Nashville Ballet's production of Black Lucy and the Bard, set to an original score by Rhiannon Giddens and Francesco Turrisi, premieres on PBS's Great Performances this Friday, September 16, at 9pm ET. Playing onstage alongside the dancers, Giddens and Turrisi play several instruments including violin, banjo, mandolin, and piano. Author and performer Caroline Randall Williams narrates the ballet with her own spoken word poetry from the 2015 book on which the show was based, Lucy Negro, Redux. Choreographed and directed by Nashville Ballet’s artistic director Paul Vasterling, the ballet was recorded in March 2022.

Rhiannon Giddens and Francesco Turrisi will perform live with the Nashville Ballet on a five-city, twelve-performance tour of Lucy Negro Redux, a piece conceived, written, and choreographed by Paul Vasterling with music written by Giddens. The piece, based on the book by Caroline Randall Williams, debuted with three sold-out performances in Nashville in 2019. The tour begins with five performances at the Tennessee Performing Arts Center in Nashville, March 18-26, 2022, followed by stops in Denver, Santa Fe, Kansas City, and Norfolk, Virginia.

Caroline Shaw is the guest on the latest episode of the podcast Conversations on Dance. She spoke with hosts Rebecca King Ferraro and Michael Sean Breeden, former Miami City Ballet dancers, at the 2021 Vail Dance Festival, about her music and composing for dance. You can hear their conversation here.

A 2020 update to Chris Thile's song "Thank You, New York," featuring Gaby Moreno, from his 2017 album Thanks for Listening, is the setting for choreographer Justin Peck's new piece, which the New York City Ballet premiered. The performance, choreographed and directed by Peck, with cinematography by Jody Lee Lipes, is the culmination of NYCB's five-week digital fall season. You can watch the piece, featuring dancers Christopher Grant, Sara Mearns, Georgina Pazcoguin, and Taylor Stanley filmed at several locations around NYC, along with an interview with Peck and Lipes, here.

Just in time for the holidays, The Hard Nut, Mark Morris's 1991 retelling of the classic tale of The Nutcracker by E.T.A. Hoffmann, returns to the Bay Area for the first time in three years, with a seven-performance run at Zellerbach Hall in Berkeley, California, starting tonight. The Mark Morris Dance Group will be joined by members of the Berkeley Symphony, led by conductor George Cleve, for the performances with the Piedmont East Bay Children's Choir under the direction of Robert Geary. For the first time in Berkeley, Morris will take on the role of Dr. Stahlbaum/King. Watch a preview here.

The New York City Ballet begins a six-show run of George Balanchine's Jewels, featuring music by Fauré, Stravinsky, and Tchaikovsky, at Lincoln Center tonight. Two selections from Jewels—"Emeralds" and "Diamonds"—are included in the Nonesuch DVD of the New York City Ballet's 1977 performance from the acclaimed PBS series Dance in America. The Los Angeles Times says the works became "instant classics" when filmed for the series.

The Hard Nut, Mark Morris's 1991 retelling of the classic tale of The Nutcracker by E.T.A. Hoffmann, returns to New York for the first time in eight years, with an eight-performance run at the BAM Howard Gilman Opera House in Brooklyn, starting tonight. The New York Times says: "Mr. Morris creates a marvelously musical, choreographically ingenious response to Tchaikovsky’s great score that has its own magic and speaks its own truths about the nature of love." The Hard Nut DVD is now 33% off in the Nonesuch Store.

John Adams's Naive and Sentimental Music will be featured as part of the New York City Ballet's Opening Night Benefit performance at Lincoln Center tonight. The piece serves as score and title to a new work by Peter Martins, the company's ballet master in chief. "New York City Ballet’s opening-night benefit was obviously planned by someone who threw away the Classic Guide to the Boring Gala handbook," says the New York Times. "Put on your finery and go."

Steve Reich is the featured composer at this weekend's cycle of the Salzburg Biennale, a new festival for contemporary music. Events begin tonight with a performance of choreographer Anne Teresa de Keersmaeker's Fase, featuring four works by Reich, and continue through the weekend with performances of Reich's works by the Österreichisches Ensemble für Neue Musik, Synergy Ensemble, Ictus Ensemble, and the composer himself. Interspersed are performances by a traditional Balinese gamelan, to reflect its influence on the composer.

Steve Reich is a featured composer at this year's Modfest, an annual festival at Vassar College celebrating the music, art, poetry, and film of the 20th and 21st centuries. Modfest 2009 began late last week and runs through February 13, with a total of 18 events, including two all-Reich concerts, a conversation with the composer, a dance performance of works set to his music, a film screening and discussion, and a lecture about Reich's music.

Steve Reich's work will be the highlight of this weekend's events at the Edinburgh International Festival, with the UK premiere of Steve Reich Evening, a collection of pieces Belgian choreographer Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker has set to Reich's music over the past 25 years. Scotland on Sunday compares the "long and fruitful history" between the two artists to that of Stravinsky and Balanchine, Cage and Cunningham, calling the new work "a comprehensive and thrilling focus on the relationship between two modern masters." Also this weekend, Reich and Beryl Korot chair the Woodstock Byrdcliffe Guild's annual Gala honoring, among others, Garry Kvistad, a member of Steve Reich and Musicians.

Here is our weekly list of just some of the many events going on
across the globe this long, holiday weekend featuring Nonesuch artists ...