Lincoln Jones, Serendipitous Moves

Talk about the marriage of music and dance! Following in the footsteps of George Balanchine, whose works with Igor Stravinsky stretched across decades, Lincoln Jones, artistic director and choreographer of American Contemporary Ballet, continues the tradition when his company dances the world premiere of “The Euterpides.” Performed June 5-28 on a soundstage at the famed Television City in the Fairfax District of Los Angeles, the commissioned ballet was composed by former child prodigy, Alma Deutscher, who turned 20 in February, and who will also conduct a 17-piece ensemble for the first two performances.

American Contemporary Ballet in “The Euterpides” by Lincoln Jones. Photograph by Norman Jean Roy

Indeed, Jones, who recently turned 50, since founding American Contemporary Ballet in 2011 with Theresa Farrell (he’s been the sole director since 2020), has been on a mission to, not only use live music for every performance, but also expand the ballet audience in Los Angeles - no easy feat. Growing up in Fullerton, CA, Jones took his first ballet class when he was 19, and went on to dance with South Carolina’s City Ballet before moving to New York, where he performed with the Metropolitan Opera Ballet and also formed the first iteration of ACB in 2004.

But decamping for Los Angeles has proven to be auspicious for Jones, a Balanchine devotee: He has since choreographed some 40 ballets, including his own imagining of the fourth act of Mr. B.’s plotless 1967 work, “Jewels,” the result being, “Sapphires” (2024), set to the music of Arnold Schoenberg; “Burlesque” (2018), a post-modern rendering of the art form made famous by strippers such as Sally Rand and Gypsy Rose Lee, featured a commissioned score by Charles Wuorinen; and for his stunningly toxic, “The Rite” (2023) Jones’ ballet noir made use of Stravinsky’s “Le Sacre du Printemps,” replete with a Chosen One and 10 veiled maidens.

With some 23 dancers, ranging in age from 18 to 30, and who work 36-38 weeks a year, where, then, can balletomanes find this compellingly original dance troupe? Peripatetic, ACB has, over the years, made use of a number of locations, including the 32nd floor of a downtown high-rise, a warehouse in L.A.’s mid-Wilshire area, and the Bank of America Plaza, studios, essentially, where every effort is seen, every toe shoe squeak and landing heard. And, when donated studio space is counted, ACB’s annual budget is about $2.5 million, without that, it’s $1.5 million.

Fjord Review caught up with the fiendishly busy Jones, who was putting the finishing touches to “The Euterpides.” Topics ranged from his latest choreography and dedication to live music, to what he looks for in a dancer and how he’s striving to make the art of ballet more relevant.

Lincoln Jones, artistic director of American Contemporary Ballet. Photograph by Victor Demarchelier

So, how does a boy from Fullerton, CA, end up having an acclaimed dance company in Los Angeles?

Very early on I was fascinated by things like gymnastics. I would watch movies of [Olympic gold medalist] Nadia Comaneci over and over. I would always imagine things, and move around to the music. It would generate images in my head, but I had no thought I could be in ballet. That seemed so far from my world.

As a kid I was pretty uncoordinated and wasn’t really good at sports. I do remember that I was in musicals as a kid, but I was a singer, and always the worst dancer. It wasn’t until college where I could take ballet as an elective, then somebody said, ‘You could do this as a career,’ and it blew me away.

Fast forward, and you’d been living in New York. Why then, did you move to Los Angeles, and how did Theresa Farrell’s leaving ACB affect you?

I love L.A. I grew up in this area. It was two things: I wanted to be here artistically because of the film industry, and I thought there were a lot of talented people doing work I thought was interesting. Also, it was a tremendous opportunity to bring ballet to the world, because L.A. was the last major city to not have a history of ballet.

As for Theresa, it was a big change. We were both pretty young—she was 18 when she started working with me, I was 28. We were both very passionate people and there was a lot we saw eye to eye on, but then there were creative tensions. Most people I knew who founded companies were surprised it lasted that long. It was a big change, but a lot of companies go through something like that.

You’re obviously very goal-oriented, but having live music at every performance is so out of reach for most dance companies. Why is this important for you?

