2023/2024 Season
Venue
Triffo Theatre
Allard Hall
11110 104 Ave NW
Edmonton, AB
T5K 1M9
Unir
May 3 & 4, 2024
A Figure's Edge
*World Premiere
Choreography: Connor McLeary
Lighting design: Dorrie Deutschendorf
Sound Design: Ben Waters
The idea of “struggle” is an overarching theme within this piece. We explored how personal struggle can manifest itself physically. This work examines how we challenge the things we struggle with to resolve them in our lives. The movement, the music and the minds of each Ballet Edmonton artist have played a part in how this work has evolved. I appreciate the gift of time and mentorship Wen Wei has afforded me to bring this work to life.
Connor McLeary began his dance training at North Shore Academy of Dancing at age six. In his early teens, he attended the Royal Winnipeg Ballet summer intensive and was accepted into Pro Arte Dance’s training program under the direction of Beverly Bagg and Stephana Arnold. In his second year at the Arts Umbrella Post Graduate Program, Connor was asked to join the Ballet BC pilot program under the direction of Artemis Gordon and Medhi Walerski. Connor has had the privilege of performing works by world-renowned choreographers Crystal Pite, Medhi Walerski, David Raymond, Victor Quijada, Ethan Colangelo, Lesley Telford, Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui, Sharon Eyal and Marco Goecke.
Connor joined Ballet Edmonton in 2021 and is exploring his choreographic voice under the mentorship of Wen Wei Wang.
Le Quattro
Choreography: Wen Wei Wang
Music: Recomposed – The Four Seasons
Composer: Max Richter
Costume design: Linda Chow
Lighting Design: Dorrie Deutschendorf
Performers: Full Company
Le Quattro first debuted in Edmonton in 2019. Set to Max Richter’s bold and intricate reimagining of Vivaldi’s The Four Seasons, this evolution of the original Le Quattro is an invigorating rendering of Vivaldi’s work, so familiar to many. Ballet Edmonton Artistic Director Wen Wei Wang’s choreographic reimagining of Richter’s postmodernist recomposition takes us through the changing seasons. Using the music as inspiration, Wang’s choreography invokes images of nature and how we witness the changes in our environment.
Wildflowers
*World Premiere
Choreography by Wen Wei Wang with the music of John Estacio and the High Level Trio
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.
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. 2023-24 season plans include a new “High Level Trio & Friends” 1-hour chamber music series, programmed to feature some of their favourite collaborators in Edmonton. The High Level Trio is 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.
JUNO-nominated composer John Estacio is a recipient of 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.
Choreographer: Wen Wei Wang