Sunday, May 14

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Ballet Arizona presents a new version of "The Rite of Spring."

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Andersen’s “The Rite of Spring” will create a whole new look to the orchestral work, initially composed by Stravinsky in 1911 and 1912. He has modernized the composition with transformational choreography that captures the energetic and emotional feel of the music through ballet.

 

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Connecticut Ballet presents "Coppelia."

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Connecticut Ballet first did its “Coppélia” in 1987, according to the company’s founder and artistic director Brett Raphael. “This is its fourth or fifth iteration. Next to ‘The Nutcracker,’ it’s the most popular thing we’ve done. It’s just a beautiful story ballet.”

 

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San Diego Ballet presents "Eight to the Barre."

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There are two parts to this concert: The dancers will perform first to boogie-woogie blues music by pianist Sue Palmer and her Motel Swing Orchestra. The second half of the show features “Opus … Swing!” a choreographic work set to recordings popularized in the 1930s and 1940s by Duke Ellington, Glenn Miller and Benny Goodman.

 

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A review of the Elmhurst Ballet Company by Matthew Paluch for Broadway World.

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Legacy acknowledges the meaning of the word, and the fact Elmhurst is celebrating its centenary this year. Founded in 1923 in Camberley, the school relocated to Birmingham in 2004 where a close relationship with the Birmingham Royal Ballet was initiated. The Legacy bill is jam-packed with mostly new work, but also acknowledges the past either through programmed historical work, or the taking of inspiration from it.

 

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 An interview with Jayne Smeulders.

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Now at WA Academy of Performing Arts where she teaches in the music theatre and ballet programs, Smeulders has been gifted another opportunity to revisit her Cinderella, with Cavallari inviting her to restage it at Montreal-based Les Grands Ballets where he works as artistic director.

She spent two weeks at the company in January and is again in the rehearsal room in the lead-up to the season’s opening night on May 31 at Montreal’s 3000-seat Salle Wilfrid-Pelletier theatre.

 

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A review of Miami City Ballet by Donna Murray in The Palm Beach Daily News.

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A highlight of the evening was the musical direction of Kennedy Center honoree and Pulitzer Prize-winning composer and conductor Tania León, a Cuban-born American trailblazer and longtime friend of artistic director Lourdes Lopez. León’s life-long relationship with dance began in 1969 when she was recruited by Arthur Mitchell to be the founding music director at the Dance Theater of Harlem, and afterward worked closely with both Balanchine and Robbins on their repertoire.