Woodland Sketches is a one-act ballet made by Robert La Fosse for New York City Ballet, set to Edward MacDowell's 1896 piano suite of the same name. It was created for NYCB's American Music Festival and premiered on May 5, 1988, at the New York State Theater, Lincoln Center — a festival built specifically to showcase American composers and, in this case, an American-trained choreographer working inside the Balanchine-founded company.
What is danced
The source article gives no synopsis, cast breakdown, or description of the choreography itself — only the premiere circumstances and a list of three New York Times reviews by title and date, with no excerpted text. It is not possible, from this article alone, to state what steps, partnering, or vocabulary the ballet actually used, whether it was plotless or narrative, or how many dancers were involved. Anyone researching the piece further would need to consult the cited Kisselgoff and Holland reviews directly, since the catalogue entry as sourced here stops at attribution and premiere facts.
Context
The American Music Festival was one of several thematic festivals New York City Ballet mounted in the 1980s under Peter Martins and Jerome Robbins' post-Balanchine direction, pairing new or rarely-danced choreography with American concert music. Robert La Fosse was at the time a principal dancer with NYCB (having also danced with American Ballet Theatre), and Woodland Sketches represents one of the choreographic efforts by company dancers during this festival era, when NYCB actively encouraged dancers to try making work alongside its resident choreographers.
How to watch it
Because no synopsis or movement description survives in this record, a viewer would need to attend to how the choreography responds to MacDowell's episodic, mood-piece piano writing (the original 1896 suite comprises short character sketches) rather than to any received narrative. Watch for whether the ballet is structured as a suite of short sections mirroring the music's own movements, and note the demands this places on musicality over sustained dramatic through-line.
Credits
- composer: Edward MacDowell