Good News from Ballet San Antonio
By JASMINA WELLINGHOFF, Editor
Ballet San Antonio has been rather quiet for months but now it’s got news – good news! It will return to live, in-theater, performances this fall, and it will again have a full-time artistic director, who will move to San Antonio in a couple of months.
French-born ballerina, Sofiane Sylve, who has served as artistic adviser for the company for a while, will become the full-time artistic director as well as the director of the recently founded School of Ballet San Antonio. Sylve is one of the most admired ballet dancers in the world, who spent 12 years as a principal dancer with the San Francisco Ballet, before leaving in 2020 to assume her San Antonio responsibilities and additional ones for the Dresden Semperoper Ballet in Germany. What appealed to her about the San Antonio job was the opportunity to shape the education of a new generation of young dancers.
“That was my big draw, because I feel that education is a big part of being a company,” she told POINTE magazine. She’ll base her approach on the “French curriculum,” which emphasizes footwork and musicality, skills that are in demand by contemporary choreographers. “I want to train a generation of dancers that choreographers want to work with,” she said. She will be moving to San Antonio sometime this summer, probably in July, she told us.
As artistic director, Sylve will play the key role in choosing the programming, starting with the just-announced 2021-22 season. First up on Oct. 22-24, is “A Night at the Castle” an evening of the most beautiful pas de deux and pas de trois from the great classical ballets, “Swan Lake” and “Sleeping Beauty” performed in the way that these pieces have been performed since the 19th century. The music for both ballets was composed by the great Romantic composer Pyotr Ilych Tchaikovsky.
After Thanksgiving, BSA will follow its own tradition by presenting “The Nutcracker” though not immediately after the holiday as it used to do. This year, the beloved Christmas ballet will be staged Dec. 3-5 and Dec. 10-12. Unlike last year’s spare production, Sylve said the 2021 version will resemble more the usual opulent show that audiences know and love, complete with a large cast of children. Choreographers Easton Smith and Haley Henderson Smith, will once again recreate the spectacle and the magic, assisted by the San Antonio Symphony playing yet another of Tchaikovsky’s masterpieces.
The season concludes with “Don quixote” March 4-6, 2022, a story based on certain episodes from Cervantes’ iconic novel, featuring windmills, comedy, love, castanets and Spanish flair galore. The version to be presented here was originally choreographed in 2010 by Patrick Armand, the director of the San Francisco Ballet School, for the Croatian National Ballet, said Sylve.
But before any of these shows take place, you can get a taste of ballet September 18 during the company’s Ballet in the Park season preview at Travis Park downtown. It starts at 7 p.m. and it’s free. You may want to bring your own chairs or blankets as seating is usually limited. This performance will be preceded by a free ballet class onstage.
Good news indeed!
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Season subscriptions are on sale now, ($99-$198); single tickets go on sale May 31 ($35-$$114). Purchase online at tickets@tobincenter.org, by phone by calling 210-223-8624 or in-person at the Tobin box office, 100 Auditorium Circle.