Premieres Aplenty Coming in 2024-2025 Season
May 10, 2024—The coming of spring marks the end of the ballet season for many companies and the beginning of their summer tour season. The upcoming 2024-2025 season beckons with several premieres, works that are new to the Bay Area, North America, or, lucky us, the world. Here are some of the premieres we can look forward to in the coming months.
Cal Performances presents three Bay Area premieres. On April 25 Grupo Corpo of Brazil brings 21 and Gira, two works "rooted in classical ballet but enriched by folk and popular dance" of Brazilian and Afro-Brazilian influences. On February 22-23 Batsheva Dance Company performs Ohad Naharin's MOMO set to recordings of Laurie Anderson and Kronos Quartet's Landfall and Philip Glass' Metamorphosis: Two.
Diablo Ballet will perform two Company premieres: Donizetti Variations by George Balanchine on February 7-8 and Gerald Arpino's Reflections on May 15-16, 2025.
Donizetti Variations is a ballet in one act created for the 1960 New York City Ballet program "Salute to Italy" and set to music from Gaetano Donizetti's French opera Dom Sébastien, Roi de Portugal. Traditionally, this Balanchine ballet features a central pas de deux for a ballerina and partner plus varations and ensembles for the corps of six women and three men.
Reflections, produced in 1971, is one of choreographer Gerald Arpino's best known pieces. Diablo Ballet's announcement describes it as, "a neoclassical pure dance ballet and a perfect example of Arpino's style—high lifts, a flying pace, and classic beauty," set to Tchaikovsky's Variations on a Rococo Theme. Regarding Reflections, Diablo Ballet's Artistic Director Lauren Jonas stated, "I am so honored to receive such support from the Gerald Arpino Foundation, and I'm proud the Company is presenting his incredible work.
ODC/Dance presents Summer Sampler at ODC Theater on July 18-21, 2024, featuring a World Premiere by New York-based guest choreographer Catherine Galasso. The daughter of internationally acclaimed composer Michael Galasso, she is known for her interdisciplinary and avant-garde collaborations.
San Francisco Ballet presents the North American premiere of Akram Khan's Dust from February 13-19 as part of the Cool Britannia works, "celebrating the new wave of British voices in ballet." The Akram Khan Company is known for innovative dance that blends the Indian kathak form and contemporary dance. Dust was one of Artistic Director Tamara Rojo's first commissions for English National Ballet and Khan's first work for a ballet company. The one-act ballet commemorating World War I is presented in three sections depicting the soldiers in the trenches and their relationships with women back home in the war workforce. The score by composer Jocelyn Pook combines vocals, poetry, and an original recording of a soldier in 1916.
On April 5-19 San Francisco Ballet brings the San Francisco premiere of Dutch choreographer Hans van Manen's 5 Tango's (sic). The wide-ranging score includes nuevo tango, Bach, Beethoven, Britten, and more. In his 60-year career Van Manen has created more than 150 ballets. Considered one of the founding fathers of European neoclassical dance, his work is known for its structural sophistication and themes that often relate to the conflicted relations between men and women.
Smuin Contemporary Ballet opens their 31st season on September 13, 2024 with Dance Series 1, featuring a World Premiere by choreographer Jennifer Archibald, her first project with Smuin. Archibald is the founder and Artistic Director of the New York-based Arch Dance Company. Also in Dance Series 1, making his choreographic debut with Smuin, is Matthew Neenan, a co-founder of BalletX. Neenan's character-driven The Last Glass is a theatrical work set to intensely lyrical music by the indie-rock band Beirut.
In April and May 2025 Smuin's Dance Series 2 brings a World Premiere choreographed by Amy Seiwert, her first as Smuin's Artistic Director and her 13th ballet for the company. Also in Dance Series 2 is the Bay Area premiere of celebrated choreographer Trey McIntyre's Wild Sweet Love, billed as "an ode to the ups and downs of love" set to music ranging from Mendelssohn to Queen.