfully elegant and reflective ballet centred around the rituals of the art form–the repetition, the corrections, the giving and receiving of knowledge.

The three-part, 15-minute work is set to 19th-century French composer Erik Satie’s Trois Gymnopédies, among the most serene and powerfully simple works in the piano repertoire. “The plié, the tendu, the arabesque–those are the ballet building blocks and those are what we’ve missed this past year,” reflects Welch. “Without the lights, the sets and costumes, dancers reveal themselves as individual artists and as human beings; it is poignant and beautiful in its simplicity. liminal celebrates ballet’s essence in a way that reminds me of a stripped-down acoustic set.” Filmed in natural light in The Washington Ballet’s studios at THEARC, liminal, is the newest commissioned work from one of America’s premiere ballet choreographers.

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