It's festival time for Ballet West - and a very special Bon Voyage festival it will be, with two weeks of performance scheduled Sept. 4-21 at the Capitol Theatre.

During that time, Ballet West, zeroing in on its engagement at the John F. Kennedy Center Oct. 8-13, will show the home folks the programs it will dance inWashington, D.C. - a variety program Sept. 4-8 featuring the premiere of "The Age of Anxiety" by John Neumeier, and on Sept. 13-21, the full-length "Anna Karenina" by Andre Prokovsky.

"Recognition in Washington is a very important for us, because it's the center of world ballet right now," said artistic director John Hart. "In the past 10 years, almost every notable company of America, Europe and Russia has appeared at Kennedy. (Few can afford the luxury of a New York season anymore. Houston lost a half million dollars in a week when they went in.)

"The other three times Ballet West has gone to Kennedy, people have been surprised that a regional company could do so well. But this time we go with full acceptance as a national company, to open their dance season. We have come of age, and the company we keep on the 1991-92 dance series proves my point - Russia's Kirov Ballet, American Ballet Theatre, Pacific Northwest Ballet, Dance Theatre of Harlem and the Royal Danish Ballet."

Ballet West necessarily opens its home season early this year, to accommodate both programs and leave time for a little rest before fulfilling its Washington engagement.

Accordingly, the variety program will have performances at 7:30 p.m. Wednesday-Saturday Sept. 4-7, with 2 p.m. matinees Saturday and Sunday, Sept. 7-8.

The centerpiece of this triple bill will be Neumeier's "The Age of Anxiety" with music by Leonard Bernstein, design and costumes by Zack Brown. This piece was underwritten by one of six grants made by the Kennedy Center to American ballet companies, to create works by all-American teams of artists.

The company will also dance Balanchine's "Divertimento No. 15" with music by Mozart, and complete the program with "The Gilded Bat," its popular comedy-adventure of little Maude Splaytoes, choreographed by Peter Anastos with set and costumes by Edward Gorey, music by Peter Golub.

Also on the agenda is the Ballet West Ambassadors' Tribute to Business, including a buffet dinner and private performance for businesses and corporate sponsors, beginning at 5p.m. on Tuesday, Sept. 3. For information call the Ballet, 524-8300.

On Sept. 13-21, the company will revive its full-length "Anna Karenina" by Andre Prokovsky, based on the Tolstoi classic, with musical score assembled from Tchaikovsky sources by Guy Woolfenden. Performances will be nightly Sept. 13, 14 and 18-21, with a Saturday matinee Sept. 21.

Terence Kern will conduct both programs, with the Utah Chamber Orchestra in the pit.

Tickets may now be purchased individually for either or both programs, at prices ranging from $8-$45. Season tickets for 1991-92, beginning at $27, are also on sale in the Ballet West box office, 50 W. Second South, Monday through Saturday, 10 a.m.-6 p.m.

In an interview with the Deseret News last March, when he first worked here, Neumeier discussed his piece, for full company with four soloists. It's built upon the Second Symphony ("The Age of Anxiety") by Bernstein, who in turn was inspired by W. H. Auden's poem of the same name.

"When he wrote this poem, Auden was studying Jung, who divided human psychology into four elements - emotion, intuition, intellect and sensuality. Those are the four main characters of the dance," said Neumeier.

"They are lonely people, gathered in a bar to listen to the news of World War II. (Bars are always popular in wartime, as one character observed.) They look into their lives, remember and interpret their experiences, and take a surrealistic journey through anxiety, into the realm of the subconscious.

"They try to escape themselves through physicality, set to Bernstein's jazzy fifth movement. In an epilogue they emerge into the dawn and breathe the clean air. Young lovers pass by, and you feel a resurgence of spirit. The dance leaves a positive message - that there's always a new day."

Does Neumeier intend his work to convey a meaning? "It has a meaning for me, but each viewer must interpret it for himself," he said.

"This is not a `formula' ballet with pat answers. For me, it embodies a search for faith. These four people come closer, leaning on and looking into each other. They do not entirely succeed in touching, but they have brought each other forward. Each goes his separate way, they have not reached a solution, but at least `the world wasn't destroyed today,' as one Auden character says. And the young start over again."

Neumeier says he's drawn to the sort of ballets that are concerned with human beings in all their possibilities - "not just their physical technique, but their spirits. I see my dancers as individual human beings who say something through both their bodies and souls.

"But you can't convey a message without a form, a language, and choreography is that form. I feel a little akin to the Anthony Tudor of `Pillar of Fire' and `The Lilac Garden,' who used not only gesture, but conveyed the psychological, emotional, spiritual side of his characters.

"My piece interprets events through the individual character and how he relates to the world, and it reflects Tudor technique in that it proceeds through one person to the universal.

"Above all, I wanted to do a ballet that will move and touch people. I like to feel that people watching see something of themselves mirrored in the dance -that by the characters' actions and reactions they might be moved to say, I can relate to that."

Neumeier, a Milwaukee native, didn't expect to make a life in dance. "I studied painting at Marquette," he said. In 1963 he went abroad to dance with the Stuttgart Ballet, then directed the Frankfurt Ballet for four years before going to Hamburg Ballet, which he's directed for 18 years, bringing it to a high degree of recognition and success. Just before he came to Utah, the Hamburg Ballet danced his setting of the Mozart Requiem at Salzburg Music Festival. His works are also to be found in the repertories of American Ballet Theatre, the Royal Danish Ballet and National Ballet of Canada.

In commenting on the ballets of the September festival, artistic director John Hart was clearly viewing them in light of the effect he hopes and expects his company to make in Washington, D.C.

"Our variety program is well balanced for interest and contrast, with a sparkling beginning, a substantial middle piece, and lively, funny closing piece," he said.

"Balanchine's Divertimento No. 15, set on the company by Victoria Simon of the Balanchine Trust, has grown since its company premiere in September 1990. It's a great program opener, and immediately shows off five ballerinas that I'm very proud of - Jane Wood, Erin Leedom, Pamela Robinson, Lisa Lockerd and Wendee Fiedeldey. We've trimmed it up since its premiere, added color, relaxed into it.

"The piece has links with the Maryinsky, Imperial Russian style that Balanchine was trained in, quite different from the way the Bolshoi has evolved. It fostered the individuality of the many dancers who left Russia, appeared with Diaghalev and scattered throughout England and France - dancers like Pavlova, Karsavina, Nijinsky, Danilova and Massine, who often became great choreographers and teachers.

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"So we stress that the dancers move in unison, but with great individuality. Jiang Qi with his classical expertise will be the leading male dancer.

"Washington asked for `The Gilded Bat,' a comic piece that has captured everyone's imagination for its use of Gorey's whimsical black and white style - best known to most people by his sketches for the `Mystery' series on public television. It's a delightful piece that winds up a program stylishly and sends people home happy.'

"Our full-length `Anna' is very important to this run, because it shows the whole company in action, in some very difficult choreography. And Andre Prokovsky is very happy with the improvement of the dancers each time we do it."

"Nothing that we are taking in, including `Anna,' has ever been seen in Washington before," Hart concluded. "I am very pleased with the way the company works together. They all cooperate to put on a show, a performance."

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