Sarasota Ballet’s Winter Season Features International Heritage of Ballet

The Sarasota Ballet enters the New Year with two programs on the winter calendar. A Right Royal Affair runs with five shows opening at 8 pm, Friday, February 4 and running through to a Sunday evening show at 7 pm on February 6, 2011 in the Mertz Theatre at the FSU Center for Performing Arts.

In 2008, during Iain Webb's second season as director, Alistair Macaulay of the New York Times proclaimed Sarasota Ballet had "suddenly become America's foremost exponent of Ashton ballets." The February program features Ashton's Les Rendezvous, a suite of light hearted dances for young people in the park set to the music of Auber. Dame Ninette deValois, longtime Royal Ballet director, choreographed The Rake's Progress to follow painter William Hogarth's unflinching satire of 18th century English society. Her development of characters through dance following the Rake's tragic downfall captures the essential unique quality of the Royal Ballet tradition. The program also includes the Tony and Emmy-award winning choreographer Joe Layton's Grand Tour.

In March, the Sarasota Ballet welcomes back Johan Kobborg, one of the top male dancers worldwide who first performed with the company last season in Giselle. Kobborg will be collaborating with the Sarasota Ballet on a new version of Out of Denmark, a program that he and Iain Webb originally produced in London at the Queen Elizabeth Hall. Out of Denmark opens at 8 pm on Friday, March 4 and runs through a 7 pm Sunday evening show on March 6, 2011 in the Mertz Theatre of the FSU Center for Performing Arts.

The program includes the riches of Danish ballet starting with a 20th century favorite in Flemming Flindt's The Lesson, a 1963 ballet of murder with the ingénue ballerina as victim, the perpetrator being the trusted ballet teacher, and the piano accompanist the voyeur-provacateur. August Bournonville, the great choreographer after which the Bournonville Danish style was named, celebrated folk traditions in his Napoli, Act III featuring the reunion of two Neopolitan lovers. Kobborg will also stage his own production of Napoli, Act III, after Bournonville, as well as other highlights from the Danish Ballet's repertoire.

New Box Office

The Sarasota Ballet has new box office management this season and will be offering a streamlined ticket buying experience as well as concierge services for donors. Tickets for all regular performances can be purchased on line at www.SarasotaBallet.org. The new box office phone number is 941-359-0099 ext 101. Hours are Monday through Friday, 10 am to 4 pm. Single tickets are on sale now and range from $20 to $75 per performance.

Photo Credit: Herb Booth