Troy Schumacher’s SATELLITE

Troy Schumacher of the New York City Ballet spent part of his summer creating a new piece entitled SATELLITE. Above: Marika Anderson. View videos from the ballet here.

I asked Troy to tell me a little about his ballet. He replied:

“This was a work commissioned by the Satellite Gallery in
conjunction with the Dogwood Center for the Performing Arts in Fremont,
Michigan. I put a group of dancers together including myself, Ashley Laracey, Justin
Peck, Marika Anderson, Lauren King, and Daniel Applebaum. In the first
half of the programme, excerpts from Agon and Barber Violin Concerto as well as the complete Tschaikovsky Pas de Deux were danced.

The music for Satellite was
created by Nick Jaina (piano), Nathan Langston (violin), and Amanda
Lawrence (viola). This was a collaborative process
between the four of us. It started with Bernard Tschumi’s Manhattan Transcripts and an epic poem and a ‘mood arc’ by Kevin Draper. The
musicians and I took those three inspirations and created an initial
structure for the piece that developed as the project continued. What I
found particularly interesting was that each musician also collaborated
to compose their own parts in this piece, which seems to be quite rare. The musicians played live and it was wonderful. And Andrew Scordato of NYCB designed the costumes.”

Ashley Laracey and Justin Peck

Lauren King

Daniel Applebaum

Photos by Lora Robertson, used with her kind permission.