Review: JAD Experience presents the world-premiere of ‘LUNAE ET AMORE AMISSO’, Tara Firma Farms, Petaluma, CA, July 17 - 26, 2026
I saw the best ballet! I want everyone to see it! As I wrote to a ballet presenter in my email insisting she must go: “It's beautifully crafted. It is witty, poignant, and true. It's about love and what goes right and what goes wrong and what endures. It is something special or I wouldn't be bothering you.” Choreographer Julia Adam’s Lunae Et Amore Amisso (Lunae), translates as “Of the Moon and Lost Love,” is being presented by JAD Experience July 17 – 26, at Tara Firma Farms, a working cattle ranch in Petaluma (where Adam’s husband, co-conspirator, and producer Aaron Lucich is a Managing Partner). Lunae is the stupendous finale to an evening-long immersive happening which pairs al fresco farm-to-table dining with ballet under the stars, for 100 guests per night.
Conjured each midsummer, amidst the rolling hills of rural Sonoma County, these enlivening events are unforgettable. Attendees reliably become devotees, comparing notes on past outings as they introduce themselves to their communal dining companions over spoons of beef or beet tartare. New friends are made and fresh perspectives are shared, the connection to the environs is authentic and rich.
As dinner concludes with jars of hot, dark, drinking chocolate, a waxing sickle moon hovers, its edges gently melting into the encroaching mist. In the absence of the sun’s rays, the temperature drops precipitously and guests wrap themselves in provided fleece blankets to watch the show. The stage is a raised platform nestled within the hilltop grasses. Backless like an infinity pool, it is lined with slender lighting support poles. The distant knolls, morphing in the waning light, serve as an ethereal backdrop.
Adam’s Lunae is a dance about humans, loving, intelligent, messy, complicated humans, capable of transcendent beauty, violent jealousy, motherly devotion and silliness. Adam’s eclectic musical score, ranging from classical Beethoven and baroque Albinoni to a 1930’s showtune, inspire dances which speak to the multiple facets and stages of romantic love.
The devilishly talented cast of 4 female and 4 male dancers hail from ballet companies in Houston, Memphis, New Orleans, and Pittsburgh, and bring a contagious joie d’vivre and remarkable comradery to their performances. Some segments tell stories, while others are more purely abstract; all are emotionally evocative. Setting the stage for drama and humor, in preface, David O’Matz comes forward to confidently speak a tongue-in-cheek Shakespeare-esque monologue promising us wedlock, quarrels, love, life passage and rage, and asking for our patience as they toil to tell their tale.
With one arm raised in a graceful vertical and the other extended to the side, the dancers’ opening port de bras delivers us to the world of classical ballet, while the more casual cross-steps which find the dancers moving in diagonal patterns around each other, give a wink to the more contemporary dance forms of jazz and musical theater which also inform this world.
The costumes, by designer Amanda Farris, are pure white with subtle black piping and corseted waists. The blousy sleeves and legs of the shirt and pant ensembles, reference the shapes of old-world peasant-wear, while portraying a suitable timelessness. Often partnered in male-female pairs, when push comes to shove, and sometimes it literally does as the choreography explores gender power-dynamics, the women and men group by gender in displays of solidarity, as the war-between-the-sexes simmers.
The tension in the simmering war-between-the-sexes finds a choreographic outlet as sequentially the women jump vertically, following the momentum of their round-house punching arm, to spin through the air within a partner’s arms. Passionate embraces and tender touches may yield to chest-pushing rejection before apologetic neck-twining leads to pairs sleeping nuzzled together.
Lightening the vibe, Kelsey McFalls and Ryan Williams portray a young couple enjoying the process of falling in love with the help of the remaining cast members who invest their whole selves into creating the furnishings and vehicles required for dating. They zigzag themselves into chairs upon which the duo cuddle at the movies and form a car whose door opens with a swing of an arm and a pivoting body.
Lhasa De Sela’s sultry delivery of the lovelorn lyrics, “Now I'll have to live with loving you forever, although our days of living life together are over,” accompany dances of desperation, as Saela Rivera-Martinez clutches the ankles of her lost lover, and a persistent Tessa Barber launches herself bear-cub-like onto her mate’s retreating back.
With the women lying still upon the stage, an arresting presence, Zoe Lucich, approaches from the downstage grasses. She is greeted by the male quartet who process with her lifted high above their heads, as her feet pedal to a haunting and melancholy “Come Wander with Me.” The four men are brothers in the song, avenging the betrayal of one of their own, which may explain why one rolls Lucich across the floor with his foot, while another sweeps her body skyward, tilting it harrowingly head down.
Within a ballroom full of energetic, high-swinging waltzers, Zucich squats deeply, sending her hands down her center in a poetic gesture of birth. Striking in her long black lace dress, she cradles her arms, gazing in adoration into her open palm where a baby’s head could gentle lay.
Playfulness rises once more in celebration of the nostalgia of “It’s Only a Paper Moon,” with performers forming a tree and a horse-drawn wagon. One man plays at puppetting the head of another, as it peeks impishly out from between his legs.
Toggling from quixotic to contrary, Adam’s balletic montage paints a complicated but fascinating portrait of romantic love. The rousing ovation which erupts before the final dancer has disappeared into darkness is the least we observers can offer at the feet of such brilliance on the part of the maker and her marvelous muses.
Review by Jen Norris, published July 19, 2026
___________________
Production notes:
LUNAE ET AMORE AMISSO
Choreography by Julia Adam
Lighting Design by Cassie Barnes
Costume Design by Amanda Farris
Venue Design by Aaron Lucich
Dramaturge – Alexander Lucich
Music by Beethoven, Puccini, Lhasa De Sela, Jeff Alexander and Anthony Wilson, Albinoni, Harold Alren, Yip Harburg and Bill Rose, York, Greenwood, O’Brian, Selway and Greenwood
Dancers
Saela Rivera-Martinez (Houston Ballet)
Ryan Williams (Houston Ballet)
Augustin Lehner (Houston Ballet)*
Zoe Lucich (Houston Ballet)*
David O’Matz (Pittsburgh Ballet Theater)
Harry Warshaw (Ballet Memphis)
Lily Mangiaruga (New Orleans Ballet Theater)
Kelsey McFalls (Freelance Dancer)
Tessa Barbour (Freelance Dancer)
Comments