It feels like it’s so obvious that it’s almost hard to explain. We wouldn’t have a live band and recorded dance! That’s essentially the same thing. And live music also sounds totally different. If it’s not live, there is no interacting, so for all the reasons you go to see a live performance, it also makes a huge difference to the dancers. For me, a lot of art is about connecting with people. The more digital you make it, the less it becomes a part of that human interaction.

Taylor Berwick and Mate Szentes in rehearsal. Photograph by Anastasia Petukhova

Why did you decide to reject proscenium stages, how many spaces has ACB danced in thus far, which also begs the questions, would you like a permanent home, and is it hard on the dancers being so up close and personal with the audience?

From the beginning, it was just how I liked seeing dance. In the studio, there’s no proscenium, so it felt more exciting, more three-dimensional, more intimate, and yet, more grand. Everything we’ve ever produced has been in a studio, and we’ve been in 10 different spaces over the years.

Yes, we would like a permanent home, because you can tailor-make everything. Is it harder on the dancers? Yes, but not necessarily emotionally. I think they like having the people there, and it’s not just about the mistakes. One of the things in ballet is the ease with which you’re presenting it—is there any tension in the face? It’s like film acting versus stage acting.

That’s a great analogy, Lincoln. Now, let’s talk about “The Euterpides.” What was its genesis, and how did you come to collaborate with Alma Deutscher, a former child prodigy—a violinist/pianist/composer/conductor who scored her first opera at 10, and whom maestro Zubin Mehta called, “One of the greatest musical talents of today.”

Alma is a combination of genuine genius and a method that was used to train the great musicians like Vivaldi and Mozart. I had heard about her, and a journalist put me in touch with her dad, [linguist] Guy Deutscher, and I wondered if she’d be interested in writing a ballet. She loves dancing—she lives in Vienna now—and takes part in big balls.

Her dad arranged a Zoom session and we talked generally about working together, but when I got the go-ahead to do “Serenade” from the George Balanchine Trust, it left me with space for a new ballet. This was in February, so I wrote to Alma and asked if she could do a 12-minute ballet in this short amount of time. Over the process it ended up being 20 minutes.

Wow! That’s impressive. So, what’s the ballet about?

The idea I ended up landing on was that there’s the ancient Greek muse of music, Euterpe. The Greeks personified everything, and had a god or goddess that represented elements of nature, [so] I thought the daughters of music—Harmonia (harmony), Syncopē (syncopation), Auxania (crescendo), could work. I wrote to Alma with a list of 14 Euterpides, “ides” in ancient Greek means descendants of, and there weren’t any, so I made up extensions of the myth.

Then, when I was thinking about what makes great dance music—and it was her first ballet—I thought of Delibes, Stravinsky, Tchaikovsky, and what elements I thought made up great dance music. I told her to choose five goddesses that will be in the ballet. She did, and from there we started talking about what form the ballet would take. The idea became that we could open with a theme and variations, with all the goddesses and each of their variations based on the particular musical element they represent.

American Contemporary Ballet in “Sapphires” by Lincoln Jones. Photograph by Anastasia Petukhova

In this case, it might be cool to say that one of the Euterpides—if we actually looked a tad outside of music—could be called “Serendipity,” since this ballet somehow seems to have a great karmic destiny. That aside, though, what is your approach to choreography: music, steps, or concept first, with your latest combining all three—and what about research?

All those things can come into play, but music first is generally the answer. With something like, “The Euterpides,” I was approaching the composer with an idea. And there can be a tremendous amount of research. As for specific research, when we talked about “Euterpides,” there was a lot of thinking involved: How does this theme get brought forward in a ballet to take advantage of this idea?

I like developing choreography ahead of time; getting in the studio with the dancers is the last step. I’ll try something on a dancer and if it doesn’t look like I want it to, I’m not going back to the drawing board, but I make sure the idea works in a visual way that I had hoped.

What do you look for in a dancer?

I look for a number of things: musicality, an interest in lifelong development, a willingness. Certain dancers that are affected more by the music and their desire to move other than their desire to execute things perfectly, or not having a fear of making mistakes. I really like that. I would rather have a dancer that’s compelling more than perfect.

