by Eileen Yanoviak of Burnaway.org
In April 2015, the then relatively new Louisville Ballet director Robert Curran initiated a series of collaborations with Louisville artists to produce scenery and costumes for ballet productions. Artists, with little or no background in theater, were faced with such tasks as reimagining classics like Swan Lake or bringing to fruition a world premiere of How They Fade. For Curran and the artists, choreographers, and dancers involved, these projects entail creative conflict, discomfort, and experimentation to generate visual experiences that defy our expectations of ballet.
The sixth such collaboration, Human Abstract, appearing February 22-26, provides the ideal scenario for Curran, choreographer Lucas Jervies, and artists Andrew Cozzens, Tiffany Carbonneau, and Ezra Kellerman to respond to the potential of creative conflict, because the ballet is itself about the complexity of human emotion and love.