Purchase tickets to Ballet Edmonton’s 2023/2024 season!
Three mainstage productions at the Triffo Theatre, MacEwan University

Ouvrir – October 13 & 14, 2023
Avancer – February 9 & 10, 2024
Unir – May 3 & 4, 2024
 

Ouvrir

October 13 & 14, 2023

Gioconda Barbuto
Ethan Colangelo
Wen Wei Wang

Gioconda Barbuto
Gioconda is an internationally esteemed Italian-Canadian dancer and choreographer based in Vancouver. She was a long-time member of Les Grands Ballets Canadien and Nederlands Dans Theater. Recognized by many for her exceptional versatility and magnetism as a performer and soloist, she boldly embodied work by the most influential ballet and contemporary choreographers of the past few centuries. Barbuto has made many notable contributions to the Canadian contemporary dance milieu.

Ethan Colangelo *World Premiere
Born and raised in Toronto, Ethan is an alumnus of The Juilliard School where he received the Hector Zaraspe Prize for Choreographic Promise. As a choreographer he has presented his work at the Baryshnikov Arts Center, Festival des Arts de Saint-Sauveur, Juilliard’s Choreographic Honors Showcases, APAP 2018, Alice Tully Hall in Lincoln Center and the Brooklyn Academy of Music. Colangelo was also one of ten choreographers selected for the Copenhagen International Choreography Competition in 2018 and in 2021. Colangelo is increasingly in demand as a creator and a voice to watch.

Avancer

February 9 & 10, 2024

James Gregg
Kirsten Wicklund
Wen Wei Wang

James Gregg *World Premiere
Born in Colorado and raised in Oklahoma, James Gregg is now a Los Angeles-based dancer, choreographer, and co-artistic director of the multidisciplinary dance duo known as Werewolf. A prolific creator, Gregg’s work has been performed by Groundworks Dance Company, Bodytraffic, Whim W’Him, Cirque du Soleil, Danceworks Chicago, Dark Circles Contemporary Dance, Ballet X, Northwest Dance Project, Springboard Danse Project Montreal, River North Dance. Gregg was the recipient of the 2015 Princess Grace Choreography Fellowship Award, winner of Ballet Austin’s 2014 New American talent choreographic competition, a finalist in Milwaukee Ballet’s 2013 Genesis Choreographic competition, and in 2011 the winner of the International Choreographic Competition at Festival des Arts de Saint-Sauveur.

Kirsten Wicklund *World Premiere
Canadian dancer/creator Kirsten Wicklund has been working as a demi-soloist with Opera Ballet Vlaanderen in Antwerp, Belgium, since 2021. Prior to that she danced with Ballet BC from 2014-2021 under the direction of Emily Molnar C.M., and more recently under Medhi Walerski. In recent years, she has been actively pursuing her own choreographic opportunities including with works for The Dutch National Ballet, Opera Ballet Vlaanderen’s Chamber Movement Project, Ballet BC’s Choreographic Lab, Ballet Kelowna, The Dance Deck Series, Arts Umbrella, Goh Ballet, Lamon Dance, Dancing on the Edge Festival, and Joshua Beamish’s Move The Company.
 

Unir

May 3 & 4, 2024

Wen Wei Wang with the music of John Estacio and the High Level Trio *World Premiere
Wen Wei Wang began dancing professionally in China in 1978. In 1991 he came to Canada to join the Judith Marcuse Dance Company, followed by positions with Les Grands Ballets Canadiens and Ballet BC. In 2000 Wen Wei received the prestigious Clifford E. Lee Choreography Award and the Rio Tinto Alcan and Isadora Awards for Choreography and soon after formed his own company, Wen Wei Dance. Wen Wei Dance has presented his work across Canada, Columbia, Italy, China and South America.

Wen Wei has choreographed eleven full-length works for his Vancouver-based company Wen Wei Dance and created original works for Alberta Ballet, Ballet Jőrgen, Ballet BC, Ballet Kelowna, North West Dance Projects, Les Ballets Jazz de Montréal, Arts Umbrella and Simon Fraser University. He has also choreographed the dance sections for the Vancouver Opera and the San Francisco Opera for their piece Nixon in China. In 2013, Wen Wei was awarded the RBC Top 25 Canadian Immigrants Award and recently worked with the China National Centre for the Performing Arts for its production of Hamlet. Wen Wei assumed the role of Artistic Director of Ballet Edmonton in 2018.

John Estacio
JUNO nominated composer John Estacio is a recipient of the the 2017 Lieutenant Governor of Alberta Distinguished Artist Award. His works are frequently recorded, performed and broadcast on international radio and television. His Trumpet Concerto was commissioned by 19 Canadian orchestras and was performed throughout the country in the 2017/18 season. He has written four operas and has also composed a full-length orchestral score for Cincinnati Ballet’s “King Arthur’s Camelot”

His music has been performed at Carnegie Hall by the Toronto Symphony Orchestra and the Edmonton Symphony. He is the recipient of the NAC Award for Composers and his music was performed by Pinchas Zukerman and the National Arts Centre Orchestra during their tours of China and the UK. In 2017, the NACO and conductor Alexander Shelley will tour across Canada with his orchestral work “I Lost My Talk”, inspired by Rita Joe’s poem. His composition “Moontides” was performed by the National Youth Orchestra of Canada and conductor Jonathan Darlington on their European Tour of 2018.

High Level Trio
Founded in 2021 by members of the Edmonton Symphony Orchestra, the High Level Trio combines the talents, broad experiences and diverse backgrounds of Edmonton native Ewald Cheung on violin, American-born violist Ethan Filner, and Montrealer Julie Hereish on cello.

The High Level Trio has performed for enthusiastic audiences throughout Alberta, including at the Rosebud Chamber Music Festival, the Peace Region Music Series, the St. Albert Chamber Music Society, for the Edmonton Recital Society, and on CKUA radio. They have presented outreach concerts and recorded performance videos for the Health Arts Society of Alberta, and they coach ensembles at the Chamber Music Society of Edmonton’s annual Summer Solstice Amateur Workshop as well as their own Windsor Park Chamber Music Workshop, which they created in 2022 for pre-college students. In Spring 2023 the HLT gave the world premiere performances of John Estacio’s Navigations for String Trio, which they had commissioned and have now recorded with the support of grants from both the Canada Council for the Arts and the Province of Alberta through the Alberta Foundation for the Arts. The 2023-24 season includes a new “High Level Trio & Friends” 1-hour chamber music series, programmed to feature some of their favorite collaborators in Edmonton. The High Level Trio is also thrilled to be performing Estacio’s “Navigations” live onstage with Ballet Edmonton in May 2024. Visit www.highleveltrio.com for their latest news and upcoming concerts.

 
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