March 9, 2022, Santa Fe, NM—
Performance Santa Fe presents Lucy Negro Redux.
A 2019 world premiere by Nashville Ballet Artistic Director Paul Vasterling, Lucy Negro Redux explores the mysterious love life of literary great William Shakespeare through the perspective of the illustrious “Dark Lady” for whom many of his famed sonnets were written. Based on the book by Nashville poet Caroline Randall Williams, this history-making contemporary ballet explores themes of love, otherness, equality, and beauty as the narrator embarks on a journey to discover her own power and worth. Featuring an original score and live music by Grammy Award-winning artist and MacArthur Genius Grant recipient Rhiannon Giddens and spoken word performed by Williams herself, Lucy Negro Redux is an imaginative drama brimming with wit and relevancy.
Nashville Ballet’s production of
Lucy Negro Redux
Conceived & adapted as a ballet by Paul Vasterling
Choreography & direction by Paul Vasterling
Music composed & performed by Rhiannon Giddens & Francesco Turrisi
Spoken word performed by Caroline Randall Williams
Based on the book by Caroline Randall Williams
Sunday, April 3, 2022 at 7:30 pm The Lensic Performing Arts Center
W San Francisco St, Santa Fe, NM 87501
Tickets: $35-$115
$20 Rush Tickets and Student/Family Discounts available. For more information,
visit PerformanceSantaFe.org/box-office-information/.
Order online: PerformanceSantaFe.org
Order by phone: (505) 984-8759 (PSF) | (505) 988-1234 (Lensic)
DISCLAIMER STATEMENT
Nashville Ballet’s production of Lucy Negro Redux is based on the book by Nashville poet Caroline Randall Williams and contains sexually explicit language and references. While children under the age of 18 are not prohibited from attending this performance, it is important that parents and guardians be aware of the nature of thework prior to attending. We strongly encourage that anyone under the age of 18 be accompanied by a parent and/or guardian.
About Lucy Negro Redux
Lucy Negro Redux is an original ballet choreographed by Nashville Ballet’s Artistic Director Paul Vasterling based on Caroline Randall Williams’s book of poetry of the same name. The piece explores the author’s thesis that the “Dark Lady” and the “Fair Youth”— the subjects and inspiration of hundreds of Shakespeare’s love sonnets—were undoubtedly a black woman and a young man, respectively. A non-linear story of two present-day and three historical characters—the author/narrator, a professor, William Shakespeare, Lucy Negro and Fair Youth—is strung together by a score featuring original compositions by Rhiannon Giddens and spoken word from Williams’s book. The ballet explores themes of love, otherness, equality, and beauty. As the piece alternates in time, Elizabethan and present day, we see through dance how relationship themes transcend time. The audience is privy to the exploration of Shakespeare’s romantic connection to both the male Fair Youth and the black Lucy Negro. Ultimately, in experiencing Lucy Negro, the narrator, and thus the audience, finds a powerful female voice.
Nashville Ballet
Since its founding in 1986, Nashville Ballet has grown to become the largest professional ballet company in Tennessee, presenting a varied repertoire of classical ballet and contemporary works by noted choreographers, including original works by Artistic Director Paul Vasterling. Nashville Ballet owns its own building, the Martin Center for Nashville Ballet, a customized 44,000 square foot facility that serves as a home for its professional dancers, school students and administrative offices. Though some performances are held at the Martin Center for Nashville Ballet, most performances are held at the Tennessee Performing Arts Center (TPAC) in downtown Nashville.
Paul Vasterling, Artistic Director, Librettist, Choreographer, and Director
Paul Vasterling’s artistic career began at age 10 when he started studying piano, then expanded at age 16 when he started dancing. From this start, Mr. Vasterling landed at Nashville Ballet where he became a company dancer, teacher, ballet master and choreographer. He stepped into the role of Artistic Director of Nashville Ballet in 1998, 10 years after he began his association with the organization. A choreographer with a deep affinity for music, Mr. Vasterling has created works ranging from classical, full-length story ballets to contemporary one-acts. With a special focus on highlighting the wealth of artistry and rich history of Nashville, Mr. Vasterling’s connection to music and passion for community have led to collaborations with numerous nationally and internationally renowned musicians and institutions, including The Bluebird Cafe, Ben Folds, Rhiannon Giddens, and more; Nashville Ballet has commissioned 22 original scores for brand-new ballets under his direction. With a commitment to cultivating an organization high on artistry and dramatic power, Mr. Vasterling has taken Nashville Ballet across the country and beyond—Nashville Ballet’s company made its Kennedy Center debut in 2017 and has toured throughout the U.S., including performances in St. Louis, Charleston, and a debut at the Chautauqua Institution in August 2018. The company has also toured internationally in South America and Europe. Mr. Vasterling graduated Magna Cum Laude from Loyola University. He is a Fulbright Scholar and has been awarded many prestigious fellowships—Mr. Vasterling is a Virginia Center for the Creative Arts Fellow and was selected as one of the Fellows in residence for the 2017-2018 academic year at The Center for Ballet and the Arts at New York University.
