World Premiere/SummerScape Commission
Illinois
Music and Lyrics by Sufjan Stevens
(based on the album Illinois)
Story by Justin Peck and Jackie Sibblies Drury
Directed and Choreographed by Justin Peck
June 23 – July 2
World Premiere/SummerScape Commission
Music and Lyrics by Sufjan Stevens
(based on the album Illinois)
Story by Justin Peck and Jackie Sibblies Drury
Directed and Choreographed by Justin Peck
June 23 – July 2
Three brilliantly imaginative artists—Justin Peck, Sufjan Stevens, and Jackie Sibblies Drury—unite to create an ecstatic pageant of storytelling, theater, dance, and live music. Stevens’ 2005 concept album Illinois enjoys cult status for its lush orchestrations and wildly inventive portrayal of the state’s people, landscapes, and history, complete with UFOs, zombies, and predatory wasps.
Tony Award-winner Justin Peck (Carousel on Broadway, Steven Spielberg’s West Side Story, New York City Ballet) transforms the album into a full-length theatrical performance with a cast of virtuosic dancers, singers, and musicians in a narrative crafted with Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Jackie Sibblies Drury.
Featuring new arrangements of the entire album for a live band and three voices, ranging in style from DIY folk and indie rock to marching band and ambient electronics, Illinois will lead us on a mighty journey through the American heartland, from campfire storytelling to the edges of the cosmos.
Director, Choreographer, Story
Composer
Story
“Mr. Peck can do anything he wants with choreography: a virtuoso of the form.”—New York Times
“Sufjan Stevens is the rarest of talents: prolific, intelligent, and—most importantly—brimming with heart-wrenching melodies. Illinois is his masterpiece so far.”—NME
“Breathless and radiant” and just.”—New York Times on Jackie Sibblies Drury
Illinois is a cocommission of the Fisher Center, Chicago Shakespeare Theater, and the Perelman Performing Arts Center, and has been made possible with a commissioning grant from The O’Donnell-Green Music and Dance Foundation and residency support from Project Springboard: Developing Dance Musicals. The production is generously supported by Emily Blavatnik and the Blavatnik Family Foundation.
Justin Peck
Justin Peck is a Tony Award-winning choreographer, director, filmmaker, and dancer based in New York City.
He is currently the acting Resident Choreographer of the New York City Ballet.
Justin began choreographing in 2009 at the New York Choreographic Institute. In 2014, after the creation of his acclaimed ballet EVERYWHERE WE GO, he was appointed as Resident Choreographer of the New York City Ballet. He is the second person in the institution’s history to hold this title.
After attending the School of American Ballet at Lincoln Center from 2003-2006, Justin was invited to join the New York City Ballet as a dancer in 2006. As a performer, Justin has danced a vast repertoire of works by George Balanchine, Jerome Robbins, Alexei Ratmansky, Lynn Taylor-Corbett, Benjamin Millepied, Christopher Wheeldon, and many others. In 2013, Justin was promoted to the rank of Soloist, performing full-time through 2019 with the company.
Justin has created over 50 dance works—more than 20 for New York City Ballet. His works have been performed by the Paris Opera Ballet, San Francisco Ballet, Australian Ballet, Dresden Semperoper Ballet, Hong Kong Ballet, Boston Ballet, Juilliard, National Ballet of Canada, Miami City Ballet, Pacific Northwest Ballet, LA Dance Project, Dutch National Ballet, the School of American Ballet, Joffrey Ballet, Houston Ballet, Pennsylvania Ballet, Ballet Austin, Atlanta Ballet, Ballet Bordeaux, Finnish National Ballet, Ballet MET, Royal Danish Ballet, Cincinnati Ballet, University of Southern California (USC), and Ballet Arizona.
Working on a wide array of projects, Justin’s collaborators include composers Sufjan Stevens, The National, Bryce Dessner, Nico Muhly, Dan Deacon, Caroline Shaw, Chris Thile, Stephen Sondheim, M83, Dolly Parton; visual artists Shepard Fairey, Marcel Dzama, Shantell Martin, John Baldessari, Jeffrey Gibson, George Condo, Steve Powers, Jules de Balincourt; fashion designers Raf Simons, Mary Katrantzou, Humberto Leon (Kenzo, Opening Ceremony), Tsumori Chisato, Dries Van Noten; and filmmakers Steven Spielberg, Sofia Coppola, Damien Chazelle, Elisabeth Moss, Frances Lawrence, Bradley Cooper, and Jody Lee Lipes.
In 2014, Justin was the subject of the documentary BALLET 422, which presents Justin’s craft and creative process as a choreographer in great detail as he creates New York City Ballet’s 422nd commissioned dance.
Justin has worked extensively as a filmmaker. In particular, his focus has been exploring new innovative ways of presenting dance on film. Peck choreographed the feature films RED SPARROW (2016), starring Jennifer Lawrence and directed by Francis Lawrence; WEST SIDE STORY (2021) in collaboration with director Steven Spielberg; and MAESTRO (2022) in collaboration with director/actor/writer Bradley Cooper. Peck’s work as a director-choreographer for music videos includes: THE DARK SIDE OF THE GYM (2017) for The National; THANK YOU, NEW YORK (2020) for Chris Thile; and THE TIMES ARE RACING (2017) for Dan Deacon. In 2018, Justin directed the New York Times GREAT PERFORMERS Series (starring Julia Roberts, Ethan Hawke, Lakeith Stanfield, Glenn Close, Toni Collette, Yoo Ah-in, Emma Stone, Olivia Colman, Regina Hall, Yalitzia Aparicio, Elsie Fischer, and Rachel Weisz).
