Seems like Easter is not a complete holiday without some traditional ballet performance connected to it. Christmas has the Nutcracker... Easter needs to be put on its toes. After all, can you think of a better time to dance than Easter when the first hint of spring is just around the corner? Flowers, eggs, maypoles, rabbits, etc, etc... seems like there is something that would fit or could be adapted to fit Easter.

So how bout it, can you think of some nice performance that can be connected to Easter?

I've always thought Sleeping Beauty was the perfect Easter season/springtime ballet, dealing as it does with reawakening. Now originally, it was premiered during the Christmas season, but that was then.

Ashton's "La Fille Mal Gardee." Love, spring, pink ribbons and chickens.

And even a maypole!

Spring?? - it's harvest time! But I agree with you anyway.

I think Symphonic Variations would be the perfect spring ballet - but what to put with it to make a whole evening?

It is harvest time but the colors are so springlike, I've always assumed they was harvesting spring wheat!

"Les Rendezvous" is also a springlike ballet.

Strangely, it had never struck me to wonder why there is a maypole dance in a harvest ballet. Perhaps they weren't confined to May. Much of the music is very springlike, it seems to me.

Then there's always "Spring Waters"

Re-awakening is very interesting with regard to the Sleeping Beauty. Its nature that has been sleeping and is waking up in the spring. That's a real interesting though, and "sleeping beauty" deserves a holiday of its own.

La Fille Mal Gardee is the thing that brought this question to mind. It does fit, doesn't it... and great family entertainment. Maybe at the beginning, when the chickens get up there will be a few eggs there and the dancers can use them as a prop and make a few brush stokes on them.

How come PBS has never picked up on this charming family entertainmnet. Seems like they are missing something great here.

Coppelia.
I don't know why, maybe it's all the friends sitting on steps watching outdoor antics.

At NYCB's tribute to Tanaquil LeClerq last May, Wendy Whelan and members of the corps danced the Waltz of the Flowers. Just on it's own, I was struck by how appropriately Spring-like the Waltz was with Karinska's pink and lilac costumes. I completely forgot that it's part of a ballet about Christmas.

Carolina Ballet performed to Handel's Messiah for Easter, this year.

Tales of Beatrix Potter, anyone?

I think that Paul Taylor's Esplanade would be a good piece to do for an Easter show. It is, of course, not a full-length ballet, but it is such a happy piece. To me, it celebrates the coming of spring and summer. Just an idea, but I think it is a perfect representation of the joy that most of us feel around this time of year. SPRING IS COMING! Although I guess it is pretty much already here.

Deirdre

I'm reminded of how much I miss his chatty modern dancer introducing her "Dance for Spring..."

Picture it: A little girl saves the Easter Bunny from a Big Bad Wolf. In return, the Easter Bunny takes her through the Enchanted meadow [complete with dancing flowers] to the Land of Marshmallows, where they are entertained by a divertissement of dancing Peeps: purple bunnies, yellow chicks, pink bunnies, blue eggs...

There you go. It's as religious as The Nutcracker.

Sorry, no specifics on who could dance, design, compose, or choreograph, or what to call it.


On a more serious note, Makarova's staging of La Bayadere has a bit of that resurrection theme too.