Cal
Performances
2004-2005 Dance Season
For more information: http://www.calperfs.berkeley.edu
Shen
Wei Dance Arts
Sept 25-26
For its Bay Area debut, the company will perform a double bill of
acclaimed works showcasing his powerful hybrid of Eastern and Western
artistic influences, including The Rite of Spring, Shen
Wei's fiercely original exploration of Stravinsky's two-piano score,
cited as one of the 10 best dance events of 2003 by The New York
Times.
National Ballet of Canada
September 30 - October 3
Kudelka/There, below, set to Vaughan Williams' Fantasia
on a Theme by Thomas Tallis; The Four Seasons, set to Vivaldi;
Balanchine/Apollo, set to Stravinsky
Mark Morris Dance Group
Oct 22-24
In the first of two programs performed to live musical accompaniment,
the Mark Morris Dance Group returns with Morris' beautifully geometric
Mosaic and United, a grand display of Morris' visual and rhythmic
imagination, set to Henry Cowell string quartets, in addition to
an as-yet untitled West Coast premiere.
Oct 28 - 30
In the second of two programs performed entirely to live musical
accompaniment, the ensemble returns with the world premiere of another
Cal Performances-commissioned work, plus the reprise of All Fours
(also commissioned by Cal Performances), a vibrant and austerely
beautiful work set to Bartók's Fourth String Quartet. The
program will also include I Don't Want to Love, set to Monteverdi
madrigals, and Morris' powerful V — a piece already hailed
by the critics as a "classic" — set to Schumann's
Quintet in E-flat major, Op. 44.
Matthew Bourne's Nutcracker
Nov 26 - Dec 5
Making the most of Bourne's trademark clever staging and satirical
flair, Nutcracker! re-imagines the classic holiday story, following
Clara's Christmas Eve dream from a bleak Victorian orphanage, through
a shimmering ice-skating wonderland, to the candy-coated magical
realm of Sweetieland. Set to Tchaikovsky's traditional score, with
spectacularly colorful and whimsical sets and costumes by Olivier
Award-winning designer Anthony Ward, Bourne's Nutcracker! is "a
near-perfect blend of wit and wisdom, camp and romance, innocent
charm and sly knowing," says CurtainUp (London).
Trisha Brown Dance Company
Feb 25 - 26
Trisha Brown's pioneering artistry has influenced a generation of
modern dance choreographers and she has become known worldwide for
her unique ability to infuse rigorous formal elegance with eccentricity,
wit, and lyricism. Brown's acclaimed company returns following the
West Coast premiere in 2000 of her Canto/Pianto, a dance synthesis
of Brown's much-praised staging of Monteverdi's L'Orfeo.
Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater
Mar 11 - 20
New works plus Revelations
Les Ballets Trockadero de Monte Carlo
May 5 - 7
Eifman Ballet
June 8 - 12
"This Russian dancemaker and his dancers are among the most
fascinating artists before the public today," raved the San
Francisco Chronicle, following Eifman Ballet's triumphant 2003 premiere
of Red Giselle. Widely considered Russia's greatest living choreographer,
Boris Eifman founded his own company, the Leningrad Ballet Ensemble,
almost 30 years ago, and quietly revolutionized Soviet dance by
devising his own imaginative and inimitable style — fusing
ballet's emotion and expressiveness with the storytelling techniques
of 20th-century theater and film. His boldly theatrical and inventive
St. Petersburg troupe returns to the Bay Area to perform
two full-length works: the premiere of Eifman's Anna Karenina,
a brand new work set to Tchaikovsky and based on the famous Tolstoy
novel; and Eifman's critically acclaimed Don Juan &
Molière, a satirical and seductive dance-drama set
to Mozart and Berlioz.
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