For the first time in more than a decade, Atlanta Ballet is dancing abroad — in China, in fact, for that country’s first international ballet festival. Atlanta Ballet is the only company representing the United States.
It joins such companies as the Korean National Ballet, the Russian State Ballet, L’Ecole-Atelier Rudra-Béjart from Switzerland and several Chinese companies. Atlanta Ballet Presents Dance From America will be performed Nov. 1-9 at venues throughout Beijing. The bill will feature the pas de deux from Balanchine’s Stars & Stripes; Christopher Wheeldon’s neoclassical Rush; the wedding night pas de deux from Stanton Welch’s Madame Butterfly (pictured); and Prayer of Touch by Atlanta Ballet resident choreographer Helen Pickett.
Ballet members last danced overseas when they took Peter Pan to London in 1999.
The ballet’s 2013-14 season continues with the annual Nutcracker at the Fox Theatre (Dec. 6-29). It continues in February with Jean-Christophe Maillot’s Roméo et Juliette and a family-friendly, hourlong Pinocchio. The rest of the season: Modern Choreographic Voices (March 21-23); Stephen Mills’ Hamlet (April 11-13); and MAYhem, with world premieres by Atlanta Ballet artistic director John McFall and Pickett, plus 1st Flash by Jorma Elo.
Details and tickets HERE or at 404.892.3303.
