The American National Ballet opens its fourth season Friday with "Ballet to Broadway."
This evening will bring to the stage two new works by founding artistic director Armando Maldonado.
The American National Ballet will perform "Ballet to Broadway" at 7:30 p.m. Friday and Saturday, Sept. 17, at the Mitchell Auditorium at the College of St. Scholastica campus.
To open the evening, American National Ballet has brought back "Jazz Swing" by Fernando Bujones. This ballet is a jazzy work that was critically acclaimed and well received from the audience.
The new work "Breath-IN Breath-OUT" is part of a trilogy ballet, the first of which premiered in the first season. This work is a way to experience the pop-culture music which brings to the stage music from Los Lonely Boys, Garbage, Match Box Twenty, Cold Play and more.
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With "Breath-IN, Breath-OUT" the company is attempting to teach a larger audience about dance, Maldonado said.
The evening will close with the second of the new works, "Bali de los Latinos." This work is an infusion of Latin music with jazz and a new style that Maldonado will bring to the stage that mixes Fosse with Latin dance, which was created based on the music of PePe and the Bottle Blondes.
In choosing the numbers for this opening performance, Maldonado said, he found pieces that fell in line with the Broadway theme, but that still had their own sense of adventure.
"I wanted it to be unpredictable and keep them guessing about what was coming next," he said. "There's a lot of surprises in these pieces."
The 2005-2006 "A Signature Season" marks the first time a northern Minnesota dance company presents a living icon with an international appeal to dance enthusiasts. Twyla Tharp will appear with the American National Ballet in its "Fearless Symmetries" program April 7-8.
