PERFORMANCE DETAILS
WHEN: February 4–14, 2027
WHERE: Lyric Opera House
CHOREOGRAPHY: Mixed Repertory
Notes on Love explores a word that refuses a single definition. Winning Works alum Houston Thomas, alongside choreographers Liam Scarlett and Nicolas Blanc, consider the feeling through four distinct lenses: love as place, as longing, as memory, and as nostalgia—each revealing love in all its depth and beauty.
Individual tickets on sale August 2026.
About the Program
Dear Chicago: A Love Letter
Choreographer: Houston Thomas | Music: Jonathan Bingham
This world premiere from 2024 Winning Works choreographer Houston Thomas places Chicago front and center. Conceived as a love letter to the city that shaped him, the work translates its rhythm and creative drive into movement. An original score by Jonathan Bingham with layered poetry adds emotional depth to this ensemble piece, capturing the scale, energy, and pulse of Chicago itself.
All that Remains
Choreographer: Nicolas Blanc | Music: Ezio Bosso
Beneath an imagined sky of clouds and rain, three dancers move through cycles of attachment and separation, love, and the memories that linger between them. Set to music by Ezio Bosso, whose compositions have long inspired Blanc and are celebrated for their beauty, sensitivity, and emotional power, All that Remains extends a deep artistic bond, allowing Bosso’s resonance to live on through dance.
All that Remains is commissioned in association with Betsy Blackmon Dance Program, University of South Carolina.
Hummingbird
Choreographer: Liam Scarlett | Music: Philip Glass
Hummingbird is a breathtaking exploration of human connection, blending classical form with emotional immediacy. Set to Philip Glass’s Tirol Concerto for Piano and Orchestra, the work articulates love and longing through a progression of three pas de deux. Sweeping ensemble patterns give way to a searing second movement that pushes the dancers to visible exhaustion, revealing the strenuous demands of intimacy. Framed by John Macfarlane’s hand-painted stage designs, Hummingbird feels both expansive and intimate—a precise, powerful meditation on what it means to connect.
Les Boeufoons
Choreographer: Nicolas Blanc | Music: Darius Milhaud
In 1920s Paris, no place captured the city’s flourishing, eclectic spirit more vividly than the cabaret bar Le Boeuf sur le Toit. A cultural crossroads, it drew artistic luminaries from Cole Porter to Igor Stravinsky and took its name from Darius Milhaud’s theatrical, Brazilian-inflected composition. Les Boeufoonsdraws inspiration from the surreal, uninhibited world of Jean Cocteau’s original choreography and from the famed Fratellini brothers, the circus clowns who first brought the work to life.
Les Boeufoons is a co-commission with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra in association with Betsy Blackmon Dance Program, University of South Carolina.
Role: Audio 1