After mak­ing its tri­umphant U.S. Premiere and play­ing to sold-out houses in 2010, John Neumei­er’s su­per­lat­ive work of dance-theat­er re­turns in 2011. Fea­tur­ing an evoc­at­ive score by Lera Auerbach, this heart-wrench­ing story of sac­ri­fice and un­re­quited love comes to life against dazzling scen­ic, cos­tume and light­ing designs.

In The Little Mer­maid, Ham­burg Bal­let Dir­ect­or and Chief Cho­reo­graph­er John Neumei­er blends dance, dra­mat­ic story-telling, and spec­tacle in­to a stun­ning in­ter­pret­a­tion of Hans Chris­ti­an An­der­sen’s fable. With cho­reo­graphy, sets, and cos­tumes all by Neumei­er, this bal­let — as much theat­er as it is dance — re­veals the depths of the cho­reo­graph­er’s ima­gin­a­tion. And it de­mands the heights of artistry from the dan­cers, who must ven­ture in­to deeply emo­tion­al ter­rain in or­der to con­vey the bal­let’s full mes­sage. Neumei­er el­ev­ates a fantasy in­to a soph­ist­ic­ated por­tray­al of psy­cho­lo­gic­al trans­form­a­tion and the resil- ience of the spir­it, hu­man or oth­er­wise.

Help­ing Neumei­er define the dis­tinc­tions between land, ship, and sea is Rus­si­an com­poser Lera Auerbach. Like the ab­stract waves of light that di­vide the stage visu­ally, show­ing us wheth­er we’re above the wa­ter’s sur­face or be­low it, the mu­sic too sets the scene, evok­ing both at­mo­sphere and emo­tion­al tone. In her score for The Little Mer­maid, sweet and haunt­ing melod­ies for vi­ol­in flow in­to brusque pas­sages of aton­al­ity and dis­son­ance, mak­ing aud­ible the strange­ness and dis­com­fort of be­ing out of one’s ele­ment.

Lera Auerbach, com­poser
John Neumei­er, cho­reo­graphy, ccen­ic, cos­tume, and light­ing design

Staged by Kev­in Hai­gen, Leslie McBeth, Ni­urka Moredo, Lloyd Rig­gins
Light­ing real­ized by Ralf Merkel