Celts
Choreography by Lila York
Music by The Chieftains, Piper’s Lullaby, Caracena, and Dunmore Lassies
Staged by Elizabeth Coker
Costume Design by Tunji Dada
Original Lighting Design created by James F. Ingalls
Executed for Kansas City Ballet by Trad A Burns
Costumes Courtesy of Atlanta Ballet
Program notes
In 1996, Boston Ballet commissioned Lila York to create Celts. Her motivations behind the piece were to celebrate her heritage and also, in part, her parent’s fiftieth wedding anniversary. Christine Temin from The Boston Globe called the work “an astonishing array of dance images of Ireland, a piece that is both profound and thrilling… Celts builds, evoking a thousand years of strife and then a burning joy. There’s not a whiff of cliché in it, nor sentimentality… This dance is in a rush to tell us many things… In its passion, dignity, and invention, York’s Celts offers exactly the kind of lift the world needs now.”
World premiere: 1996, Boston Ballet.
Kansas City Ballet premiere: October 15, 2021. Muriel Kauffman Theatre at Kauffman Center for the Performing Arts, Kansas City, Missouri