By Mark Woolsey

An iconic orchestral and ballet composition that sparked a disturbance (some have called it a riot) when it debuted in 1913 Paris gets still another interpretation, this one from the Atlanta Ballet, at the Cobb Energy Performing Arts Centre Feb. 7 to 14.

Igor Stravinsky’s “The Rite of Spring,” inspired by Russian folklore, is edgy, pounding, tempo-changing, and at times dissonant. It focuses on a series of celebration dances of spring, in the process growing darker and more stripped down. It concludes with the selection of a sacrificial maiden who dances herself to death. The work concerns itself with the timeless themes of connection and conflict between human beings and their sometimes fraught relationship with the world around them.

Choreographer-in-residence Claudia Schreier says the work may have a grounding in Russian pagan culture, but moving forward, “the themes relate to quite a bit of what we’re experiencing (now)-the destruction of the earth and the destruction of community.”

Schreier says in terms of her interpretation, “There’s a rawness and power I’m asking from them (the dancers) that, in some ways, runs counter to everything that they’re taught. We’re using that classical ballet training, but we’re turning it on its head to reflect their discomfort.”

She indicates that played into the audience’s hackles rising in the 1913 performance. The ballet didn’t have the light, elegant quality audiences were used to but instead turned toward awkward, gawky,  and even borderline scary, she says.

Conductor Jonathan McPhee says he’s conducted many versions of “Rite,” from dancer and choreographer  Vaslav Nijinsky’s original to Martha Graham and Glen Tetley’s later interpretations.

As he explains, “Music is a platform for the choreography, and tempo is determined by the choreographic needs and the individual dancer first and foremost.”

“I look forward to seeing how Claudia hears this music, “ he explains. He says  the “approach for me is not so much to change my interpretation to fit Claudia’s choreography as to have a strong concept that she can find her interpretation within my reading of Stravinsky.”

The orchestra will play his more streamlined or “reduced” version of the music created 40 years ago and the only version authorized by the Stravinsky trust, says McPhee. He adds that ‘Rite’ was a pivotal work in both music and dance history.

Schreier echoes that “It laid the groundwork for so many contemporary musical works and yet it still feels so fresh.”                                                                                        

Her modern telling will play out as the Atlanta Ballet and Ballet Orchestra presents the Stravinsky work Feb. 7-14 at the Cobb Energy Performing Arts Centre.

Schreier’s painstaking work and its results may not stop there. She says it’s possible that it could be performed in other venues, perhaps on her home turf of New York. She does stress that her development was not necessarily with that in mind, but on providing the best possible work for the Atlanta ballet.

Still, she says, “ If it should have a life past that, I would love it.”