Atlanta Ballet creates a new rite for Spring, rioting optional

The Atlanta Ballet previews work from “Fusion” to play March 25-27

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  • Andrew Alexander
  • The Atlanta Ballet previews pieces from its mixed program “Fusion.”

When the ballet Rite of Spring premiered in Paris in 1913, it caused a riot. Things were much calmer last night at the Atlanta Ballet’s headquarters as patrons took a first glimpse at young British choreographer Christopher Hampson’s new work set to Stravinsky’s famous score. Hampson has stripped the number of dancers down to three (the original depicted a tribal fertility rite), but he’s clearly kept its intense, primal underpinnings firmly in place. The audience saw the beginning of the ballet as two male dancers, brothers, awaken. Moves were full of tension, struggle, and sublimated anger and eroticism which seemed just on the verge of erupting into violence. The finished work will involve a third dancer, a woman, and big sloping ramps on stage, enabling all sorts of cool lifts and stunts.