Justin choreographed the 2018 BROADWAY revival of CAROUSEL. The production was directed by Jack O’Brien and starred Jessie Meuller, Joshua Henry, & Renée Fleming.
Justin’s honors include the National Arts Award (2018), the Golden Plate Honor from the Academy of Achievement (2019), the Bessie Award for his ballet RODEO: FOUR DANCE EPISODES (2015), the Gross Family Prize for his ballet EVERYWHERE WE GO (2014), the World Choreography Award for WEST SIDE STORY (2022), and the Tony Award for his work on Broadway’s CAROUSEL (2018).
Sufjan Stevens
Sufjan Stevens is a singer, songwriter, and composer living in New York. His preoccupation with epic concepts has motivated two state records (Michigan and Illinois), a collection of sacred and biblical songs (Seven Swans), an electronic album for the animals of the Chinese zodiac (Enjoy Your Rabbit), a full length partly inspired by the outsider artist Royal Robertson (The Age of Adz), a masterwork memorializing and investigating his relationship with his late mother (Carrie & Lowell), and two Christmas box sets (Songs for Christmas, vol. 1-5 and Silver & Gold, vol. 6-10).
BAM has commissioned two works from Stevens, a programmatic tone poem for the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway (The BQE) and an instrumental accompaniment to slow-motion rodeo footage (Round-Up). He has collaborated extensively with the New York City Ballet choreographer Justin Peck (Year of the Rabbit, Everywhere We Go, Countenance of Kings, Principia, The Decalogue, and Reflections). Stevens’ Planetarium, a collaborative album with Nico Muhly, Bryce Dessner, and James McAlister imbued with themes of the cosmos, was released in 2017 to widespread critical praise. Stevens also contributed three much-lauded songs to Luca Guadagnino’s critically acclaimed film Call Me By Your Name, including the Oscar and Grammy-nominated song “Mystery of Love.”
In 2020 he shared Aporia, a collaborative new age album made with his stepfather Lowell Brams, and his eighth studio album, The Ascension, a reflection on the state of humanity in freefall and a call for a total transformation of consciousness. In early 2021, he released Convocations, a five-volume, two-and-a-half-hour requiem mass for present times. The most recent studio album by Stevens—A Beginner’s Mind—features songs inspired in part by popular films. It was released in the fall of 2021 and is a collaboration with singer-songwriter Angelo DeAugustine.
Jackie Sibblies Drury
Plays include Marys Seacole (OBIE Award), Fairview (2019 Pulitzer Prize), Really, Social Creatures, and We Are Proud to Present a Presentation About the Herero of Namibia, Formerly Known as South West Africa, From the German Sudwestafrika, Between the Years 1884-1915.
The presenters of her plays include Young Vic, Lincoln Center Theatre, Soho Rep., Berkeley Rep, New York City Players & Abrons Arts Center, Victory Gardens, Trinity Rep, Woolly Mammoth, Undermain Theatre, InterAct Theatre, Actors Theater of Louisville, Company One, and Bush Theatre.
Drury has developed her work at Sundance, Bellagio Center, Ground Floor at Berkeley Rep, Soho Rep. Writer/Director Lab, New York Theatre Workshop, Bushwick Starr, LARK, and MacDowell Colony, among others. She has received the Susan Smith Blackburn Prize, a Jerome Fellowship at The LARK, a United States Artists Fellowship, a Helen Merrill Playwriting Award, and a Windham-Campbell Literary Prize in Drama.
Nearby villages and towns in the Hudson Valley boast a large selection of restaurants, as well as a variety of hotels, motels, inns, and bed & breakfasts.
Eat & StayBard College’s main campus is located in Annandale-on-Hudson (a hamlet of Red Hook), New York, on the east bank of the Hudson River, about 90 miles north of New York City and 220 miles southwest of Boston. The Taconic State Parkway and the New York State Thruway provide the most direct routes to our campus. Click the Google map below, or get directions by entering the following address into your GPS: 60 Manor Avenue, Red Hook, NY 12571.
From the East
If you are traveling from east of the Hudson River in New York State, take the Taconic State Parkway to the Red Hook / Route 199 exit, drive west on Route 199 through the village of Red Hook to Route 9G, turn right onto Route 9G, drive north 1.9 miles, turn left onto Annandale Road, then turn right onto Manor Ave.
From the West
If you are traveling from west of the Hudson River, take the New York State Thruway (I-87) to exit 19 (Kingston), take Route 209 (changes to Route 199 at the Hudson River) over the Kingston-Rhinecliff Bridge to Route 9G, turn left onto Route 9G, drive north 3.5 miles, turn left onto Annandale Road, then turn right onto Manor Ave.
Sosnoff Theater
Accessible Seating
Wheelchair-accessible seating is available in all seating areas for patrons in wheelchairs and their companions. There is an elevator to all levels of the Sosnoff Theater and a wheelchair lift is used to access front-row wheelchair seating.
Wheelchair-Accessible Restrooms
Restrooms at all locations are wheelchair accessible. Single-use restrooms are available at most locations.
All-Gender Restrooms
Bard College and the Fisher Center support guests of any gender identity/expression in using the restroom of their choice. Additionally, all-gender restrooms are available at all venues.
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