José Mateo Ballet Theatre Announces the Company's Fall Performances and the 2016/17 Season

José Mateo Ballet Theatre announces its fall season, Impelling Forces, October 14-30, 2016 at The Sanctuary Theatre in Harvard Square, Cambridge. The Company's 2016/17 Season features four distinct programs of original ballets that continue to rejuvenate the art form for 21st century audiences, including two Mateo premieres, plus the return of The Nutcracker to the Theatre District at The Cutler Majestic and The Strand Theatre in Dorchester.

Themed "Inner Space Adventures", the 31st Season will transport audiences to experience the brave new worlds of unique ballet theatre at its best and offers a new Wine Curation Program at The Sanctuary Theatre where local sommeliers will hand-select their favorite wines to be featured at each concert.

The 31st Season opens with Impelling Forces featuring three Mateo works including Mozart Provoked (2014). The ballet is set to a reinterpretation of Mozart's original Sonata in C Major by experimental musician Uri Caine who provides a contemporary jazz rendition of Mozart's masterpiece. 1796 (2015), set to Beethoven's Sonata No. 2 in G minor for piano and cello, explores the music's subtle traces of a more pronounced tension that accounts for the profoundly dark character of Beethoven's late work. The concert also includes Over and Over (2009), set to Symphony #2 by American composer Philip Glass, consideredone of the most influential composers of the late-20th century. Over and Over takes us to the all-too-familiar but nameless space where the painfully compacted effects of personal loss and the vastness of repetitious history intersect.

José Mateo Ballet Theatre returns its treasured production of The Nutcracker to the Cutler Majestic Theatre in Boston's historic Theatre District, November 25-December 4, 2016. For the sixth consecutive season the Company will continue to bring its Nutcracker to new audiences with an extended run of performances at The Strand Theatre in Dorchester (Dec. 9-18). Children's Nutcracker Auditions are September 10 & 11. Go to http://www.ballettheatre.org/current for more information.

From Artistic Director Jose Mateo

"The dances this season are set to some of the world's best music -- from the finest compositions of great masters like Bach, Mozart and Beethoven to the innovative works by the early pioneers of modern music like Ravel, Debussy and Stravinsky down to the innovative sounds of contemporary composers like Glass, Clyne and Piñera -- each creating an alluring universe of its own.

You will be surprised by the power of the dances to transport you to another space and time that are at once strangely familiar and yet altogether new. You will be struck by the athletic dynamism of skilled dancers boldly moving through physical space and stirred by the dramatic intensity with which they reveal their innermost souls."

Founded in 1986, José Mateo Ballet Theatre is one of America's leading producers of new ballets, the area's most innovative ballet school, and the creator of Dance for World Community™, an initiative that builds community by expanding the role of dance in our culture. Over the past 31 years Cuban-born Founder/Artistic Director José Mateo has developed his unique vision to create a new model for an inclusive and socially responsible ballet organization that engages today's diverse audiences.

THE COMPANY, praised by local and national critics and hailed by Boston Magazine as "Best of Boston Dance Performance", regularly presents Mateo's highly acclaimed concerts at its Sanctuary Theatre in its home at Old Cambridge Baptist Church in Harvard Square. Its presentation of Mateo's treasured version of The Nutcracker at The Cutler Majestic Theatre in Boston's Theatre District and The Strand Theatre in Dorchester offers an intimate, dance-focused, and affordable holiday experience.

THE SCHOOL offers an innovative model for a high-quality academy with a humanistic approach to ballet training that fosters diversity and inclusion at both its Cambridge campus and new Dorchester studio. The Young Dancers Program provides expert training for students ages 3-18 and the Open Class Program for Adults offers Introduction to Ballet courses and daily drop-in classes for all levels.

DANCE FOR WORLD ™ makes dance accessible to thousands of children, families, and new audiences through several year-round outreach programs and its annual Dance for World Community Festival in June, a week-long indoor/outdoor festival in Harvard Square.

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