California Ballet Announces its 46th Season at the San Diego Civic Theatre

California Ballet has just finished up a scintillating 45th Sapphire Anniversary Season, and we are excited to look towards the future as we prepare for another year of professional dance in San Diego! We invite you to join the fun at one or all of the following productions at the San Diego Civic Theatre:

Dracula
Choreography by: Charles Bennett

San Diego Civic Theatre

October 26 & 27, 2013

Back by popular demand, the season opens in October 2013 with Dracula. The unique combination of seductive drama intertwined with movement will mesmerize audience members. Choreographed by Charles Bennett and based upon the classic Bram Stoker haunting tale of vampires and romance, this season’s production will hold surprises even for those who attended last year! This production is not appropriate for children under the age of 8.

 

 

 

 

 

Nutcracker
Choreography by: Maxine Mahon

San Diego Civic Theatre

December 14-15, 2013 (Classics Philharmonic) 
December 18-22, 2013 (San Diego Symphony)

In December 2013, Maxine Mahon’s The Nutcracker returns to the stage for an extended two-week run. Filled with amazing dancing, magical music, and the whimsy of childhood, this holiday classic is an instant family tradition. San Diego’s longest-running Nutcracker will be presented with full symphony accompaniment of Tchaikovsky’s magnificent score, conducted by California Ballet Music Director John Stubbs (The Classics Philharmonics December 15 & 15; The San Diego Symphony December 18-22).

Sleeping Beauty 
Choreography by: Maxine Mahon

San Diego Civic Theatre

May 17-18, 2014

Considered by many to be Tchaikovsky’s crowning jewel, Maxine Mahon’s Sleeping Beauty returns to the Civic Theatre in May of 2014 for the first time in nearly a decade! The ballet is considered to be one of the most difficult to stage and execute in the ballet repertoire. California Ballet is the only local professional company to present this classic gem in its extravagant entirety. Children of all ages will be entertained by this fairy tale classic, filled with special appearances by Little Red Riding Hood and her wolf, Puss ‘n Boots, and Princess Florina and her bluebird!

Don’t miss your chance to see one or all of these exciting productions during California Ballet Company’s 46th Season, presented at the San Diego Civic Theatre!

Tickets are already on sale through the California Ballet ticketing office at:

(858) 560-6741

or online at www.californiaballet.org/season

California Ballet’s Complete History, Abridged!

So far in our 45 in 45 fundraiser, we’ve raised just shy of $1,000. It’s a start, but we’ve still got a long way to go! If you’re wondering what we’re raising money for, take a look at this Abridged history of California Ballet, and you’ll see the legacy and staying power of the 5th oldest ballet company in California!

We’ve done the long history thing for California Ballet, but we’re not fools. We sat in history class in high school, too! We know that there can be nothing worse than a long, drawn out treatise on the history of . . . well . . . anything. We don’t care if it’s the history of the United State, video games, or Santa Claus – no one likes to be lectured on it.

Still, we thought that as long as you are participating in our 45 in 45 fundraiser, you might want to know  a little about the wonderful company you’ve joined Team 45 for. So, here’s an abridged, and hopefully entertaining, history of California Ballet.

And we promise, it won’t take three hours to read.

Picture this: 1968 . . . civil rights was in full swing, Lyndon B. Johnson was president, and Americans were training to land on the moon for the first time! It was an exciting year, and it was also the year California Ballet Company was born. Gathering a small group of disparate dancers, Maxine Mahon sought to fill a void in San Diego, CA: the need for a professional ballet company. Together this small troupe of professional ballet dancers began a legacy that would endure for the next 45 years.

Enter the 1970’s: disco, bell bottoms, and 8-tracks (kids, go ask you parents what those are). The beginning of the 70’s was also the beginning of San Diego’s largest and longest running Nutcracker. 1971 was the first year California Ballet’s holiday extravaganza was performed, and the following year the production moved to it’s permanent home at the San Diego Civic Theatre. Other new ballets found their way onto the California Ballet stage: Coppelia, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, and Giselle to name a few. Plus, the ballet company moved to its permanent home neighborhood of Kearny Mesa in 1974.

