Tahoe Youth Ballet 2010 Spring Season March 19-20 at No Tahoe High
Posted on February 26, 2010
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Tahoe Youth Ballet presents its second performance featuring local and guest artists in its Spring Season at the North Tahoe High School Theater on Friday, March 19th and Saturday, March 20th at 7pm.
The program will feature four ballets and guest artist Stephen Straub of Suzanne Farrell Ballet and Aspen Santa Fe Ballet alongside six of Tahoe’s finest young dancers. Works presented include ballets by Artistic Director Christin Hanna in addition to Royal Danish Ballet’s Constantine Baecher, former New York City Ballet dancer Deborah Wingert and Madame Peff Modelski.
Tahoe Youth Ballet Spring Season 2010
Friday, March 19
Saturday, March 20
7pm
North Tahoe High School Theater
2945 Polaris Road in Tahoe City, CA
Tickets: General admission. Adults $20, Students and seniors $10.
Tickets available through Brown Paper Tickets via our website, www.tahoeyouthballet.com, or by calling 1-800-838-3006.
Featuring four ballets guest artist Stephen Straub and the entire company of dancers will open the program in Deborah Wingert’s La Dernière Valse, a world premiere to the romantic music of Maurice Ravel. Peff Modelski’s Celebration Tarantella is a lively dance for three ladies to an excerpt from Ottorino Respighi’s La Boutique Fantasque. In the evening’s second world premiere, Artistic Director Christin Hanna has choreographed Maturescence to the music of Pulitzer Prize-winning composer David Lang. “I met Mr. Lang in 2007 when he attended a New Chamber Ballet performance that included a piece to one of his works; I had never before met someone who had created the music I was about to dance to.” said Hanna, “He was so humble and after meeting him I felt his music had even more personality than I had before- I can’t say that I feel that way about a lot of contemporary composers. It’s an honor to create new steps for these young dancers to his music.”
Another highlight of the program is guest choreographer Constantine Baecher’s ballet Viduity, set to music by Leos Janacek. Hanna has staged this work for TYB as she appeared in the original cast when the ballet was created. The New York Times wrote, “… the work for four women used an enigmatic language of gesture and authoritative spatial arrangements to create a sophisticated, moving meditation on grief” when the work premiered in 2007.
Tahoe Youth Ballet premiered last June to a standing ovation and rave reviews. Following the company debut, TYB was named a beneficiary of Wolfdale’s 13th Annual Bud Davis Memorial Abalone Dinner, which raised funds for this year’s spring performance. The company also hosted workshops, master classes, open rehearsals, and Meet the Artist Events with visiting choreographers, dancers and teachers. The company made it’s new home in the Cobblestone Center in September, rehearsing for the upcoming season.
Tahoe Youth Ballet’s goal is to team up young, emerging dancers with more experienced professionals for engaging evenings of classical and contemporary ballet. The company is comprised of six local dancers between the ages of fourteen and eighteen – Sierra Barter, Michelle Cahill, Keegan Harrig, Camille Joubert, Katie Mowris and Sierra Walsh – led by Artistic Director Christin Hanna. This year’s guest artist, Stephen Straub, appeared in a Meet the Artists event with Ms. Wingert in January. Stephen’s experience in both the classical and contemporary ballet world will be represented in the two works he will perform in March- both in Wingert’s La Dernière Valse and Hanna’s Maturescence. Mr. Straub has performed with Aspen Santa Fe Ballet and Suzanne Farrell Ballet and is currently attending CU Boulder as a freshman while continuing to perform on a freelance basis.
Artistic Director Christin Hanna is a native of Lake Tahoe. She has performed with an array of ballet companies throughout the United States including Nevada Festival Ballet, Oakland Ballet, Connecticut Ballet, Eglevsky Ballet, Ballet NY, Cincinnati Ballet, and most prominently, Miro Magloire’s New Chamber Ballet. As a member of that company since its inception in 2004, Hanna performed in the company’s seasons at New York’s City Center Studios as well as touring to Philadelphia, the Jacob’s Pillow Dance Festival, and Cologne, Germany. The New York Times’ Roslyn Sulcas called her farewell performance with the company “a touching scene of tears, cheers, hugs and bouquets… a testament to Ms. Hanna’s fine dancing.” (July 1, 2008)
Upon returning to Lake Tahoe, Hanna founded Tahoe Youth Ballet with the goal to enrich the cultural and educational fabric of the region by giving young, local dancers and dance students an opportunity to collaborate with professional dancers, choreographers and master teachers from around the country as part of a professional company. “There’s a lot of local talent in the community, and I want them to share their artistry – and learn from – our guests,” Hanna says. “There are some amazing dancers and choreographers headed to Tahoe to work with us, and together we will truly enliven the region’s cultural life.”
For additional information, please contact Christin Hanna at Tahoe Youth Ballet, (530) 613-4363 or christin@tahoeyouthballet.com.
Photos:
Sierra Barter in Constantine Baecher’s Viduity, Photo by Danielle Hankinson
Left to right – Michelle Cahill, Katie Mowris, Keegan Harrig & Sierra Barter in Constantine Baecher’s Viduity, Photo by Danielle Hankinson
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