January 27-February 2, 2005

artpicks

Songs of Experience

Photo By: paul kolnik

Pennsylvania Ballet's swooping around to Frank Sinatra's mellow tones this week at the Merriam. Twyla Tharp's luscious Nine Sinatra Songs, a suite for seven couples dancing to Old Blue Eyes' greatest hits ranging from "My Way" to "Strangers in the Night," is the headliner as well as the first Tharp choreography to enter the PAB rep. Tharp's genius for mixing genres (ballet, Broadway, ballroom — you name it) shares the program with dances by two other innovators, Peter Martin, artistic director of New York City Ballet, and PAB's own Matthew Neenan, who's world premiering a new dance.

Don't think Viennese with Martin's The Waltz Project. It's a modern work mixing ballet with unexpectedly acrobatic stuff, as Martin likes to do, with new music by Robert Helps and Philadelphia's Robert Moran. It was staged for PAB by Russell Kaiser, New York City Ballet assistant ballet master and PAB artistic director Roy Kaiser's brother (the dance world's like that). Neenan's a busy young choreographer, creating for his own experimental Phrenic New Ballet while welcoming opportunities to choreograph for PAB, where he's a corps dancer. For his PAB cohorts, Neenan's created 11:11, inspired by the music of singer-songwriter Rufus Wainwright. Costumes come from Martha Chamberlain, a fine PAB principal dancer when she's not busy creating beautiful, body-friendly dance togs for onstage and off.

Pennsylvania Ballet, Wed.-Sat., Feb. 2-5, 8 p.m., and Sat.-Sun., Feb. 5-6, 2 p.m., $18.50-$70.50, Merriam Theater, 250 S. Broad St., 215-336-2000.

—Janet Anderson

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