This weekend, before Valentine’s Day from February 10 – 12, the Tulsa Ballet premiers Romeo and Juliet, their first full-length ballet by choreographer Edwaard Liang. What a perfect way to celebrate Valentine’s Day!
February 2012 will mark a first for Tulsa Ballet: the commissioning of a brand new, full-length story ballet. This famous tragedy, set to music and dance, will be created for Tulsa Ballet by one of America’s rising stars: choreographer Edwaard Liang.
Look for engaging duets, appealing group dances, intricate choreography, and daring sword fights, created especially for this new production by famed Fight Director, J. Steven White from Stella Adler Studio of Acting.
Source: Tulsa Ballet channel on YouTube.
Tulsa Ballet’s Origins
The company was founded in 1956 by musician Rosalie Talbot and married couple Roman Jasinski and Moscelyne Larkin. Jasinski and Larkin were famous dancers who were internationally known for their style in the grand Ballets Russes tradition. Under their leadership, the troupe rose to the top echelon in the National Association for Regional Ballet in 1973 and became a fully professional company in 1978.
In its first international tour in 2002, Tulsa Ballet was declared by the Portuguese national magazine Semanario “One of the best in the world.” The company has received two feature articles in Dance Magazine during the past seven years, has been featured in the New York Times, Pointe Magazine and Dance Europe among others. In March 2008, Tulsa Ballet was featured on the cover of Pointe magazine- a distinction given to only one ballet company each year.
Source: wikipedia.org.
Tulsa Ballet Premiers Romeo and Juliet
Alicia Chesser from the Urban Tulsa Weekly interviews choreographer Ewaard Liang:
When Tulsa Ballet artistic director Marcello Angelini gave him six weeks to create a new evening-length Romeo and Juliet, Liang responded, “Sure, no problem!”
“With this company, I always say yes. They’re just fantastic to work with.”
Romeo and Juliet marks a milestone for Liang, a young choreographer from New York who has created works for the likes of San Francisco Ballet and the Bolshoi. Though he has almost two dozen contemporary ballets to his name (including “Beautiful Child,” created for Tulsa Ballet in 2010), he has never tackled a project of this magnitude.
Romeo and Juliet will be the first and only commissioned full-evening piece in the 55-year history of our organization,” Angelini said.
Based on Shakespeare’s play, Romeo and Juliet tells the story of the Montagues and the Capulets, feuding families in 16th-century Verona. The young lovers meet at a masquerade ball and are secretly married, only to be torn apart when Romeo flees the city after killing Juliet’s relative Tybalt. Their reunion comes only at the price of their earthly lives.
Several famous versions of the ballet exist, notably by Sir Kenneth MacMillan for the Royal Ballet and John Cranko for the Stuttgart Ballet, both created in the 1960s. The original Royal Ballet production famously reignited Margot Fonteyn’s career when it paired her with the young Rudolf Nureyev.
The ballet features dynamic group dances and thrilling sword fighting between Montagues and Capulets, co-choreographed by famed theatrical fight director Steve White. With lavish, complex sets and costumes from Houston Ballet by renowned designer David Walker, and soaring music by Sergei Prokofiev played by the Tulsa Symphony Orchestra, this is ballet on a grand scale.
You can read entire article here.
“Tulsa Ballet presents three performances of Romeo and Juliet at the Tulsa Performing Arts Center the weekend before Valentines Day. Tickets may be purchased by calling 918-749-6006 or by visiting www.tulsaballet.org.”
If you’re in the vicinity don’t miss this opportunity to attend this production as Tulsa Ballet premiers Romeo and Juliet and take your sweetheart to experience the greatest love story of all with this first class ballet company.
For never was a story of more woe, than this of Juliet and her Romeo.
-William Shakespeare
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