BLUE SUEDE SHOES
Dennis Nahat’s BLUE SUEDE SHOES combines classical dance with classic rock in a one-act ballet danced to 36 master recordings of Elvis Presley's greatest hits. The $1.2 million production features 280 lavish costumes and 16 sets by award-winning designer Bob Mackie.

The story opens in 1950s "Anytown" USA and mirrors birth of rock 'n' roll through several incidents in Elvis Presley’s life. The story is built around three high school buddies who are nearing graduation. We follow them from school to the Hot Dog Drive-In to a farewell party before they are inducted into the army. Once stationed in Germany, the boys are separated. One loses his girlfriend while away; another boy learns that his mother has died; the third searches for friendship, but finds himself very much alone. Returning home from the service, the boys discover that life has changed dramatically. They are reunited and set out to celebrate at a local nightclub. A fight ensues over an old high school beauty and the boys end up in jail. Once released, all of the characters from their lives join them in the big finale as they go off to seek fame and fortune and the American Dream...each wearing a pair of blue suede shoes.

BAKERS DOZEN
First performed in February of 1979, this dance for twelve individual dancers (initially presented as six mated couples) contrasts sharply, in its serenity and simplicity, with the extravagance and free-for-all form that distinguishes the dances of choreographer Twyla Tharp.

Baker's Dozen takes its audience, by way of its satiny smooth jazz music, to a "palm court" space where afternoon social dancing happens with utter ease and inevitability, touched throughout by gentle physical eccentricities, dancers clambering up on other dancers, dancers held upside-down or other "indecorous" positions.

Dressed in smoothly shaped, silky cream clothes--based on afternoon dresses for the women and semi-formals for the men--the dancers slip into and out of view in an ever-evolving combination of numbers.

Tharp has likened her chosen groupings to "an ancient game of jacks": four trios, three quartets, two sextets. Eventually a harmonious and communal twelvesome emerges, all by way of bringing into prominence, one after another, each of the twelve dancers soloing apart from the eleven-dancer fold. In its romantically inclined couplings, its wittily eccentric partnerings, and its finely calibrated unison work, the satiny smooth dance aims to conjure world of living social graces and personal rapport. Since its beginnings, the dance has held the public's attention as a special Tharp classic, mixing together nostalgic and contemporary emotions.

MEET THE CREATOR OF “BLUE SUEDE SHOES”
Artistic/Executive Director Dennis Nahat Appears One Hour Before Curtain of Every Performance in The Ridder Lounge of Center for the Performing Arts. This is a FREE event.

You are invited to meet the creator of BLUE SUEDE SHOES one hour before each performance in the Ridder Lounge of the Center for the Performing Arts.

Mr. Nahat will talk about the creation of the piece, what inspired him, what it was like to work with Bob Mackie, Priscilla Presley and the Presley Estate... how he choose the songs... and why BLUE SUEDE SHOES is the Company’s most requested work. Mr. Nahat will also take questions from the audience. He is a great storyteller and you can be sure you will enjoy the ballet performance all the more for having spent some time with the choreographer beforehand.

BLUE SUEDE SHOES
Choreography: DENNIS NAHAT
Music: ELVIS PRESLEY
Additional Musical arrangements: BILL ROSS
Costumes and Scenery: BOB MACKIE
Lighting: KENNETH KEITH

BAKER'S DOZEN
Choreography: TWYLA THARP
Music: WILLIE "THE LION" SMITH
Costumes: SANTO LOQUASTO
Lighting: JENNIFER TIPTON

PERFORMANCE INFORMATION & PURCHASE TICKETS

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