Joffrey has created a rare, new story
It was in 2013, with the addition of Stanton Welch’s “La Bayadere” and Lar Lubovitch’s “Othello” to the repertoire of the Joffrey Ballet, that I began to notice a concerted effort to build the company’s collection of fulllength narrative ballets. Next came stagings of Christopher Wheeldon’s “Swan Lake” (refreshed again last fall) and Krzysztof Pastor’s “Romeo and Juliet” in 2014, a remount of Sir Frederick Ashton’s “Cinderella” in 2016 and “Giselle,” in 2017. And of course, there was the ambitious new Wheeldon “Nutcracker,” launched in 2016 after nearly three decades performing founder Robert Joffrey’s stalwart.
But what I didn’t then know was that, the whole time, Joffrey was planning for the world premiere of a brand new ballet of its own, “Anna Karenina,” with choreography by Yuri Possokhov. “Anna Karenina” opens Feb. 13 for 10 performances at the Auditorium Theatre.
It was about seven years ago that artistic director Ashley Wheater first approached Possokhov about creating “Anna Karenina,” based on the iconic 1878 novel by Leo Tolstoy.
It’s not the company’s first encounter with Possokhov, whose brilliant performance career with the Bolshoi and Royal Danish Ballet is now complemented by an impressive choreographic
resume. Possokhov and Wheater first met at the San Francisco Ballet, where Possokhov is currently choreographer-in-residence and Wheater was associate artistic director under Helgi Tomasson prior to his move to Joffrey in 2007.
Possokhov created two works for the company in 2011: an abstract group work called “Bells” and the company’s first-ever production of “Don Quixote,” and has since set his “RAkU” and created a shorter narrative ballet called “The Miraculous Mandarin.” But why embark on such a huge undertaking here, and not at his choreographic home with the San Francisco Ballet? For Possokhov, it was pretty simple: “San Francisco didn’t ask me,” he said in an interview with the Tribune. “Ashley Wheater is very smart. He knows the taste of the audience, and he knows what’s important to ‘now.’”
“We’ve picked up a need, which is for these beautiful story ballets, because people love them,” said Wheater. “What we’re hoping is that the people in Chicago are getting a really broad quality and depth of what the artform is able to do.”
As a young dancer, Wheater performed a version of “Anna Karenina” in the ’80s with David McAllister, now artistic director of the Australian Ballet, who is splitting the cost with Joffrey fifty-fifty. The Australian Ballet will premiere “Anna Karenina” in Melbourne in May 2020. “It’s a huge full circle of 40 years,” said Wheater, but the artistic team feels the project came together quite quickly.
“It’s the quickest we’ve ever completed a ballet,” said ballet master Suzanne Lopez in an interview. “The company’s familiar with [Possokhov], and it was nice to just come into the studio and start. Everyone loves being in the room with him.”
“Bells” was the first time leading dancer Victoria Jaiani worked with Possokhov, of which the duet created for her and her husband, Temur Suluashvili, has been frequently performed ever since. For Jaiani, “Bells” was a dream come true. In an interview, she recalled
“To work with this company, it’s — I don’t want to say easy — but it’s such an organic way to work.” Yuri Possokhov, choreographer
stooping on the stairs of her local opera house in the Republic of Georgia in the ’90s, as a kid watching Possokhov dance as part of a tour highlighting ballet stars from around the world.
After the performance, fans lined up for autographs with the stars, and Jaiani, not satisfied with just one signature from Possokhov, ran back to the end of the line to get another. “To me, he was the god of dance,” she said. “I’ve never seen anyone jump higher or be freer on stage.” So when, more than a decade later, Wheater announced Possokhov would be creating a work on the Joffrey, Jaiani recalls it feeling beyond a dream come true. “It’s something that I wouldn’t have even dreamed about,” she said.
Now, Jaiani will dance the title role in Possokhov’s “Anna Karenina,” a ballet uniquely suited to her deep well of technical talent and penchant for passionate