[ Music plays ] Pott: This is a true collaboration between the New Jersey Symphony and Nimbus Dance.

We started this project over a year ago, and from the beginning had many questions about what shape it would take.

And so to be here over a year later at NJPAC with the full orchestra and to see it take shape on this wonderful, grand stage is really overwhelming for us.

[ Music plays ] [ Music plays ] [ Applause ] [ Music plays ] [ Cheers and applause ] My name is Samuel Pott.

I'm the artistic director and founder of Nimbus Dance in Jersey City.

We've always been very invested in the community and innovation, experimentation in the arts.

And that's what Nimbus is all about.

Zhang: I always find Sam Pott very inspiring as an artist.

I always get really intrigued by his ideas.

When we had the centennial two years ago, we commissioned, also, a choreography from Sam with Nimbus.

That was the "Appalachian Spring."

And Sam himself was one of the members of the Martha Graham Company.

Sam had the special connection.

So we're lucky.

We had such a great response from the audience.

We got noticed by the Boston Symphony artistic director, and he invited us, me as a guest conductor, also, the company, the Nimbus company, to Tanglewood two summers ago.

So this was actually the second time I would say, the "Firebird."

Pott: We've created a new version of Stravinsky's "Firebird" that tells a story of a young girl from a family in turmoil and a spiritual vision of Icarus and the ways that they come together to seek flight and freedom and escape from violence and hostility.

[ Music plays ] Firebird was one of the creations that emerged out of Serge Diaghilev's Ballets Russes.

Mikhail Fokine was the choreographer, and Stravinsky was, of course, the composer back in 1910.

The story line was derived from a very old Russian folk tale.

It has a long history of variations on the choreography and different famous dancers having performed "Firebird."

You know, while it's kind of a fun, fantastical fairy tale, when we were approached about this project by the New Jersey Symphony, we thought it was an opportunity to think about other ways we might conceive of what a Firebird is and ways that it might tell a story that could connect more directly to the world today.

[ Music plays ] We've told a story about a young girl trapped in a family that is in turmoil, very high-stress, high-anxiety.

And this girl just wants freedom.

She just wants to escape.

Hutton: There's this Icarus character that for my character, the girl, gives kind of a sign of, like, hope and freedom.

She eventually has a vision of him and meets up with him.

Pott: Icarus and this girl meet, and they build wings fashioned out of feathers that they explore in their dance, and an ammunition belt, a symbol of violence and warfare, that comes from the household of the girl, from her father.

Mansor: So, my role as Icarus, I would describe my role as an enigma.

We have this story of someone who gains his freedom in the original myth and then uses that freedom to fall so, so far.

[ Music plays ] McCall: So, I play the brother in Firebird.

It is a part of a dysfunctional family.

I am someone who is witnessing their parents fighting a lot.

There's a lot of hostility, a lot of, you know, emotional abuse here and there.

And yeah, basically, me and my sister are kind of going through all this turmoil that our parents have kind of put us in, in their own realm.

Curd: I'm the mother of this family.

We have a little bit of a dysfunctional household, a lot of pressure on the children especially, a lot of pressure from the father figure.

And I think I'm very caught in the middle of being stressed by my husband, but then taking that stress and putting it on my own children in return.

We all have very clear characters, and in portraying those characters, we need to be really true to our physicality and how we are approaching the choreography.

McCall: There's a lot of internal work and how that internal work kind of affects the outer, external factors of our movement.

♪♪ Pott: And I think the story that I've seen there is, like, you feel horrible about yourself.

You turn to your mother for support.

Find a connection to him.

He goes.

And one.

Better.

Just be awake to the moment.

Let it in, rather than feel like you need to emote in some way.

There we go.

Okay.

Awesome.

Yeah.

That was it.

McCall: There's a lot of moments where I'm getting pulled or, like, I'm, you know, feeling really uptight or really restricted.

Curd: Some of his movements are very doll-like, almost like a marionette, being controlled or doing things that maybe his parents want him to do.

Pott: Your job is to experience the fullness of the movement of what's happening.

It's their job to see how horrible this is, that these two siblings are fighting in this way.

You don't have to be intense.

You just have to experience the moment.

Mansor: The thing that I really respect about Sam is that he's not afraid to ask questions that he doesn't know the answer to.

And so it's a little bit of just sitting down for the ride and following the thread.

Pott: The more delicate you can be with the joints... [ Music plays ] ...the more it will feel like the movement of a feather.

Creativity works in wonderful ways sometimes, and we've just found with this project that the music, the story lines have just meshed and matched up.

[ Music plays ] Zhang: More and more.

More.

Second, always walk.

Pott: When Xian Zhang, the music director of New Jersey Symphony, gets in front of the orchestra and conducts, I think of her like the best dancer, the most pure dancer, because she responds so clearly to the music.

[ Music plays ] This is a true collaboration between the New Jersey Symphony and Nimbus Dance.

And so rather than have the orchestra in the pit, out of view, the choice was made to have the orchestra onstage, with the dancers directly in front.

Zhang: They have actions, and, also, they have this, like, a sliding board.

I do have to watch a couple places.

[ Music plays ] [ Music plays ] [ Music plays ] I really think this is a long-term collaboration.

This is ongoing, and I hope this keeps happening.

That will be really exciting.

[ Music plays ] Pott: This whole project has just been such a testimony to the value of collaboration in the arts.

It's wonderful to see the New Jersey Symphony and NJPAC and now Nimbus joined forces and really produce something collaboratively that shows the quality and excellence of artistic work that's being done in New Jersey.

[ Music plays ] [ Music plays ] [ Music plays ] [ Cheers and applause ]