James D. Watts Jr.
Tulsa World Scene Reporter
Get email notifications on {{subject}} daily!
Your notification has been saved.
There was a problem saving your notification.
{{description}}
Email notifications are only sent once a day, and only if there are new matching items.
Followed notifications
Please log in to use this feature
Log In
Don’t have an account? Sign Up Today
Tulsa Ballet’s “Creations in Studio K” program was designed to enrich the dance world by commissioning and presenting new works by rising and established choreographers from around the world.
But in recent years, the season-opening production has taken on a second purpose — to showcase the talents of the young dancers who populate Tulsa Ballet’s second company, Tulsa Ballet II.
This year’s production is no exception. Choreographer Natasha Adorlee is making her debut with Tulsa Ballet with “Horas de Hamra (Hours of Red),” which will be performed by Tulsa Ballet II.
And Stephanie Martinez, who has created a new work for the main company, first worked with Tulsa Ballet when she created “Something to Remember You By” for Tulsa Ballet II in 2021 (the piece was encored as part of the 2024 “Creations in Studio K” program).
Eleven dancers, selected from international auditions, make up this year’s roster for Tulsa Ballet II.
“For me, creating the second company is probably the most successful program we ever started,” said Marcello Angelini, Tulsa Ballet’s artistic director. “When it began in 2005, our goal was that one day, maybe four or five dancers we hired at the start would ultimately move up to join the main company. Today, out of the 26 dancers in the main company, 20 of them started out as members of TBII.”
Tulsa Ballet II dancers perform many of the company’s educational outreach programs, such as performances of the children’s ballet “Peter and the Wolf,” created by former resident choreographer Ma Cong.
“It’s a ballet for young audiences, but it is extremely difficult to perform,” Angelini said. “That’s because it’s important to give these dancers the good stuff. It’s why we have choreographers who will be making dances for the main company create works especially for them. We are wanting to help them grow as artists.”
“I was very impressed by my experience working with Tulsa Ballet II,” Martinez said. “They are exceptional technicians and storytellers, and they are just really these open vessels, the sort of dancers who really like to dig into a concept, a character or anything you might give them. And I knew that if the second company was that way, then the main company would be an extension of that.”
Martinez’s new work is “Requiem for a Soul,” a piece inspired by the music and life of Mozart, but presented in a unique way.
Listen now and subscribe: Apple Podcasts | Google Podcasts | Spotify | RSS Feed | SoundStack
“We start at the end of Mozart’s life and work our way back to the beginning,” she said. “I’ve always been fascinated by life and what’s beyond it, and I’m also fascinated by the duality in life. Mozart was such a prolific genius, but there was also so much turmoil and angst in his life. It amazes me how he could produce music that was so beautiful when some horrible thing was going on in his life.”
Martinez said the piece does not follow a strict narrative but is more of a memory piece, as Mozart encounters himself at various ages, as well as people who made an impact on his life.
“This is a piece I have wanted to do for a long time, and I have been saving it for Tulsa Ballet,” she said. “There’s such a standard of excellence here — in the way the company works, how they are trained, the whole value system at work here. I just feel like there’s something so incredibly magical happening here.
“I knew I wanted to push myself choreographically with this piece, and I knew I had to have the right artists for that,” Martinez said. “I knew this was the right company to tackle something difficult, because these dancers are seekers. They like to investigate and grapple with an idea and just keep at it until they wring everything out of it. I was like that when I was a performer, and I love seeing that attitude in the dancers.”
Adorlee first encountered Tulsa Ballet when the company was featured at the prestigious Jacob’s Pillow Dance Festival in 2023, which Adorlee was attending as a choreographic fellow.
“I was very moved by the company and its performance,” she recalled. “I went up to Marcello afterward and told him I loved the company and would love to learn more about it. And that’s honestly where the conversation started that led to my working with them.”
Adorlee’s career has included work as a filmmaker, composer and educator, as well as choreographer. She has created pieces for dance companies including Kansas City Ballet and Joffrey Ballet, as well as for such entities as Pixar Animation Studios and National Geographic.
The piece she has created for Tulsa Ballet II was inspired by music of the ensemble Le Trio Joubran, a group of Palestinian brothers who are masters of the oud, the lute-like instrument that has been a part of Middle Eastern music for centuries.
She describes what Le Trio Joubran plays as “Middle Eastern heavy metal music. That’s what it sounds like to me — it’s fiery, it’s passionate, it’s has that Middle Eastern tonality, and it spoke to me years ago. I connected with the musicians, and I said to them, ‘You know what? I think this deserves a ballet set to it.’”
Adorlee said the ballet is made up of sections that reflect different hours in a day, with choreography that is very grounded, organic and earthy.
“I have this feeling that the setting for this ballet is a desert,” Adorlee said. “I had this dream of doing this piece on a stage filled with sand, because you hear that in the music. There is a lot of space between the notes in the music, and at times a single note will just hang in the air and drift away. And life in the desert is, in essence, all about survival, which is why I think this piece has undertones that speak to our own pursuit of survival in our world.”
james.watts@tulsaworld.com
Stay up-to-date on what’s happening
Receive the latest in local entertainment news in your inbox weekly!
* I understand and agree that registration on or use of this site constitutes agreement to its user agreement and privacy policy.
James D. Watts Jr.
Tulsa World Scene Reporter
Get email notifications on {{subject}} daily!
Your notification has been saved.
There was a problem saving your notification.
{{description}}
Email notifications are only sent once a day, and only if there are new matching items.
Followed notifications
Please log in to use this feature
Log In
Don’t have an account? Sign Up Today