Justin Peck's PAZ DE LA JOLLA Makes Company Premiere

Karen Kain, Artistic Director of The National Ballet of Canada, today announced the principal casting for the company premiere of Justin Peck's Paz de la Jolla, James Kudelka's The Man in Black and Alexander Ekman's Cacti. The Summer Mixed Programme concludes the 2017/18 season, June 16 - 22, 2018 at the Four Seasons Centre for the Performing Arts.

Created in 2013 by New York City Ballet dancer and Resident Choreographer Justin Peck, Paz de la Jolla is a sun-washed homage to his southern California upbringing. Set to Bohuslav Martin?'s Sinfonietta la Jolla, Paz de la Jolla marks Peck's debut with the National Ballet.

James Kudelka's fertile choreographic imagination has never ceased to surprise audiences. Set to six songs sung by the late great Johnny Cash, The Man in Black features four dancers wearing cowboy boots who create moving tableaux that are by turns haunting, funny, anguished and touching.

Swedish choreographer Alexander Ekman has a well-earned international reputation for creating genre-breaking ballets that question the nature of dance and the meaning of performance. Cacti, which premiered with the National Ballet in 2016, is quintessential Ekman. Full of inventive uses of space, sound and physical design, Cacti is a witty, quick-paced, tongue-in-cheek piece satirizing modern dance.

The popular pre-performance Ballet Talk series, See the Music, Hear the Dance, returns this June. Led by Principal Conductor and Music Director David Briskin and featuring The National Ballet of Canada Orchestra, catch See the Music, Hear the Dance before the June 22 performance of Paz de la Jolla & The Man in Black & Cacti.

Principal Casting

Paz de la Jolla
Jillian Vanstone (June 16 at 2:00 pm/June 22 at 7:30 pm)
Chelsy Meiss (June 16 at 7:30 pm/June 20 at 7:30 pm)
Jenna Savella (June 17 at 2:00 pm/June 21 at 7:30 pm)

Emma Hawes and Brendan Saye (June 16, 17 at 2:00 pm/June 21 at 7:30 pm)
Hannah Fischer and Harrison James (June 16, 20, 22 at 7:30 pm)

The Man in Black
Jonathan Renna, Jenna Savella, Piotr Stanczyk, Robert Stephen (June 16, 17 at 2:00 pm)
Francesco Gabriele Frola*, Stephanie Hutchison, Kota Sato*, Ethan Watts* (June 16, 21 at 7:30 pm)
Jonathan Renna, Rebekah Rimsay, Piotr Stanczyk, Robert Stephen (June 20, 22 at 7:30 pm)

Cacti
Women
Jordana Daumec, Jeannine Haller or Meghan Pugh, Emma Hawes, Soo Ah Kang or Andreea Olteanu, Alexandra MacDonald, Antonella Martinelli or Stephanie Hutchison, Chelsy Meiss, Chae Eun Yang or Rui Huang

Men
Skylar Campbell or Giorgio Galli, Jimmy Coleman or Robert Stephen, Naoya Ebe, Christopher Gerty or Félix Paquet, Spencer Hack, Peng-Fei Jiang or Brent Parolin, Ben Rudisin, Dylan Tedaldi

Solo String Quartet
Aaron Schwebel, Violin
Dominique Laplante, Violin
Angela Rudden, Viola
Maurizio Baccante, Cello (June 16, 17 at 2:00 pm/June 16 at 7:30 pm)
Olga Laktionova, Cello (June 20, 21, 22 at 7:30 pm)

*Debut

All casting subject to change.

Artists of the Ballet in Cacti. Photo by Aleksandar Antonijevic.

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