Music in motion: For the first time, the music festival tiptoes into the world of ballet

By Fred Crafts of The Register-Guard.

There's nothing like lilting music by J.S. Bach to keep Eugene Ballet choreographer Toni Pimble in a playful mood while she creates two new ballets this summer.

"It's such wonderful music to choreograph to. There's a simplicity to it, yet it is complex in its layout and layering," the Eugene Ballet choreographer and artistic director says. "It gives you a lot as a choreographer to play with."

Pimble has been preparing seven members of her company - Juan Carlos Amy-Cordero, Jonathan Guise, Petr Orlov, Neysa Fulsome, Stephanie Parker, Phyllis Rothwell Armes and Frank Affrunti (who returns to the company after a stint with Charleston Ballet Theatre) - for the premiere of two new ballets at the Oregon Bach Festival on Friday.

The festival commissioned Pimble to create ballets to Bach's Concerto in D Major for Three Violins and Orchestra (BWV 1064) and his Orchestral Suite No. 1 in C Major (BWV 1066).

Both will be performed with the festival chamber orchestra, led by concertmaster Kathleen Lenski.

The project is the brainchild of the festival's founding executive director, Royce Saltzman.

"I wanted very much to try to do this because I've always felt - based on Helmuth (Rilling) saying that so much of Bach's music is so usable - we should try to do this."

Although the festival has had dance components before, never before has it commissioned a ballet. Or two.

The orchestra will open the concert by itself, playing Bach's Orchestral Suite No. 2 in B Minor (BWV 1067) with flautist Leslie Newman, followed by Concerto in C Minor for Oboe, Violin and Harpsichord (BWV 1060) with oboist Allan Vogel.

During intermission, the chamber orchestra will move to the rear of the stage, where it will perform behind a scrim - a sheer curtain - while the dancers are out front on a bare stage. 

First up for Pimble will be the three-movement violin concerto, featuring violinists Kathleen Lenski, Elizabeth Baker and Jacqueline Brand.

"I'm going to work that piece as a piece that's pure dance," Pimble says. "The first movement is going to involve the whole company - introducing everyone, as it were. The second movement is a quintet, with three women and two guys. The finale is the whole company. It's very joyous, very lively."

The second work - a jaunty, multi-movement orchestral suite - begins with an overture played by the orchestra. Then, the dancers will return for the brief remaining sections: Courante, Gavotte, Forlane, Menuett, Bourree and Passepied.

Each movement will be performed by one or two dancers, with references to paintings of the period, just because Pimble "thought that would be fun."

Because the ballets will be in contemporary style, the dancers will be dressed in loose-fitting clothing, adorned with miscellaneous costume pieces (turbans, scarves, etc.) suggested by the famous paintings.

Assembling these two works has been a logistical challenge. Pimble conceived her ballets at home in Eugene but rehearsed them in the company's studios in Boise, beginning June 24.

Meantime, concertmaster Lenski worked up the orchestral parts at her home in Morro Bay, Calif., then shipped them around the world to musicians who will begin working with the dancers just this week.

To hold these parts together, all hands have been referring to Rilling's recordings of the works for style pointers.

Lenski, who will conduct the orchestra from her violin stand, says she will "stick to the tempos in Helmuth's recordings and to the timing for ends of phrases and that sort of thing. The dancers are using those recordings to prepare their dance.

"When we come together at the last minute (this week), we have at least that much in common to start with. And then we'll just have to play it by ear and see how it goes at the rehearsals."

Pimble appreciates this kind of artistic freedom, because it reflects the freedom she finds in Bach's music.

"I've been sitting here working on the violin concerto and mapping it out a little bit,'' Pimble says. "I do a little map on the computer where I write down phrases so that I have a reference point. But you could actually interpret the phrasing many different ways. That, in a sense, gives you a great deal of freedom, choreographically.''

By freedom, Pimble means ``the phrases of music are not so specific that you feel choreographically that you have to end at a specific time. There's so much layering that goes on, where he's written one phrase, then he adds another phrase on top of that, then he adds another phrase on top of that.

"These long, arching lines of solo instruments above repetitive orchestral music are really pretty.''

And very dancelike, she says, in their playful, joyful, skipping, happy, energetic way.

"Bach just rolls along," she says. "That's really wonderful."