The Chairman Dances is a one-act ballet made by Peter Martins for New York City Ballet, set to John Adams' 1985 orchestral piece of the same name. Adams originally wrote the music for his opera Nixon in China, for a scene depicting Mao Zedong dancing with his future wife, the film actress Chiang Ch'ing, but the music went unused in the opera itself and was repurposed as a concert work.
What is danced
The article gives production and premiere facts — choreographer, composer, designer, lighting designer, venue, cast — but does not describe the choreography itself: no steps, holds, formations, or technical demands are recorded. The only dancer named for the 1988 premiere is Darci Kistler, a principal dancer of New York City Ballet, which tells us the piece was built around at least one lead ballerina role, but the article gives no further detail on partnering, floor pattern, or vocabulary.
Context
The premiere took place on 14 May 1988 as part of New York City Ballet's American Music Festival, a company initiative (under Peter Martins, who had become ballet master in chief after Balanchine's death in 1983) devoted to new ballets on American concert scores. Using music salvaged from John Adams' Nixon in China — itself only a year old at the time — placed the ballet at the intersection of the minimalist-music revival and NYCB's ongoing commissioning of contemporary American composers for dance.
Staging history
The article cites New York City Ballet playbills and repertory notes from 2008, and New York Times reviews from 1988, 1997, and 2008, indicating the work stayed in or returned to NYCB's active repertory across two decades, but it gives no detail of casts, revivals, or other companies performing it beyond the original 1988 run.
How to watch it
The article does not describe the choreography, so there is no basis here for guidance on step vocabulary or technique; a viewer would need to rely on the cited New York Times reviews (1988, 1997, 2008) for descriptions of how the piece has actually been danced.
Credits
- composer: John Adams