During the Cold War, classical ballet companies such as the Kirov and the Bolshoi were among the most prominent cultural weapons of the Soviet Union. But the arsenal also included another kind of ballet troupe, one that took regional folk dances and customs and professionalized them, arranging them choreographically and with much artistic license for maximal theatrical impact. The most famous of these troupes was the Moiseyev Dance Company, based in Moscow, though many Soviet Republics had their own groups. The Georgian State Dance Company was one of the best and most popular in the West.

“Samaia,” a dance inspired by Georgian history, will be performed at Carnegie Hall.Photograph courtesy the Georgian National Ballet Sukhishvili

Now called the Georgian National Ballet Sukhishvili—and not to be confused with the more classical State Ballet of Georgia—the company was officially founded, in 1945, by the husband-and-wife team Iliko Sukhishvili, a folk dancer, and Nino Ramishvili, a ballerina. It is still run by their grandchildren. Sukhishvili and Ramishvili drew inspiration from the countryside and the court. Their company became known for the polar attributes of bravura and delicacy. To this day, the men clank swords, leap over one another, run on the tips of their soft boots, and turn on their knees. The women stream across the floor, propelled by tiny steps obscured by long dresses. The costumes, many referencing Soliko Virsaladze’s original designs, are both sumptuous and subtly detailed.

The dance “Samaia” (pictured) was inspired by a fresco of Queen Tamar, Georgia’s first female ruler during the medieval period. In it, three women, crowned and bejewelled, as majestic and impassive as Byzantine icons, rotate at a regally slow speed. From the nineteen-sixties through the early two-thousands, the troupe performed often in the U.S., but in recent years its visits have been more scarce. Touring the country anew, it makes its Carnegie Hall début on Jan. 17.—Brian Seibert

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About Town

Folk

In 2020, the singer-songwriter Cassandra Jenkins was ready to quit music. Kismet wouldn’t allow it. She ended up making her 2021 album, “An Overview on Phenomenal Nature,” because she’d already scheduled the studio sessions, but the resulting LP, a breathtaking display of ambient folk, opened up a realm of new possibilities. Jenkins has since evolved into a chamber-pop auteur. Her 2024 follow-up, “My Light, My Destroyer,” honed her songcraft and magnified the intensity of her sound world through field recordings and more robust instrumentation. Jenkins’s music is fixated on space, in both the cosmic and the immersive sense, testing the interplay between bioacoustics and sound design, and the ways heavenly bodies help put life on Earth into perspective.—