Tag: Liam Scarlett

The Royal Ballet 2013/14 Season

The Royal Ballet

Artistic Director Kevin O’Hare’s second season at The Royal Ballet has seen the announcement of the programming of The Royal Ballet’s 2013/14 season. In view of the artistic decisions, the company is leveraging its current strong box office position to focus on new, full-length works which will make up six world premieres, and this will also protect the company’s heritage.

Guest Principal Carlos Acosta is currently working on his new production of Don Quixote: Acosta has danced the lead role in many countries and has vast experience and knowledge of the role and narrative. Acosta’s production of Don Quixote will be the company’s own production for the very first time, and O’Hare’s decision to open the new season with this is hoped to be a successful one.

Artistic Associate Christopher Wheeldon will premiere his second full length work for the company based on Shakespeare’s A Winter’s Tale, with Wheeldon collaborating with the team responsible for Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. O’Hare has also extended another invitation to former Royal Ballet School student and Birmingham Royal Ballet dancer David Dawson, who will create a new work as part of the first triple bill of the season, alongside Wayne McGregor’s Chroma and Kenneth MacMillan’s Rite of Spring to complete the bill. Artist in Residence Liam Scarlett’s Sweet Violets will return in a triple bill alongside Wheeldon’s DGV : Dance a Grande Vitesse and George Balanchine’s Serenade but Scarlett has no new work programmed for the season.

The final triple bill of the season will see a new work by Alastair Marriott, following his success in the Titian collaboration. Frederick Ashton’s The Dream and Jerome Robbins’ The Concert, which has not been seen at the Royal Opera House for 10 years, will then complete the programme. Full works will intersperse the triple bills, with Kenneth MacMillan’s Romeo and Juliet, Peter Wright’s Giselle and Monica Mason and Christopher Newton’s The Sleeping Beauty each making an appearance.

Once the London season has closed after The Nutcracker and Balanchine’s Jewels at Christmas, the company will tour to Moscow making a temporary home in The Bolshoi Theatre.

Liam Scarlett’s Latest Work

Liam Scarlett

The Royal Ballet’s Liam Scarlett, recently appointed as the Royal’s Artist in Residence, has choreographed again for Miami City Ballet following his last work for the company, having made the transition to choreographing full-time. Hanging up his ballet shoes in the performing sector, Scarlett has seamlessly transferred to the arena of choreography.

Scarlett is seen to be in demand all over the world, most recently premiering his new work Euphotic for Miami City Ballet, which opened on 11 January 2013. Having concluded the company’s Programme II, the performance also featured works by George Balanchine and Marius Petipa, two of the most influential modern and classical ballet choreographers respectively. Euphotic is said to be a ‘closing ballet’, which finishes three classical ballets as a statement for the audience and set to a score of Lowell Liebermann. Scarlett himself designed the scenic and costume designs, with Miami City Ballet blogging the process of working towards Scarlett’s vision and dyeing various pieces of fabrics blue and yellow, representing the sea and the light of the sky.

Last season Scarlett showed off his Viscera for Miami City Ballet, featuring principal dancer Jeanette Delgado, who is also cast as the lead for this season’s Euphotic as a sequel work of twenty-eight dancers. There are three principals and their partners in total leading the movement, fulfilling four movements of dance. The four ballets including Euphotic will also be presented at the Philharmonic Center for the Arts in Naples, Florida as Programme I in addition.

Who knows what is next for Scarlett’s choreographic adventures, but he has certainly hit the ground running, now to build on his creativity and spread his talent further.

Image courtesy of ROH at Flickr.