Caroline Randal Williams, Author and Spoken Word Performer
Caroline Randall Williams is a multi-genre writer, educator, and performance artist in Nashville, Tennessee, where she is a writer-in-residence at Vanderbilt University. She is a co-author of the NAACP Image Award-winning cookbook Soul Food Love. Her debut collection of poetry, Lucy Negro, Redux, was turned into a ballet in 2019 by Nashville Ballet’s Artistic Director Paul Vasterling. Caroline performed her poetry as an integral member of the cast, all set to an original score by multi-GRAMMY nominee Rhiannon Giddens. Named by Southern Living as “One of the 50 People Changing the South,” the Cave Canem fellow has been published and featured in multiple journals, essay collections, and news outlets, including The Iowa Review, The Massachusetts Review, CherryBombe, Garden and Gun, Essence, and The New York Times. Most recently, she was ranked by The Root as one of the 100 most influential African Americans of 2020.
Rhiannon Giddens, Composer
Acclaimed musician Rhiannon Giddens uses her art to excavate the past and reveal bold truths about our present. A MacArthur “Genius Grant” recipient, Giddens co-founded the GRAMMY Award-winning Carolina Chocolate Drops and has been nominated for six additional GRAMMYS for her work as a soloist and collaborator. She was most recently nominated for her collaboration with multi-instrumentalist Francesco Turrisi, there is no Other(2019). Giddens’s latest album, They’re Calling Me Home, is a twelve-track album, recorded with Turrisi in Ireland during the COVID-19 lockdown and speaks of the longing for the comfort of home as well as the metaphorical “call home” of death, which was a tragic reality for so many during the COVID-19 crisis. Named Artistic Director of Silkroad in 2020, Giddens also recently wrote the music for an original opera, Omar, based on the autobiography of the enslaved man Omar Ibn Said for the Spoleto USA Festival, which will premiere in 2022. She is also a member of the band Our Native Daughters with three other black female banjo players, Leyla McCalla, Allison Russell, and Amythyst Kiah, and co-produced their debut album Songs of Our Native Daughters (2019), which tells stories of historic black womanhood and survival. As an actor, Giddens had a featured role on the television series Nashville.
Fransisco Turrisi, Co-Composer
Blending elements of jazz, early, and world music, this “musical alchemist” (The Irish Times) seamlessly blends genres to create ancient melodies and rhythms through a contemporary jazz prism. Francesco Turrisi has collaborated with a wide range of artists in jazz, world, and early music such as Bobby McFerrin, Dave Liebman, Gianluigi Trovesi, Nils Landgren, Wolfgang Muthspiel, Barry Guy, Gabriele Mirabassi, Savina Yannatou, Maria Pia de Vito, Theodosii Spassov, Gavin Bryars, Bang on a Can, Misia, The King’s Singers, Veronique Gens, Philippe Jaroussky, Pepe el Habichuela, Lucilla Galeazzi, and Bijan Chemirani.
Doug Fitch, Costume, Scenic and Prop Designer
Visual artist, designer, and director Doug Fitch created several productions with the New York Philharmonic, including Ligeti’s Le Grand Macabre, Janáček’s The Cunning Little, A Dancer’s Dream and HK Gruber’s Gloria—A Pig Tale. He has created major productions for the Los Angeles Opera, Los Angeles Philharmonic, Santa Fe Opera and the Royal Stockholm Philharmonic Orchestra, and for Bard’ SummerScape Festival. Mr. Fitch is a cofounder of Giants Are Small, which in co-production with Universal Music and Deutsche Grammophon, developed Peter and the Wolf in Hollywood, an iPad app, CD and digital album featuring Alice Cooper as narrator and the German National Youth Orchestra. Recent projects include the premiere of the opera 6/20/Outrageous by Daniel Thomas Davis at Symphony Space and Pan, created in collaboration with Marcos Balter and Claire Chase at The Kitchen. Mr. Fitch resides in Brooklyn, New York.
Press inquiries: Helen Pinch | hpinch@performancesantafe.org | (505) 984-8759 Tickets or general questions: Jane Trembley | jane@performancesantafe.org | (505) 984-8759
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Performance Santa Fe presents world-class music, dance, and theatre, and provides excellent performing arts education for our community.
For more information, visit www.performancesantafe.org or call (505) 984-8759.