Ballet tells stories without words. Emotion, conflict, loss and celebration unfold through movement and music, leaving dancers to convey what actors might otherwise say aloud.
That is the language Ballet Magnificat! will use to tell a story Plymouth knows especially well when the professional ballet company brings a family friendly, all-ages-welcome production of Anchored: The Pilgrim Story to Plymouth Memorial Hall on Sept. 26.
Founded in Jackson, MS, in 1986, Ballet Magnificat! is a professional Christian ballet company known for using classical ballet to tell dramatic, faith-centered stories. With Anchored, the company turns to the Pilgrims — following their journey across the Atlantic, their first years in Plymouth and the ideas about faith, community and self-government that became part of a much longer American story.
The performance, presented by FirstLoveWorks, begins at 6:30 p.m. at Memorial Hall, 83 Court St. Its return to Plymouth this year is intentional: 2026 marks the 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence.
But the story of Anchored began with another anniversary.
Tom and Ann Savastano, who co-founded the nonprofit Christian ministry FirstLoveWorks in 2003, had worked with Ballet Magnificat! before, bringing the company to Mechanics Hall in Worcester in 2004 and 2005 for unrelated productions.
As Plymouth’s 400th anniversary approached, they began thinking about whether ballet could offer an entirely different way of telling one of America’s most familiar stories.
In 2019, FirstLoveWorks approached Ballet Magnificat! about creating a Pilgrim ballet.
“They’re very dramatic, just very inspiring,” Tom Savastano said of the company.
The original concept envisioned a production focusing particularly on women and children, with young dancers from local ballet schools potentially participating alongside the professional company.
Then came 2020.
COVID-19 made the studio time, rehearsals and children’s participation required for that version impossible. Instead of abandoning the project, FirstLoveWorks and Ballet Magnificat! reimagined it.
The company needed a new libretto — essentially the blueprint for the ballet, determining which parts of the history would be told, the arrangement of scenes and how the narrative would unfold without spoken dialogue.
Ann Savastano wrote it.
A graduate of Mount Holyoke College with a degree in political science, Savastano later studied theology and apologetics at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary after becoming a Christian through L’Abri Fellowship in Switzerland. Over time, her interests in political theory and theology converged in her study of the relationship between Christian faith and the formation of the American republic.
The history was also personal. Savastano is a Mayflower descendant through William Bradford and Stephen Hopkins.
Her libretto follows the Pilgrims from England through the Atlantic crossing and arrival in Plymouth, the signing of the Mayflower Compact, the devastating first winter, their encounters and relationships with the Wampanoag and the first Thanksgiving.
But Anchored does not end there.
The ballet looks ahead to the development of self-government through the generations that followed, eventually connecting those early ideas to the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution.
That longer arc is particularly relevant this year as the country marks its 250th anniversary. The Mayflower Compact did not create the American republic in 1620, but its agreement to form a “civil body politic” and establish laws for the general good became an important part of the developing American tradition of self-government.
That connection between Plymouth’s early political experiments and what followed is also why bringing Anchored back in 2026 made sense to the Savastanos.
Telling the Pilgrim story, however, also required Ballet Magnificat! and FirstLoveWorks to consider how the Wampanoag would also be portrayed. Tom Savastano said they wanted to approach that part of the production thoughtfully. For Savastano, the relationship between the Pilgrims and Wampanoag during those early years is an important part of what the ballet seeks to convey.
“It’s like people had to come together,” he said. “And they did successfully.”
Anchored finally reached audiences in 2021, including a performance in Plymouth. Five years later, its return during the nation’s 250th anniversary gives the production’s final scenes new resonance.
Yet for all of the history behind it, Anchored is first a ballet.
There is no narrator to explain the Atlantic crossing or first winter. There is no dialogue to describe fear, grief, faith, uncertainty or hope. Those emotions have to emerge through choreography, music and the dancers themselves.
That, Savastano believes, can allow an audience to experience familiar history differently.
“Ballet is a unique way to tell a story,” he said. “And in reality, there is no single way to tell it. In Plymouth it’s a well-known story but telling it through dance is a new way to tell the story. It’s a beautiful story.”
For a Plymouth audience, there is another layer to watching the performance. The people and events depicted onstage are woven throughout the town outside Memorial Hall — in street names, monuments, museums and the landscape itself.
Inside Memorial Hall, however, there will be no narrator explaining what happened next. History will move across the stage through music and dance.
Savastano acknowledges one obvious departure from the historical record.
“The Pilgrims didn’t dance ballet,” he said. “But these Pilgrims dance.”
Julia Marie Davis can be reached at julia@plymouthindependent.org.