Pittsburgh Ballet Theatre

Light Reflections, Part 4

pghballet — Wed, 16 Dec 2009 15:47:19 +0000

When we first started the Light project I was nervous about how this ballet could possibly represent the Holocaust in a way that would not demean it. As soon as I started working with Stephen Mills all my fears disappeared. I could see how much thought he had put into how this would unfold, and I appreciated that it was about one survivor’s story. Once we started learning choreography, something clicked for me and it became more than just steps. I started living it. The flow of movements from “Targets Behind Doors” to “Sirens” and then, “Ashes” really touched me. It was hard emotionally to go through it over and over again, but I can honestly say that I have never danced better. I am so happy to have been a part of such an important work and very thankful to Stephen Mills. He really brought something incredible out of me, and I will take this experience with me for the rest of my life.

Kristen Rusnak
Pittsburgh Ballet Theatre Dancer
Corps de Ballet

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Light Reflections, Part 3

pghballet — Mon, 14 Dec 2009 21:40:43 +0000

I admit that I was hesitant about Light / The Holocaust & Humanity Project. It was not a reluctance to attend, but rather an apprehension about how this catastrophe would be presented on the stage. I wondered if it would be too intense or too sad, and might I be sorry that I went?

All of the trepidation evaporated when the performance began. It was a beautiful experience. It blew me away! The athleticism of the dancers was so impressive. The musculature that showed as they performed the tight and strenuous choreography should really be on film for others to see. It was a wonderful piece; sensitively represented and beautifully done. The choreography will be forever in my mind.

I attended an event before the ballet that prevented me from taking part in the pre-performance discussion. I wish I could have done that. Those who knew I was going to a ballet about the Holocaust questioned how that could possibly work. Afterwards I told them, “You have to see this.”

I think this work is something that many more people should have the opportunity to experience.

New Ballet Fan

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Light Reflections, Part 2

pghballet — Mon, 14 Dec 2009 21:34:21 +0000

Any endeavor to make sense of a series of events as complex and important as the Holocaust must be entered into with the fundamental understanding that attempts at understanding can result in simplifications. The production of Light/ The Holocaust & Humanity Project has joined the ranks of scholars, filmmakers, artists, writers and others who have struggled to make sense without simplification. The ballet offers another meaningful contribution to understanding a series of events defying explanation. Survivor Primo Levi and others have long grappled with the insufficiency of language to portray the suffering and cruelty of the concentration camps. In an effort to try to understand, a new vocabulary has emerged—movement and dance are now part of this new language. The ballet’s raw imagery and powerful movements confront the audience. This production demands that the audience be more than a cohort of detached viewers; the audience becomes witnesses. The ballet itself is devoid of any of the symbolic markers that have come to instantly identify both the Nazi period and the Holocaust; instead, the dancers, through movement and music, allow each audience member to make sense of what they are witnessing. The dancers not only become the railcar bringing them to their determined destinations, but they also impart a sense of helplessness the men and women felt as they hurtled toward the unknown. Especially poignant is the moment in which the dancers face a bright light before them. The light penetrates and its impact ripples through each individual leaving them forever changed. The Holocaust and the existence of places such as Auschwitz and Dachau is that bright piercing light—a light that still has left us rippling in its wake.

Jessica Anderson Hughes
PhD Candidate History
Rutgers University

About the Author:
“I am currently finishing my dissertation, “Forced Prostitution: The Competing and Contested Uses of the Concentration Camp Brothel” to complete my doctoral requirements at Rutgers University. My M.A. in history is from the University of Chicago, my master’s thesis was entitled “Lebensborn: The Appearance of Purity,” also a topic that falls under Nazi Germany. I have presented my work at conferences in both the US and Europe. I worked as an intern at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum for one year in the Photo Archives doing photo archival research. In the summer of 2008 I was selected to be a member of the USHMM’s research team that traveled to the newly opened archive in Bad Arolsen, Germany. During my time with the research team my focus was on the concentration camps. I have researched extensively in the archives of 9 concentration camps.”

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Light Reflections, Part 1

pghballet — Mon, 14 Dec 2009 16:31:30 +0000

When we first heard about PBT presenting a ballet based on the Holocaust we were definitely apprehensive. How could such a horrific experience be possibly presented in a dramatic cultural venue by a ballet company? We should have known better. Not only was the Holocaust presented in such graphic detail, but at the same time, is was done in such a beautifully sensitive manner. It was not just another wonderful ballet performed by the PBT, but encompassed so many related organizations and actual survivors and their families. This made the total experience so real, so heart-stopping, so breath-taking. At the end of the ballet, is was so important for the silent pause, to allow the audience to slowly allow it all to sink in and to gradually return to the full realization of what the Holocaust was all about.

Tom and Suzanne Kendig
Long-time subscribers, supporters and fans of Pittsburgh Ballet Theatre

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Light / The Holocaust and Humanity Project

pghballet — Mon, 30 Nov 2009 20:23:57 +0000

Even after working on Light / The Holocaust & Humanity Project for more than a year, pulling together the funding, the partners and the programming, I don’t think that we, as an organization, were prepared for the emotional impact that this project and the ballet performances would have on us. We began to feel it in August, when Dr. Edie Naveh came to PBT with her friend Samuel Weinreb, a survivor of Auschwitz-Birkenau. Dr. Naveh set the stage for us to watch Genocide, the 1982 award-winning documentary about the Holocaust. After the film, Sam recounted his experience from the day, at age thirteen, that he came home to find his family had been taken, to his arrival in McKeesport several years later where his relatives welcomed him into their home.

The next day Pittsburgh Ballet Theatre traveled to Washington, D.C. to experience the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum and hear another survivor, Louisa Lawrence-Israels, tell her story. The amount of information and emotions to process was overwhelming.

When the production opened at the Byham Theater in November, the preparations were over, and friendships had been forged; but the full impact of what we had experienced became abundantly clear when the dancers took the stage.

How could any human being survive the trauma of that ordeal? What pain and devastation they must have felt. The survivors we met possess an inherent appreciation of life that most of us take for granted. Hopefully, each of us will go forward, mindful and with a watchful eye, doing our small part to discourage intolerance. A work of art has done its job well when it awakens and inspires its viewers toward a conscious effort to make the world a better place.