A Wicked Night at the Ballet:

Saturday, October 29 at 7:30 p.m.

Paul Shaghoian Concert Hall
 
Join us for an evening of classical and contemporary ballet in the Halloween spirit, performed by leading dancers from Smuin Ballet/SF (featuring Fresno native and Central California Ballet alumna Erin Yarbrough), from Michael Lowe’s Menlowe Ballet, and other Bay Area professional dance companies, featuring new and traditional dance pieces inspired by our human penchant for entertaining ourselves by occasionally scaring the daylights out of us.

Classical dances include the fierce "Black Swan" pas de deux from “Swan Lake,” and the haunting Act II graveyard scene pas de deux from “Giselle.” (In “Swan Lake” the enchanted heroine is forced to live all her daylight hours as a swan and her rescuing hero is tricked into falling in love with a gorgeous demon who looks like her. “Giselle” is a maiden who has died from a broken heart and is resurrected as a “Wili,” a sisterhood of betrayed maidens whose ghosts take revenge on their betrayers by literally dancing them to death: both are historical ballet classics , performed every year, all over the world.)

In the contemporary idiom are the premieres of two ballets by prominent Bay Area choreographer Michael Lowe; “Plague,” a dark evocation of the superstitious days when we only had demons to blame for our disasters, and “Le Cirque,” an edgy contemporary exploration of the paranormal underpinnings of the Circus. Pulling it all together is Lively Arts’ artistic director Diane K. Mosier’s lyrical and spooky “Les Ailes” (depicting the harrowing apprenticeship of a teen-age witch in a midnight medieval forest) choreographed to a Poulenc piano concerto.

Premium/Sponsor Tickets: $50

Adults Section A: $37, Students (18 & under) $31
Adults Section B: $27, Students (18 & under) $21