MIAMI CITY BALLET’S 2017-2018 SOARS TO NEW HEIGHTS
Kicking off on October 20 at the Adrienne Arsht Center in Miami, before moving on to the Broward Center in Ft. Lauderdale (October 28) and the Kravis Center in West Palm Beach (November 17), Miami City Ballet’s 32nd Season promises to be one of the best yet. Among the highlights curated by Artistic Director Lourdes Lopez are a celebration of Jerome Robbins’ 100th birthday, five company premieres, the return, after ten years, of George Balanchine’s glorious full-evening Jewels, and the crown jewel of the season, a stunning new production of George Balanchine’s The Nutcracker, with brand new sets and costumes designed by Cuban-American artistic power couple, Isabel and Ruben Toledo.
The new production of George Balanchine’s The Nutcracker will have its Florida premiere on December 15 at the Adrienne Arsht Center for the Performing Arts, and will feature live music by the Opus One Orchestra, preceded by a gala dinner and followed by a cast party on stage. Says Director Lopez, “I’m convinced that our new Nutcracker will revitalize this Balanchine masterpiece the way our A Midsummer Night’s Dream did two years ago!”
Season Overview:
Program One opens with a Balanchine masterpiece created 50 years ago – the full-length Jewels, a triptych of ballet at its most glamorous, including Emeralds, Rubies, and Diamonds.
Program Two is a Robbins Celebration in honor of the 100th birthday of legendary choreographer Jerome Robbins, with an entire program of his work, including Circus Polka, Other Dances, and The Cage. Returning are In the Night, demonstrating three stages of love, and West Side Story Suite, back by popular demand, with its show-stopping music by Leonard Bernstein.
Program Three features the lavish Theme and Variations, set in a spectacular 19th century ballroom to the soaring music of Tchaikovsk. This program also includes the return of another Robbins favorite, The Concert (Or, The Perils of Everybody), universally acclaimed as the funniest of all comic ballets. Lastly, there’s a World Premiere conceived and choreographed by Brian Brooks, Inaugural Choreographer in Residence at the Harris Theater for Music and Dance in Chicago.
Program Four heralds the company premiere of Alexei Ratmansky’s Concerto DSCH, an amazingly inventive and exciting ballet, set to a seething Dmitri Shostakovich piano concerto. Two Balanchine classics close out the season: La Valse, where 34 dancers waltz in a mysterious ballroom to gripping music by Maurice Ravel, and Balanchine’s first great masterwork, Apollo, which literally transformed the art of 20th-century ballet.
For tickets and more information, please visit www.miamicityballet.org or contact the box office at 877.929.7010.
