Fri 7/26 & Sat 7/27 @ 8:45PM
Verb Ballets returns to Akron’s annual Heinz Poll Summer Dance Festival, its free outdoor dance festival, as it does every year. But audiences will see a new type of collaboration when it presents the newly commissioned The Adagio Reimagined Project, honoring and updating the legacy of Poll, the founder and director of the former Ohio Ballet.
Poll created Adagio for Two Dancers in 1973, set to Tomaso Albinoni’s Adagio in G Minor. Last year, Poll Festival director Jane Starzman, who performed the work as a member of the Ohio Ballet, heard local instrumental rock guitarist Neil Zaza perform the Adagio at the Akron Civic Theatre, and a light went on. She connected Zaza with Verb, where choreographer Sabatino Verlezza created the new interpretation to Zaza’s rocked-up version of the Adagio.
The piece as performed opens with the traditional version before transitioning into the contemporary rocking version, with Zaza onstage with the dancers (he won’t be dancing, he promises!)
The performance will take place at the Heinz Poll Summer Dance Festival’s new location at Forest Lodge Park. Onstage children’s activities start at 7:45pm, with Verb’s performance @ 8:45. Bring a blanket or chair.
260 Greenwood Ave, Akron, OH 44313