It may seem odd, but Chautauqua audience members got a sneak peak of Charlotte Ballet’s future during “An Evening of Pas de Deux” at the Amphitheater on Wednesday night. Yes, two at a time taking to the stage, not ensemble ballets.
The Charlotte Ballet performed its annual “Evening of Pas de Deux” Wednesday in the Amphitheater. The program included 11 dances.
Men may be from Mars and women from Venus, as author John Gray once suggested in his 1992 book. But the eternal interplay between the sexes has been a constant source of fascination to society throughout the centuries.
But nowhere is it more fascinating than in dance, as shown during North Carolina Dance Theatre’s journey Wednesday night in its latest edition of “An Evening of Pas de Deux.”
Lately there have been rare occasions when duets have been choreographed for men and, on rarer occasions, two women might take the stage. But the traditional pas de deux form evolved from full-length classical ballets, using a slow, supported opening called an adagio, followed by solo variations for the male and female. It culminated in a coda, where the dancers could unleash their technical brilliance in alternating dance passages filled with high-flying jump combinations for the man, succeeded by scintillating pointe work for the woman and dazzling turns for both.
The Chautauquan Daily 