Onstage This Week: Royal Danish Ballet in NYC, Seattle Dance Collective Inaugural Program and More!
Wonder what’s going on in ballet this week? We’ve pulled together some highlights.
Royal Danish Ballet Dancers Take New York
https://youtube.com/watch?v=eMVEm4By-NI
Ballet takes center stage at New York City’s Joyce Theater this summer. The July 9–14 program brings international stars to the Big Apple. Dancers from the Royal Danish Ballet present The Bournonville Legacy, a mixed-repertoire program showcasing excerpts from beloved Bournonville ballets, including La Sylphide, Napoli and A Folktale.
World Premiere of Annabelle Lopez Ochoa’s “The Little Prince” at BalletX
Annabelle Lopez Ochoa’s new full-length story ballet for BalletX, based on Antoine de Saint-Exupéry’s classic book The Little Prince, premieres July 10–21 at Philadelphia’s Wilma Theater. The Little Prince features an original score by Peter Salem and designs by Danielle Truss and Matt Saunders. Get a better sense of the whimsical characters in the above video.
The Royal Ballet Joins Forces with Company Wayne McGregor in Los Angeles
Following its Music Center run of Mayerling in Los Angeles, The Royal Ballet joins forces with choreographer Wayne McGregor and composer-conductor Thomas Adès for Adès & McGregor: A Dance Collaboration July 12–13. This landmark production of music and dance features The Royal Ballet, Company Wayne McGregor and the L.A. Phil in three works: the west coast premiere of Outlier and the world premieres of Living Archive: An AI Performance Experiment and The Dante Project (Inferno). Find out more about the cutting-edge technology used in Living Archive in the video above.
Seattle Dance Collective Presents Inaugural Program
Pacific Northwest Ballet principals Noelani Pantastico and James Yoichi Moore launch Seattle Dance Collective, their new company, this week. Program One, presented July 12–14 at the Vashon Center for the Arts, includes works by David Dawson, Marco Goecke, Bruno Roque, Ivonice Satie and Penny Saunders, performed by nine members of PNB and two dancers from Seattle-based contemporary company Whim W’Him.
DTH Returns to Jacob’s Pillow in Celebration of Its 50th Anniversary
July 10–14
Dance Theatre of Harlem returns to Jacob’s Pillow for the first time in five years. In a continuation of the celebration of the company’s 50th anniversary and its co-founder Arthur Mitchell, the mixed-repertoire program features Darrell Grand Moultrie’s Harlem on My Mind, Christopher Wheeldon’s This Bitter Earth, George Balanchine’s Valse Fantaisie and the premiere of an expanded version of Annabelle Lopez Ochoa’s Balamouk.
Aspen Santa Fe Ballet Reprises Its First-Ever Evening-Length Ballet
This week Aspen Santa Fe Ballet brings back Nicolo Fonte‘s Beautiful Decay, the company’s first-ever evening-length work. Set to Antonio Vivaldi’s Four Seasons and Max Richter’s version of the same work, Fonte’s ballet explores the reality of aging; the cast includes two septuagenarian guest stars: former Royal Ballet soloist Hilary Cartwright and Portland, OR-based dancer Gregg Bielemeier. ASFB will present the work in Aspen July 9 with recurring performances July 19 and August 24, and in Santa Fe July 13, returning August 31.
Tom Gold Dance Makes Cooper Hewitt Museum Debut
Tom Gold Dance makes its debut at the Cooper Hewitt Museum on July 11 as part of the Cocktails at Cooper Hewitt series. Dancers Alexis Branagan, Michael Sean Breeden, Evelyn Kocak, Abigail Mentzer and Amanda Treiber come together to present the company premiere of artistic director Tom Gold’s Traveling West, inspired by pastoral rhythms and set to the music of John Zorn.
“Fury” Ballet Is Back in Oakland
Last year, a group of Bay Area artists came together to create Fury, a contemporary rock ballet choreographed by Danielle Rowe and based on the film Mad Max: Fury Road. July 12, Fury is back. The cast, made up of dancers from San Francisco Ballet and Alonzo King LINES Ballet, will perform an excerpt at Oakland First Fridays, an outdoor arts festival in downtown Oakland. This performance will also feature a new mural of dancer Adji Cissoko as her character, Furiosa.
