Onstage This Week: ABT's "Whipped Cream" Returns, The Joyce Ballet Festival Continues, and More!

Wonder what’s going on in ballet this week? We’ve pulled together some highlights.

ABT Wraps Up Its Met Season with Whipped Cream

American Ballet Theatre’s eight-week summer season at the Metropolitan Opera House, will wrap up this Saturday. From July 2-7, the company will perform Alexei Ratmansky‘s Whipped Cream. This candy-coated surrealist ballet features wacky, intricate sets and costumes from Mark Ryden and tells the story of a boy in a Viennese pastry shop who overindulges and falls into a state of wild intoxication that takes him on a journey reminiscent of Act II of The Nutcracker. For a behind-the-scenes look, check out these backstage photos from the 2017 premiere. During the run, Arron Scott will make his debut as The Boy, and Gabe Stone Shayer will make his New York debut in the same role. Thomas Forster and Calvin Royal III will perform as Prince Coffee for the first time in New York.

Joyce Ballet Festival Enters Its Second Week

The Joyce Theater is entering the second week of its ballet festival with performances from Ashley Bouder Project and Barak Ballet. Read more about this week’s performances below.

Ashley Bouder Project Features Women Composers

Founded as a project for summer off-time by a New York City Ballet principal dancer, Ashley Bouder Project will return to the Joyce Ballet Festival July 2-5 with a program that spotlights the work of female composers and includes two world premieres. The first is a solo for Bouder choreographed by fellow NYCB principal Lauren Lovette. Broadway Dance Lab artist-in-residence Abdul Latif will also debut a ballet. To complete the night, ABP is reviving In Pursuit of…, an ensemble piece from 2017 choreographed by Bouder. Performed by a cast composed primarily of Bouder’s fellow NYCB dancers, the ballet uses music by Miho Hazama and will be performed live by the New York Jazzharmonic.

Barak Ballet Makes Its Joyce Theater Debut

Santa Monica, CA-based Barak Ballet will perform at the Joyce Ballet Festival July 6-7, marking its first-ever time performing in New York. Barak Ballet includes dancers from all over the country, such as Jorge Villarini, formerly from Dance Theatre of Harlem, Lauren Fadeley, a principal soloist at Miami City Ballet, and Sadie Black, who has danced at Los Angeles Ballet. The program will feature E/SPACE, a collaboration among company artistic director and choreographer Melissa Barak, visual artist Refik Anadol and composer David Lawrence that the Los Angeles Times described as “like a living kaleidoscope.” This ballet is accompanied by Barak’s Cypher, and Desert Transport by Nicolas Blanc, a ballet master at Joffrey Ballet. Barak spent nearly a decade dancing for New York City Ballet and choreographed for the School of American Ballet and then the company for the following season at age 22. Check out an excerpt from E/SPACE in the video below.

National Ballet of Canada Performs an All-Canadian Program at Hamburg Ballet Days Festival

In its first appearance in Hamburg, Germany since 1994, the National Ballet of Canada will perform a three-ballet program July 3-4 at the 44th Hamburg Ballet Days Festival. The program, which is entirely composed of works by Canadian choreographers, features The Man in Black by James Kudelka, set to the music of Johnny Cash; Robert Binet’s The Dreamers Ever Leave You, a ballet inspired by the paintings of Lawren Harris; and Emergence by Crystal Pite, which explores the dynamics of human interaction. Watch a trailer for The Man in Black below.

Aspen Santa Fe Ballet Begins Its Summer Season

Aspen Santa Fe Ballet is kicking off its Aspen summer season on July 7 with one night of contemporary ballet works, including a world premiere from choreographer Bryan Arias (his first collaboration with ASFB). The night will also feature Tuplet by Alexander Ekman, which explores the rhythms of jazz and the human body, and Sleepless by Jiří Kylián, which plays with ideas about the conscious and subconscious. Next week on July 14, ASFB will perform the same program in Santa Fe.