Ballet Palm Beach to Present New Works

Neoclassical; Messin with Mozart, with Madeleine Miller (Photo by Janine Harris)

(PRESS RELEASE)_(Palm Beach Gardens, FL – March 11, 2019) Colleen Smith, Artistic Director of Ballet Palm Beach today announced that the highly acclaimed professional ballet company will present a dynamic selection of new repertoire by choreographers George Balanchine (répétiteur, Zippora Karz), Christopher Huggins, Donna Murray, and Gina Patterson.

March 25-27
+ Monday at 7:30 pm
+ Tuesday at 7:30 pm
+ Wednesday at 7:30 pm

PREMIERES

Ballet Palm Beach presents a festival of new repertoire featuring diverse and neoclassical works from locally and nationally recognized choreographers including George Balanchine, Alvin Ailey’s Christopher Huggins, and more. Underwritten in part by Rob & Amy Swan, the mixed bill will include:

+ George Balanchine’s Sonatine

Based on music by Maurice Ravel and staged by Balanchine répétiteur Zippora Karz, a former New York City Ballet soloist, who performed for 16 years on stage and in televised performances. She was featured in a variety of roles choreographed by Balanchine, Jerome Robbins, Peter Martins and Lynne Taylor Corbett. Today, as a répétiteur for the George Balanchine Trust, she stages Balanchine ballets for schools and companies around the globe. Sonatine is an elegantly fluid pas de deux set to live piano music by Cassie Makeeff. The ballet is rarely performed, and is generously underwritten by the Chastain Charitable Foundation.

+ Into the Woods, a World Premiere by Christopher Huggins

A protege of the internally acclaimed choreographer Alvin Ailey, Huggins returns to Ballet Palm Beach to set this impressive piece. A 2002 and 2008 recipient of the Alvin Ailey Award for Best Choreography from the Black Theater Alliance in Chicago, Huggins has also worked on several projects for Disney in Orlando. He was a silver medalist for the 4th International Contemporary Dance Competition in Seoul, Korea. In addition to commissions for Ailey II and The Ailey School, he has also set works on other dance companies, universities. and high schools throughout the U.S.

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+ Donna Murray’s The Russ & Ellen Show: A love story circa 1945

This world premiere is a dance-theatre styled piece set to music by Louis Armstrong, Bing Crosby, Benny Goodman, and more. This contemporary ballet documents the life and love story of the choreographer's grandparents who were born during the Great Depression and navigated the horrors of WWII. “The work speaks universally to those who belong to and those who have come from the Greatest Generation,” promises Murray, who directed her namesake dance company based in New York City for 12 years before relocating to Florida in 2011. Her choreography has been commissioned by Dimensions Dance Theater of Miami and Ballet Palm Beach and has been presented by Dance/USA, Palm Beach Poetry Festival, Florida Dance Education Organization, Duncan Theater, South Miami-Dade Performing Arts Center and the Kravis Center. In 2017, Murray’s choreography premiered at the Goyang International Dance Festival in South Korea.

+ World Premiere by Gina Patterson

Gina Patterson has been hailed as a choreographer of “startling originality” by Backstage Magazine, and Dance Magazine said “Patterson has a voice, that ever-elusive thing, and whatever the future of ballet may be, choreographers like her will always have a place in it.” Creating over 100 choreographies, winning international acclaim including the Choo San Goh Award, and a nomination for an Isadora Duncan Award, she illuminates social issues, awareness, and education. Patterson’s works are multi-disciplinary, non-linear, interactive kinetic collages, employing multi-sensory triggers and innovations in use of story, space, and venue. They appear in the repertoire of over 25 national and international dance companies. Thirteen full-evening productions, including Romeo and Juliet and the Emmy-winning Liquid Roads, reflect her expansive vision.

“The eclectic mixed bill of PREMIERES features four new works for the company, including three world premieres by choreographers Christopher Huggins, Donna Murray and Gina Patterson,” says Smith. “Ballet Palm Beach has been a hive of activity this month with the contagious energy of our guest choreographers. We are also very honored to present Balanchine's Sonatine. This pas de deux is a jewel and with live music by Ravel, the audience will be swept away.”

How to Purchase Tickets to PREMIERES:

Tickets are $45 each and may be purchased by visiting www.balletpalmbeach.org  or by calling 800.572.8471. The Kravis Center’s Rinker Playhouse is located at 701 Okeechobee Blvd. in West Palm Beach, FL.