Aspen Santa Fe Ballet Presents Its First Full Season in 5 Years

Few cities blend natural beauty with cultural offerings quite as seamlessly as Aspen, Colorado, and Santa Fe, New Mexico. With the latter being home to art giants, like Georgia O’Keeffe, and the former showcasing rotating multimedia exhibitions, both cities make it clear that the appetite for cultural experiences—including a top-tier ballet company—is strong.

So when Aspen Santa Fe Ballet announced in 2021 that, after 25 years, the organization would be ending its performing and touring activities, the two cities felt the loss. ASFB’s approach shifted: How does the show go on during rocky times? For one, it kept its schools and community programs, including the ASFB Presents series, operating throughout the height of COVID-19.

Now, in 2024, Aspen Santa Fe Ballet enters a new phase, presenting its first full summer season after a five-year hiatus. The season kicks off with gala performances featuring the Joffrey Ballet, Royal Ballet, Houston Ballet, Boston Ballet, and Ballet West, scheduled for July 10–11 at the Aspen District Theater in Aspen, and July 13–14 at the Lensic Performing Arts Center in Santa Fe. Additional performances throughout the summer will include The Martha Graham Dance Company, Parsons Dance, Ballet West, and Cloud Gate Dance Theatre of Taiwan, with different programs depending on the location.

“A season of this magnitude is thrilling,” says Tom Mossbrucker, ASFB artistic director. “After challenging years of COVID, followed by the loss of our Aspen summer venue due to renovations, it feels wonderful to be back in full steam and presenting such a robust series to complement the eclectic mix of summer cultural offerings both Aspen and Santa Fe are known for.”

Since 1999, the company has brought a roster of over 50 global dance companies to the American West through its ASFB Presents branch.

“The idea [for the 2024 summer season] came last fall when I attended the Arpino Centennial in Chicago,” says Mossbrucker, a former Joffrey Ballet principal. “Several of Gerald Arpino’s masterworks were performed by various U.S. companies. I was blown away seeing these works again after so many years.”

He decided that some of those works mustbe seen in Aspen and Santa Fe for the summer galas. Alongside executive director Jean-Philippe Malaty, Mossbrucker settled on Round of Angels (performed by The Joffrey Ballet, with Jeraldine Mendoza and Dylan Gutierrez in the lead roles) and Light Rain (with Emily Pearson Hadriel Diniz of Ballet West)—two particularly significant ballets for Mossbrucker, who was in the original casts of both. The summer season will also feature Sir Frederick Ashton’s Rhapsody, performed by Meaghan Hinkis and Francisco Serrano of The Royal Ballet, as well as Ballet West in Ulysses Dove’s Red Angels. Boston Ballet’s Chyrstyn Fentroy and Lasha Khozashvili will dance the White Swan pas de deux from Swan Lake and a pas de deux from William Forsythe’s Blake Works series, followed by Houston Ballet’s Gian Carlo Perez and Adelaide Clauss in excerpts from Le Corsaire.

When asked about the significance of bringing ballet back to Aspen and Santa Fe, Mossbrucker says that “both communities have a long history with dance, a great love of the art form, and a discriminating palate when it comes to the arts in general. We like to think ASFB contributed to that love of dance through the programming offered over the past quarter century.”