Plainspoken is a 2010 ballet by Benjamin Millepied, made for the Chamber Ensemble of New York City Ballet, the company where Millepied was then a principal dancer. The score, also titled Plainspoken, was commissioned from the composer David Lang. The work had an unusual two-part launch: it premiered first away from New York, at the Center for the Arts in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, on August 6, 2010, before receiving its New York City Ballet premiere two months later at the company's Fall gala at the David H. Koch Theater.
What is danced
The source article does not describe the choreography itself — no synopsis, no named sections or divertissements, and no account of steps, partnering, or technical demands. It confirms only the authorship (Millepied), the scale of the forces (a chamber ensemble rather than full orchestra and, implicitly, a chamber-sized cast drawn from NYCB), the commissioned score, and Karen Young's costume design. Anyone wanting to reconstruct the actual movement vocabulary would need to consult the listed reviews (Macaulay in the New York Times, Greskovic in the Wall Street Journal, Sulcas in the New York Times) rather than this record.
Staging history
The article gives two stagings: the out-of-town premiere in Jackson Hole, Wyoming on August 6, 2010, and the New York City Ballet premiere at the Fall gala on October 7, 2010, at the David H. Koch Theater, Lincoln Center. No later revivals, cast changes, or restagings are recorded.
How to watch it
The article gives no basis for describing what to watch for choreographically; that would depend on the cited reviews, not on this record. What can be attended to on the strength of the record alone is the pairing of a commissioned Lang score with a chamber-scaled ensemble, and Karen Young's costume design.
Credits
- composer: David Lang