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a female dancer kicking one leg behind her facing a male dancer who is looking back at her

Repertory

N.Y. Export: Opus Jazz

COMPANIES

CHOREOGRAPHER

COMPANY PREMIERE

New York City Center, 1993

WORLD PREMIERE

Spoleto, Italy, 1958

ASSISTANT(S) TO CHOREOGRAPHER

Wilma Curley and Edward Verso

MUSIC

Robert Prince

DÉCOR

Ben Shahn

COSTUMES

Ben Shahn and Florence Klotz

LIGHTING

Jennifer Tipton

RUN TIME

25 Minutes

N.Y. Export: Opus Jazz is a timeless piece that captured the mood of urban America in the late 1950s, incorporating the symbolic rhythms of vernacular dance into the formal structures of ballet. When Jerome Robbins created the work in 1958 for the first Festival of Two Worlds in Spoleto, Italy, the ballet was a sensation, with choreographers around the world imitating Robbins' finger-snapping, jazz-propelled dances. In 1993, Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater became the first modern dance company permitted by Robbins to perform the work. 

Elizabeth Roxas, Andre Tyson in N.Y. Export, Op. Jazz

Elizabeth Roxas and Andre Tyson in Jerome Robbins' N.Y. Export: Opus Jazz Photo by Jack Mitchell

The Company in N.Y. Export, Op. Jazz

Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater in Jerome Robbins' N.Y. Export: Opus Jazz Photo by Jack Mitchell

Danna Hash, Dwight Rhoden in N.Y. Export, Op. Jazz

Danna Hash and Dwight Rhoden in Jerome Robbins' N.Y. Export: Opus Jazz Photo by Jack Mitchell