A rapturous evening devoted to young love and to those who remember its triumphs and tragedies. Artistic Director Javier Velasco’s re-staging of William Shakespeare’s masterpiece is a lush, yet intimate rumination that focuses on the inner desires of the most famous star-crossed lovers of all time. Truly poetry in motion! At the beautiful Conrad Prebys Performing Arts Center.
February 17 & 18 8pm
Director’s Notes:
Romeo and Juliet is hardly a novel idea for a ballet. I wanted to make sure that in my version of the piece, I was creating more of what Romeo and Juliet has come to mean to the general public. So rather than have a large 3 act ballet filled with macho swaggering and ponderous family feuds, I hope to have created something that is as fast and fleeting as that first, sudden, sensation of love and desire.
I also felt the Prokofiev score was just so big and lush, it didn’t sound like a 16 year old and a 14 year old falling in love for the first time. It is SO full of passion that it lacked the delicacy that I was looking for. I needed to cut out about half of the music to find the balance I was looking for.
Finally, I tend to stay away from story ballets. I am just not that interested in watching dancers pretend to be someone else. I would rather see them dance as themselves. One of the reasons that I originally decided to do this particular piece was that I had two dancers in the company who I felt would be perfectly cast in these parts. And in Stephanie and Tona, we have that again.
Conrad Prebys Performing Arts Center
7600 Fay Ave, La Jolla, California 92037