The 1980’s were a decade of punk rock, mohawks, and tulle (and not just on tutus). They were also a decade of expansion for California Ballet. New ballets, new faces, and an ever-increasing budget were just part of these formative years. San Diego’s favorite ballerina stepped forward as California Ballet’s premiere dancer: Denise Dabrowski. In 1986, Denise and Director Maxine Mahon were just about to leave for a cultural exchange with Russia when Chernobyl went boom! Of course, their trip was cancelled. Not to worry, just three years later the Soviet exchange happened anyway, this time with Calvin Kitten (recently retired from the Joffrey Ballet) acting as California Ballet’s cultural ambassador. There were some exciting premieres in the 1980’s including Romeo & Juliet, The Legend of Josefa, and the California Heritage Project (which celebrates California history.)

When the 1990’s came about, people were wearing fanny packs and fluorescent, day-glo colors. The decade began with on a bitter-sweet note as CBC lost Calvin Kitten to the Joffrey Ballet. Yet, the ever-growing ballet company welcomed new dancers from abroad, including Ukrainian Vadim Solomakha (formerly of San Francisco Ballet). CBC also added a new line of ballets to its repertoire: a family series! The first in the series was Alice in Wonderland, followed the very next year by Snow White. Plus, in 1997 the company premiered its full-length . . . wait for it . . . Swan Lake! That’s right, and we’re performing that very same production this season!

 

Y2K came and went, and the world didn’t end like everyone thought it would. The ballet company continued to dance on into the 21st century. In a big change in 2000, the entire company and school picked up and moved . . . across the parking lot into a brand new, state of the art dance center. For the first time in 28 years, the company would have air conditioning in its rehearsal space! The first decade of the 21st century was also a very sad one as we lost many long-time California Ballet family members including artistic advisor (and world-renowned ballerina) Sonia Arova, dancer and choreographer Ricardo Peralta, board member and friend Karen Saltzman, our dearly beloved Principal Choreographer Charles Bennett (of Dracula, Romeo & Juliet, Alice in Wonderland fame), and San Diego’s first ballerina and mother of director Maxine Mahon, Flora Jennings-Small.

Now we’re into the second decade of the 21st century. We’re all looking around asking ourselves what happened to the flying cars The Jetsons promised us, the hovering skateboards Back to the Future promised us, and the jetpacks Flash Gordon promised us. Yet California Ballet continues to forge a future for classical dance. Every year we debut new works at our annual Choreographer’s Concert, we preserve classics for future generations by mounting and remounting timeless ballets, we strive to educate our youth in a nation that turns it back on arts education more and more with each passing year. 45 years is a long time for a ballet company to pursue its mission of artistic excellence. We’ve only gotten this far because of you, our friends, followers, patrons, supporters, and family.

Become a part of writing California Ballet’s next 45 years of history by increasing support for the ballet. Go to our StayClassy.org fundraising page and donate $45. Better yet, save a few bucks and start your own fundraiser – get your friends and families to become supporters of the ballet. We’ve been around 45 years because of you, and we’ll need you to make it another 45!

 

 

45 in 45 – Celebrate 45 years of excellence in dance, become a member of Team 45!

Safe, Secure, and Fast

Your information stays with California Ballet, and we don’t share!

Click the link below to donate $45 or start your own Team 45 fundraising page!

www.stayclassy.org/45in45

 

 

 

Cinderella: An Abridged History of the Ballet

We’ve already  talked about the history of the Cinderella fairy tale. If you missed that article, CLICK HERE to give it a read. Let’s take a moment and talk about the history of the ballet. Cinderella is a newer ballet, as ballets go, and there is a good chance that you haven’t seen it. Why, it only premiered 67 years ago! So, when you go to see the ballet this May at the San Diego Civic Theater, why go into it with your eyes shut? Let’s take a look at how this fabulous ballet got its start!

You may or may not know this, but the music for the Cinderella ballet was composed by a man named Sergei Prokofiev. And even if you did know that did you know that he was not the first composer approached to write the score for the ballet? In fact, in 1870 the Bolshoi Ballet approached another famous composer to attack  the fairytale: Peter Tchaikovsky! That’s right, the man who brought us The Nutcracker and Swan Lake was the original choice for the job. Unfortunately, the music never appeared, and the fairytale sat on the back burner of ballet for the next seventy years.

