Dance Victoria Announces 2019/20 Season of the World’s Best Dance at the Royal
with New York’s Les Ballets Trockadero de Monte Carlo for One Night Only!
Dance Victoria brings the World’s Best Dance to Victoria with a roster of passionate, compelling and unexpected dance performances choreographed by some of world’s leading male and female choreographers. Two of the works in the 19/20 Season were commissioned with the help of Dance Victoria and local donors.
The world’s foremost all-male comic ballet company, Les Ballets Trockadero de Monte Carlo (New York), performs at the Royal Theatre for ONE NIGHT ONLY on February 4, 2020. Playful and entertaining, the TROCKS’ skewed view of traditional ballet is a perfect, polished parody of the highest order. The company’s inspired blend of their loving knowledge of dance, their humorous approach, and the astounding fact that men can, indeed, dance en pointe without falling flat on their faces, has made them loved around the globe. Only Dance Victoria subscribers can buy Trockadero tickets before sales are open to the general public on November 18, 2019.
Aspen Santa Fe Ballet (ASFB) kicks off the Dance at the Royal Series on November 15 and 16, 2019 with a gorgeous mix of live dance and piano virtuosity with world-renowned pianist Joyce Yang performing live on stage for all the works. ASFB tackles the quirky Half/Cut/Split by noted Finnish choreographer Jorma Elo, Fernando Melo’s Dream Play set to the music of Erik Satie and Frédéric Chopin, and Nicolo Fonte’s touching Where We Left Off with music by Philip Glass.
On February 7 and 8, 2020, Dance Victoria presents Kidd Pivot (Vancouver) in Revisor, the newest contemporary dance theatre creation by Crystal Pite and actor/writer Jonathon Young (of the international sensation Betroffenheit). The premiere of Revisor in Vancouver sold out well in advance of opening night. Eight dancers embody the recorded dialogue of some of Canada’s finest actors in a plot that reinvests theatrical devices with anarchic absurdity, and Pite’s wildly inventive choreography. As story and dance cascade into a final conflagration of human failing and moral bankruptcy, Revisor uses the mutable language of conflict and comedy to examine the relationship between people and politics, with eviscerating wit and bold physicality. Dance Victoria assisted in commissioning Revisor with the help of several local donors.
Dance Victoria also supported the commission of Ballet BC (Vancouver) in Romeo + Juliet by French dance maker Medhi Walerski that comes to the Royal Theatre on March 13 and 14, 2020. Martha Schabas of The Globe and Mail said the creation “reveals Mr. Walerski at his most visionary…unforgettable sequences and tableau…” Ballet BC’s version is a fresh and heartbreaking retelling of the deeply human story set to Sergei Prokofiev’s original score that profoundly resonates today.
Tania Pérez-Salas Compañía de Danza (Mexico City) concludes the Dance at the Royal Series on May 1 and 2, 2020 with theatrical, raw and personal works. Pérez-Salas is Mexico’s leading contemporary choreographer. In Ex-Stasis, Pérez-Salas explores trusting our instincts to let the body communicate with the mind while Religare investigates the power of dance as a ritual that reconciles the body with the spirit.
In addition to the Dance at the Royal Series, from November 30 to December 1, 2019, the Ukrainian Shumka Dancers (Edmonton) will perform an incredibly dynamic Nutcracker unlike any you’ve seen before: a production that blends the grace and lyricism of classical ballet performed by principals from the Ukrainian National Opera Ballet, with the strength and power of the Virsky national folk dance company. This classic tale of young Clara and her dream Prince incorporates Ukrainian traditions and symbols, grand orchestral versions of Tchaikovsky’s legendary score performed by the Victoria Symphony, and lavish sets and costumes designed by National Opera of Ukraine’s Maria Levitska. Early bird Nutcracker tickets will be available to the public from August 15 through to September 30, 2019.
Full Media Release available here.