Still Life at the Penguin Cafe
Still Life at the Penguin Cafe is ballet composed by Simon Jeffes and choreographed by David Bintley. The ballets initial production was produced in England by London Weekend Television in 1987. The music for the ballet was drawn from several musical pieces composed by Jeffes, before the ballet was conceived.
The ballet was filmed, and is available on Laser Disk, but is not yet available on DVD.
Ballet Story
The pieces or segments in the ballet include:
- The Penguin Cafe
- Utah Longhorn Ram
- Texan Kangaroo Rat
- Humboltts' Hog Nosed Skunk Fela
- Southern Cape Zegra
- Rain Forest People
- Brazilian Woooly Mondy
- Fazit
Story
The story is very sparse. A voice-over at the beginning (voiced by Jeremy Irons) describes how the Great Awk was very recently made extinct by man. The initial segment is set in a cafe, and several humans and penguins dance. Each subsequent segment prior to the conclusion shows an endangered species (or, in the case of the Rain Forest People, a culture). The Conclusion shows all the characters withstanding a downpour, and gather on an ark-like boat.