THE Dance OF THE Heart

By Brittany Nay

Saint Louis Ballet’s beloved Valentine’s Day celebration returns with a powerful weekend of love-inspired performances – “Do It For Love” –running from Friday, Feb. 10 to Sunday, Feb. 12. LN recently spoke with esteemed director Gen Horiuchi about the annual February repertory program, to be staged for the first time at the new, state-of-the-art 530-seat Kirkwood Performing Arts Center.

Describe your company’s inspiration behind “Do It For Love.”

We started this Valentine’s Day weekend series in 2014. A lot of ballets have a theme around love, so we thought it would be good to present those ballets during Valentine’s Day weekend. We always come up with a different catchy phrase – hence, this year’s “Do It For Love.”

What makes this show a must-see for Valentine’s Day?

The show will feature three ballets around the ‘love’ theme, so it’s a good opportunity for a date night or a family get-together for the evening. With evening shows on Friday and Saturday, [as well as] Sunday afternoon, at Kirkwood Performing Arts Center for the first time, people can go out afterwards in downtown Kirkwood, which has quite a few restaurants.

What can attendees expect from the performances?

We will be presenting three pieces: “Allegro Brilliante” set to music by Tchaikovsky and choreographed by George Balanchine, founder and artistic director of the New York City Ballet for many years. He’s one of the greatest master choreographers of the 20th century, and I was one of the last dancers to be able to work with him, so I almost feel like it’s part of my mission to continue presenting his work with my company. We performed this piece about

12 years ago and our dancers have changed, so we thought it would be a good challenge for us.

Another piece we will perform is choreographed by Amy Seiwert, a San Francisco Bay area-based choreographer, considered a top-five sought-after female choreographer, so we are very excited to work with her. Her piece, “By Any Other Name,” with music by J.S. Bach, is a very joyful and playful work, with original costumes and good humor in it – a perfect piece for a Valentine’s Day-themed series.

We will present one more piece that I wrote, with commissioned music by Japanese composer Toya from New York. We worked together two years ago and decided to do a second collaboration from scratch.

All three of these pieces give audiences something different – a Balanchine neoclassical piece; a work from one of today’s top contemporary choreographers, Amy Seiwert; and a St. Louis original.

What will be unique about these performances?

Our dancers are coming from all over the country. We have 21 company members, and we also started a professional training program this past September that was selected nationwide. Several post-highschool graduates also will perform in my piece. So, with these three performances, we are presenting the top-quality professional dancers of this community. ln

Saint Louis Ballet, 218 THF Blvd., Chesterfield, 636-537-1998, stlouisballet.org

Saint Louis Ballet’s “Do It For Love”

WHEN: Feb. 10 and 11 at 7:30 p.m.; Feb. 12 at 3:30 p.m.

WHERE: Kirkwood Performing Arts Center, 210 E. Monroe Ave., Kirkwood

TICKETS: $29 to $55 at metrotix.com, 314-534-1111