Our company is pretty tall, and a longer limb moves more in space, like having a loud voice in an opera singer. They also have to have a pretty strong technique to execute the Balanchine stuff, and I look for a certain sense of glamour. I also look for dancers that really want to do the kind of work we’re doing. It’s important that they’re being fulfilled. Once the company is larger, I can see bringing in a broader range [of dancers]. But the smaller the company is, the tighter aesthetically it has to be in different groupings.

How many performances a year do you give, and what are your criteria for programming?

We give between 60-70 performances a year, and my criteria is that I try to do a variety of things both for the audience and for the dancers. I try to connect it to things that they know. Usually, in October, I give them some gothic horror, something macabre, Halloween-oriented. People like to celebrate that.

“Nutcracker” is a given, and in the spring often times we’ll do something like “Jazz” [Gatsby-esque flappers on pointe with a nine-piece band and two comedians], and then in the summer we do a big Balanchine ballet. A nice, big classical one along with “Nutcracker.”

There’s classical use of the body throughout the entire year and I’m also sprinkling in new ballets. It’s a variety and an interest in things I like. I came to ballet late, [so] I have a little bit of a sense of what it’s like for an audience who doesn’t do ballet and how to speak that language.

American Contemporary Ballet in “Homecoming.” Photograph by Frank Ockenfels

Speaking of the balletic language, Lincoln, how have you tried to make ballet more relevant, since dance is a hard sell in L.A.?

In a number of ways: One is concepts and themes that people will resonate with today. “Homecoming” or “Jazz” are two types of music and ideas that a lot of people have personal attachment to or experience with. Also, there’s a focus on dancing. What I mean by that is, it’s entirely possible to do ballet without dancing—you can make the shapes, the poses, the balances, without having a sense of rhythm and dance behind it.

You see someone executing a routine like you might see in figure skating or gymnastics—they flip, they lift their arms, but real dance is universal. Astaire proved that. He was entirely driven by the music; he made a physical representation of the music that they could feel. Everybody viscerally understands dance. Everybody has some song that makes them want to move. As long as you’re speaking that language, people get it.

It’s just a hard language to speak. Dance is mostly a spontaneously impulsive, improvisatory thing you can do, [but] to slow that down and make a composition—that has a lot of risk.

And you’re nothing, if not a risk-taker. So, why hasn’t ACB toured, and will it in the future, because ballets like, “Homecoming,” an immersive work that revisits high school days, brimming with cheerleaders, a drill team and a marching band, one that I might also dub the world’s first—and only—“popcorn” ballet, would certainly score big on the road?

L.A. does not have this big history with ballet. There’s a huge, huge audience here. If you’re in a smaller city that doesn’t have the audience to support a lot of performances, it makes sense to tour. For us, there’s a lot of people who haven’t seen ballet in L.A., and I want to make this a big part of peoples’ lives here.

One of the things we did this year for the first time was multiple repertory programs. “Jazz” and “Homecoming” in the spring, in October, it’s “The Rite” or “Inferno” [inspired by Dante’s “Divine Comedy”] with “Burlesque.” My goal is like the way going to the movies used to be. “I want to go to ballet tonight,” and you pick what you want to see. It’s affordable, and you see dancers perform different things. At the same time, ACB does something entirely unique; it’s not a rote performance.

There’s a large untapped audience for this kind of dance that hasn’t seen us. Dance, concert dance, I would say, is not a major part of our culture now, but it can be. Tickets are expensive and it’s hard to know you want to commit three hours of your night, six months from now. But we have enough performances that you can go to, show up and not break the bank.

And after certain shows—“Jazz” or “Homecoming”—and seeing a bunch of dance, it’s the natural thing that you want to get up and dance, which we invite you to do, and not just go to the parking lot!

Victoria Looseleaf

Victoria Looseleaf is an award-winning, Los Angeles-based international arts journalist who covers music and dance festivals around the world. Among the many publications she has contributed to are the Los Angeles Times, the New York Times, Dance Magazine and KCET’s Artbound. In addition, she taught dance history at USC and Santa Monica College. Looseleaf’s novella-in-verse, Isn't It Rich? is available from Amazon, and and her latest book, Russ & Iggy’s Art Alphabet with illustrations by JT Steiny, was recently published by Red Sky Presents. Looseleaf can be reached through X, Facebook, Instagram and Linked In, as well as at her online arts magazine ArtNowLA.

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