Eliot Feld brings his eclectic style
to the New York City Ballet with his newest work, Organon,
a complex and expansive ballet. Led by Damian Woetzel, Maria
Kosrowski and Charles Askegaard and powered by some 63 dancers,
thirty of whom are students from the School of American Ballet,
Organon is choreographed to the organ music of Johannes
Sebastian Bach. In order to create the vast sound which Feld
wanted to fill the space of the New York State Theater, a specially
commisioned system was built for the ballet by the Walker Technical
Company. Last summer, Walker installed electrical organ "voices"
into the instrument at the Fifth Avenue Presbyterian Church in
New York to some controversy.
Organon is also the title of
a fundamental 19th century work by Samuel Hahneman on homeopathic
medicine. Early homeopathic advocates such as Hahneman and Constantine
Hering felt their guiding principles could be applied to psychology
as well and touted the potential healing properties of the arts,
such as dance and music. Hering himself had once been roused
from a deep depression by a performance of the great German ballerina
Fanny Elssler.
Organon premiered
at New York City Ballet on January 23, 2001
