Naissance at The Pavilion at Grace

Naissance is the inaugural production of Renaissance Ballet Collective, a nonprofit ballet company founded in 2026 by Nina Yoshida-Webster, a professional ballet dancer with more than ten years of experience. The program features excerpts from Cavalry Halt and Harlequinade, both choreographed by Marius Petipa, as well as selections from Walpurgisnacht from Charles Gounod's opera Faust. Cavalry Halt is a comedic one-act ballet portraying flirtation and mischief when cavalry officers arrive in a quiet village, while Harlequinade draws from Commedia dell'Arte and Venetian carnival traditions. Walpurgisnacht is a fantastical ballet interlude inspired by German folklore's witches' sabbath, with choreography in the tradition of Leonid Lavrovsky.