Happy Feet

Get some happy feet at the Santa Clarita Symphony’s concert of dance music on May 20 at 7pm.  No dancing required!

Gabriel Faure will give us a suite of early 20th Century neo-classical versions of European dances in Masques et Bergamasques. French Romantic Saint-Saens gives us a diabolical devil-dance in Danse Macabre. Before it was danced by ostriches, alligators and hippopotamus in Disney’s Fantasia, The Dance of the Hours was performed by ballerinas in Ponchielli’s opera La Gioconda. 

Don’t worry, the entire concert won’t be relentlessly peppy: we will play Sibelius’ longingly beautiful Valse Triste and then feature Tchaikovsky’s take on the form with his thrilling waltz from Swan Lake. Let’s exchange our tutus for kilts in Debussy’s French impressionist take on a Scotch dance in his Marche Ecossaise. And quirky master of modernity Stravinsky gives us a circus clown’s take -- caricatures, really -- of several of the dance forms that we featured earlier in his comical Suite #2.

ALSO, a surprise encore: all we can tell you is that for this one, we’ll need to exchange our toe shoes for cowboy boots.

Program:

Fauré: Masques et Bergamasques

Debussy: Marche Écossaise

Sibelius:  Valse Triste

Tchaikovsky:  Swan Lake Waltz

Saint-Saëns:  Danse Macabre

Ponchielli:  Dance of the Hours

Stravinsky:  Suite# 2