Imagine, if Tchaikovsky had gotten his act together, we might have had a Cinderella that was choreographed by Marius Petipa or Lev Ivanov!

Fast forward to 1940, and a musician named Sergei Prokofiev picks up where Tchaikovsky never even got started. Prokofiev had already begun to make a name for himself in the ballet world. Just five years earlier, he’d completed work on the now famous ballet rendition of Romeo and Juliet. By 1940 the actual ballet had yet to premier, but would do so by the end of the year. Prokofiev’s music for Romeo and Juliet, however, had been heard the world over, and universally loved.

Well, with one exception: the Bolshoi Ballet originally declared his music “undanceable.” Boy, were they wrong!

Sergei Prokofiev

So, with the world listening to his music, Prokofiev began his work on the score for Cinderella in 1940. He also stopped work on it that same year. You see, a little conflict had broken out – World War 2 – and Prokofiev, ever the artist, decide to work on another piece that spoke to him at the time: the opera of War and Peace. It didn’t waylay him long, however, and in 1944 Prokofiev began working on Cinderella again, finishing it the following year.

The original ballet premiered in 1945 at the Bolshoi Ballet with choreography by Rostislav Zakharaov. It was quite popular, and in fact was produced again for the Kirov the following year. The ballet’s story was based on the Perrault version of the fairytale (not the Brother’s Grimm) which we are all quite familiar with thanks to a certain Mouse. A few things were added in order to make the story work better as a ballet. The four seasons are represented in the ballet as fairies, but never appear that way in the Perrault story. The Fairy Godmother first appears as a poor beggar in order to test Cinderella’s kindness. This also never happened in the original fairy tale. And, for obvious reasons, the glass slippers are replaced with pointe shoes.

Well, it is classical ballet, what did you expect?

The original production was, as admitted by Prokofiev himself, an homage Peter Tchaikovsky. In fact, the score was dedicated to Tchaikovsky by the composer himself! (Prokofiev idolized the great composer.)

In time, many other companies and choreographers would try their hand at new versions of the ballet, but Prokofiev’s score would remain unchanged. One of the most notable renditions is that done by the English mastermind Frederick Ashton. His production was the first in the West to use Prokofiev’s score, and it certainly pleased audiences. Ashton himself appeared onstage as one of the Stepsisters – a performance that many consider unmatched to this day.

Sir Frederick Ashton

In less than one month, California Ballet Company will perform Cinderella at the San Diego Civic Theatre. Our choreography is by the incredibly talented Toni Pimble of Oregon’s Eugene Ballet. Her iteration of the ballet is in turns comical, tender, heart wrenching, and always enchanting. Her technical sensibilities and impeccable musicality blend to create a masterful melange of dance and acting that showcase California Ballet’s dancers in ways that you might not have previously seen them. Ballerina Chie Kudo is stepping into Cindy’s shoes for the first time, giving us all a chance to relish in her ability as an actor while being entranced by her technical prowess. Soloist Oscar Burciaga is putting on a skirt to reprise his role as a stepsister – and he makes a lovely lady! Corps de ballet dancers Miki Batchman and Joseph Shumate step out into the spotlight to fill in the rest of the stepfamily – and with Toni Pimble’s comedic flair, everyone is in for some hilarious belly laughs, balanced by our heartstrings being pulled as we watch Kudo’s Cinderella suffer under their tyrannous fists. Of course, Cinderella would not be complete without her prince, danced for us by International Guest Artist Vadim Solomakha. His flair as a performer, and ability to capture the audience’s heart, will blend with Ms. Pimble’s choreography to make a performance you cannot miss!

As the years progress, Prokofiev’s score sees more and more interpretations by more and more companies. Yet, this is still a less-known ballet when help up against the likes of The Nutcracker, Swan Lake, and Coppelia. Don’t miss your chance to see this enchanting fairytale in all its balletic glory this May 5th and 6th at the San Diego Civic Theatre!

California Ballet Presents:

Toni Pimble’s Cinderella

At the San Diego Civic Theatre

May 5, 2012 at 7:00pm

May 6, 2012 at 1:00pm

For tickets and information CLICK HERE

 

 

Information in this blog credited to California Ballet Company’s Teacher’s Sourcebook, Wikipedia, http://www.ballet.co.uk, about.com, and the University of California, Irvine Department of Dance curriculum.