Nashville Ballet's 'Anthology' aims at re-framing Music City's social, cultural future

Before his retirement at the end of the 2022-2023 season, Nashville Ballet Artistic Director Paul Vasterling is set on developing programming archetypes blending ballet with contemporary influences that will create his legacy of progress-minded leadership in Music City's performing arts scene. Key to this notion is his world-premiering piece "Anthology." Described via a press release as "a poignant exploration of Nashville's rich cultural tapestry," performances will be presented from Feb. 10-12, 2023, at the Polk Theater at Nashville's Tennessee Performing Arts Center.

Vasterling speaks with The Tennessean on a Friday afternoon before his latest work's debut. It comes a year following the successful revival of the Vasterling choreographed and Rhiannon Giddens and Francesco Turrisi-live scored adaptation of renowned author Caroline Randall Williams' 2015-released poetry collection "Lucy Negro, Redux" returned to TPAC and the Nashville Ballet after a three-year hiatus, sparking worldwide renown.

"Anthology" bears strong similarities to "Lucy Negro, Redux." Foremost, it's scored by MORGXN, a Nashville-based, 37-year-old singer-songwriter with both New York's Broadway and Los Angeles pop acclaim on his resume. Notable, too, is that the ballet is set in the Nashville City Cemetery (the 201-year-old grounds still exist on the 1000 block of 4th Avenue South) and chronicles the lives of racially and socially marginalized Nashville natives from the city's 1779 founding to the segregation-divided 1960s.

"'Anthology' -- like 'Lucy Negro, Redux' -- uses multiple layers of creative formats to weave a kaleidoscopic, spiritual tapestry around George Saunders' [2017-released] novel 'Lincoln In The Bardo,' Neil Gaiman's [2008-released] 'Graveyard Book' and Edward Lee Masters' [1915 poetry epic] 'Spoon River Anthology,' plus Nashville's rich history," says Vasterling about the macabre, yet vivid influences for his latest work.

He's workshopped the concept for two years, involving multi-award winner Sidra Bell, Resident Choreographer Mollie Sansone, Shabaz Ujima, Windship Boyd, Aeron Buchanan and more in its development.

Untold stories with timeless resonance featuring the ancestry of the city and its people highlight the ballet's plot.

Vasterling juxtaposes Nashville as a town on the border between the Confederate and Union armies in the Civil War against Nashville's current rise as a cosmopolitan hub now unwittingly tasked with welcoming the world's citizens daily. The work grapples with what of Nashville's stereotypically traditional Southern core will remain at the forefront of the city's defining sociopolitical and cultural core.

Adding in notes regarding civil rights, freedom, slavery, queer liberation, the stories of Nashville citizens, including the first police women of Middle Tennessee, formerly enslaved philanthropist Lucinda Bedford, acclaimed sculptor William Edmonson and more (ten, in total) to life on stage.

Vasterling is keen to harp on the idea that "genre-busting experimenters" like pop artist-"Anthology" composer MORGXN are in Nashville in more significant numbers than ever. Comparative to what banjo and roots music reclaimers like the married pair of Giddens and Turrisi achieved in "Lucy Negro, Redux," MORGXN is a soulful indie-electro vocalist and composer. The advancement is notable in the production's color, texture and vibe.

"Defending stories of the lives and loves of marginalized people from erasure, in the South, in 2023 -- that resonates with me," says MORGXN. Following his first conversation with Vasterling regarding what he was creating, he began writing what he describes as the "most exciting creative output of his life."

To MORGXN, the songs in "Anthology" are the soundtrack to Nashville. Music City, to the creator, is an "incredibly vital melting pot" where entertainers play an essential role in defining a present where "healing trauma through brave awareness" is important.

Songs like "Dead Man Walking" emerged from their chat about "lives coalescing in graveyards," where MORGXN felt compelled by the description of the lives he'd be potentially chronicling in lyrical and sonic form.

MORGXN's a Nashville native who sought creative fulfillment elsewhere for most of his artistic career. Being a queer creative in Music City was "the scariest thing possible" for him, but the power of art like "Anthology" allowed him to tell personally-relevant stories through song.

His father's passing seven years ago also inspires his work in this piece. Synergizing a plethora of dynamic forces into the best music of a professional career that ironically began during the beginning of his grieving is notable.

"I've made real music inspired by actual histories -- local, personal and national -- so watching this ballet is the successful completion of a mission I've undergone as a conduit to unearth emotional stories that will inspire deep connections from the audience to my work."

"Unexpectedly poetic ballet performances beyond tropes," says Vasterling when asked what of "Anthology" is notable in contextualizing the programmatic legacy he aims to leave via his latest work.

"I'm interested in setting the standard for the generational legacy of Nashville's current era. I hope that we're helped by learning the lessons of the past to inspire our brightest, most wonderful future."

"Nashville's ready for a [peaceful] reckoning," continues an "emotional and proud" MORGXN. "Creating this city to be the best melting pot ever requires a [metaphorical] fire. Making that fire will need a hard, loud, strong fight. The result of that will be our community being a better place."

"I'm thrilled to return to my hometown -- where I belong -- and while changing nothing about myself, evolve Nashville past its stereotypes."

This article originally appeared on Nashville Tennessean: Nashville Ballet's 'Anthology' aims at re-framing Music City's social, cultural future