American Ballet Theatre News

The New York Choral Society (NYCHORAL) under the direction of its Music Director David Hayes will give the New York Premiere of celebrated Scottish composer James MacMillan's St. Luke Passion. NYCHORAL will be joined by organist Jason Roberts as well as the remarkable Brooklyn Youth Chorus under Artistic Director Dianne Berkun Menaker. James MacMillan's St. Luke Passion, written in 2013, is the second of four planned works, each based on one of the Gospels which aim to approach the differing passion accounts from contrasting stylistic per-spectives. The concert will take place on Saturday evening, April 8, 2017, 8 pm  at the landmark St. Bartholomew's Church, at 51st Street and Park Avenue. The program follows:

 On July 29, the Vail Dance Festival kicks off its 29th year (July 29- August 12) with a season of new collaborations, artist debuts, and world premieres.

American Ballet Theatre presented the World Premiere of an all-new production of Whipped Cream, a two-act ballet choreographed by Artist in Residence Alexei Ratmansky, with sets and costumes by artist Mark Ryden. It opened on March 15, 2017 at Segerstrom Center for the Arts in Costa Mesa, California.

Get ready for spring in the Marblehead School of Ballet's (MSB) adult ballet class on Thursdays from 10:30 a.m. to 12:00 p.m. at the studio, located at 115 Pleasant Street, in Marblehead, Massachusetts.  Dancers with elementary and intermediate levels of are invited to register for a series or drop-in and take a dance class.

Stunning Tribute to Sir Frederick Ashton By Sarasota Ballet

 The Harris Theater for Music and Dance is pleased to announce its fourteenth season of Harris Theater Presents performances exploring companies and stories of epic magnitude. Experience the 400-year-old cycle of Monteverdi's last surviving operas sung by the Monteverdi Choir and led by Sir John Eliot Gardiner, Mark Morris Dance Group's staged production of Layla and Majnun; the love story that has been told for centuries, and America's premier ballet company, American Ballet Theatre. Full performance details are outlined below.

The Joffrey Academy of Dance, Official School of The Joffrey Ballet in collaboration with Chicago Public Library present four world premieres in the seventh annual Winning Works program, the culmination of Joffrey's national call for ALAANA (African, Latino(a), Asian, Arab and Native American) artists to submit applications for the Joffrey Academy's Seventh Annual Winning Works Choreographic Competition.

Princeton Ballet School, the official school of American Repertory Ballet, announces its guest faculty for its highly celebrated Summer Intensive program held in Princeton, N.J., from June 26-July 28, 2017. First held in 1981, Princeton Ballet School's Summer Intensive is one of the oldest in the United States. The final U.S. audition for the program before the audition tour goes oversees to Europe will be this Sunday, March 12 in New York City.

The Sarasota Ballet is pleased to annouce that star of American Ballet Theatre (ABT), Marcelo Gomes, will be joing the Company as a guest artist for this production. Mr. Gomes will be performing the role of the Young Man in Ashton's The Two Pigeons for the Friday and Saturday evening performances. He is considered one of classical ballet's most sought-after male dancers, and has performed all over the world as a Principal dancer with ABT and as a guest dancer with companies such as the Bolshoi Ballet, the Mariinsky Ballet, The Royal Ballet, Dutch National Ballet and Matthew Bourne's New Adventures. He has been described by Alastair Macauley in The New York Times as 'Ballet Theater's central artist, the most natural dance-actor, the greatest of all partners,' and by Pia Catton in The Wall Street Journal  as a dancer whose 'jump explodes up with the boom of a bass drum-yet floats down with the grace of a violin note.'

Happy Friday, BWW Dance! Here are the top dance stories from around the BroadwayWorld you might have missed this week!

