Over at Charleston Ballet Theatre, Jill Eathorne Bahr and her company of dancers are presenting several programs, which includes CBT’s traditional Brown Bag and Ballet series. Program I of that series (June 3, 9, and 11) includes a favorite of mine from Jill, her very cool ‘Poetry With a Splash of Red Blood,’ based loosely on the poetry of Ykio Mishima and danced to the music of Philip Glass — a song entitled ‘Runaway Horses (Poetry Written With a Splash of Blood),’ from Glass’ score to writer/director James Schrader’s excellent 1985 film Mishima. Listen to a sample of the song here.
Bahr tells a great story about a time several years ago when Glass was in town for Spoleto (with a work in that year’s program) and late P&C overview critic Robert Jones, who was a longtime friend of Glass’, insisted he hustle over to CBT’s studio where Bahr and co. treated him to a private performance of ‘Poetry With a Splash of Red Blood,’ which by all accounts he very much enjoyed. (There’s a lot more to the story, but I’ll let Jill tell you.)
I missed the first presentation of Program I in CBT’s Brown Bag & Ballet series earlier this week, but I hope to be able to swing by for the next one on Friday. Here’s a couple of pictures from the show. Seriously, you should check it out.