New York Live Arts 2017 Live Ideas Gala, co-chaired by Sarah Arison, Slobodan Randjelovic, and Jon Stryker and with award-winning actors Kathleen Turner and Delroy Lindo as masters of ceremony, pays tribute to Live Arts' annual Live Ideas Festival. The Gala will take place at the Highline Ballroom, located at 431 W 16th Street, New York City on Monday, April 3 with a cocktail reception at 6:30pmfollowed by the dinner and program at 7:15pm.

The Music Center named 111 of some of Southern California's most talented high school students as semifinalists in The Music Center's 29th annual Spotlight (Spotlight) program, a free nationally-acclaimed scholarship and arts training program for teens.  An important part of The Music Center's fundamental support for arts education, Spotlight is more than a competition.  The program provides opportunities for Southern California high school students to acquire the skills they need to pursue their dreams in the performing arts, ranging from the development of performance abilities in numerous genres to roles in arts management, along with valuable workforce readiness skills.

Canadian history comes to life on the stage of the Four Seasons Centre for the Performing Arts this spring when Harry Somers' Louis Riel returns to the Canadian Opera Company. A new production of this uniquely Canadian contribution to the opera world is being conceived by one of Canadian theatre's most acclaimed and inventive directors, Peter Hinton, with the COC's celebrated music director, Johannes Debus, conducting. This production of Louis Riel is proudly presented by the COC and its co-producer, National Arts Centre (NAC), in anticipation of Canada's sesquicentennial and the 50th anniversary of the opera's premiere. Louis Riel is sung in English, French, Michif and Cree with English, French, Michif and Cree SURTITLESTM, and runs for seven performances by the COC on April 20, 23, 26, 29, May 2, 5, 13, 2017 at Toronto's Four Seasons Centre for the Performing Arts. It will premiere in Ottawa by the NAC on June 15 and 17, 2017.

Today's guest is John Selya. John grew up in NYC and trained in the School of American Ballet before joining the American Ballet Theatre. We talk about John's love for surfing, and he tells a great story about his time working with one of my heroes, Mikhail Baryshnikov. We also talk about how he got started working with Twyla Tharp, and a whole lot more!

The Joyce Theater Foundation, Inc. (Linda Shelton, Executive Director) is thrilled to welcome the revered Hamburg Ballet in its Joyce debut, featuring the New York Premiere of Ballet Director and Chief Choreographer John Neumeier's Old Friends, from March 21 - 25. Tickets range in price from $26-$66 and can be purchased at www.Joyce.org, or by calling JoyceCharge at 212-242-0800. Please note: ticket prices are subject to change. The Joyce Theater is located at 175 Eighth Avenue at 19th Street. For more information, please visit www.Joyce.org.

HILDA MORALES, former soloist of American Ballet Theatre, and former principal dancer of the Pennsylvania Ballet, will be teaching a master class for the Classical Ballet Theatre in Herndon, Virginia on March 26, 2017.

Fire Island Dance Festival, one of the most anticipated charitable events of the Fire Island summer, will return to bring extraordinary dance and an incomparable weekend of culture on July 14-16, 2017. Featuring renowned international companies from a vast range of styles, the festival is produced by and benefits Dancers Responding to AIDS, a program of Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS.

HILDA MORALES, former soloist of American Ballet Theatre, and former principal dancer of the Pennsylvania Ballet, will be teaching a master class for the Classical Ballet Theatre in Herndon, Virginia on March 26, 2017 from 10 A.M. - 12 Noon. For more information contact Classical Ballet Theatre atwww.ctnva.org

ODC Theater is proud to present David Gordon and Pick Up Performance Co(s) in the world premiere of LIVE ARCHIVEOGRAPHY, a retrospective tracing five decades of the legendary theater and dance artist's work. Live Archiveography runs April 20 -22, Thursday to Saturday at 8 p.m.

Juilliard Dance, under the direction of Lawrence Rhodes, continues its season with Juilliard Dances Repertory featuring Richard Alston's Sheer Bravado; Nacho Duato'sPor Vos Muero; and Mark Morris's V.