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Event for LAB with the Cast of “MAD MEN” May 1, 2009 Company News from the Staff at LAB A delightful party in honor of Los Angeles Ballet was held at the historic South Pasadena home of Paige and Scott Hornbacher, generously co-hosted by Ariel and Jeff Carpenter. Home / News / New Item

Los Angeles Times Includes LAB in it’s Best of 2007 Listings December 1, 2007 Los Angeles Times The corps, including the children, danced strongly. Melissa Barak, the First Sylph, gave notice of incipient major Sylph duties. The ballet, staged by co-artistic director Thordal Christensen, a former principal with the Royal Danish Ballet, was danced to pre-recorded music. READ ARTICLE AT SOURCE Home / News / New Item

Los Angeles Ballet Announces Season 5 August 10, 2010 LAB Public Relations Celebrating Landmark Fifth Season! (Los Angeles, CA) Los Angeles Ballet Artistic Directors Thordal Christensen and Colleen Neary are pleased to announce the company’s fifth season as Los Angeles’ own professional ballet company. This season the company will dazzle viewers with The Nutcracker , Balanchine masterworks, a World Premiere , and the beloved romantic ballet Giselle . Back to thrill audiences during the holidays and begin the fifth season, LAB will perform its Neary- Christensen choreographed production of The Nutcracker , the city's most enduring holiday tradition. Celebration comes to Los Angeles in March, featuring Balanchine's luscious Raymonda Variations and riotous Western Symphony , plus another World Premiere created specifically for LAB dancers by the returning Sonya Tayeh. In May, the 2010-2011 landmark season culminates with the timeless, full-length romantic Giselle, with choreography by Artistic Director Thordal Christensen, (after Coralli, Perrot and Petipa). The Season 5 Gala Celebration will take place on Saturday May 28th, 2011, at the Broad Stage in Santa Monica, after a performance of Giselle. Additionally, Los Angeles Ballet continues its commitment to the workshop process, to the identification and nurture of emerging choreographers, composers and designers. LAB’s Choreographic Workshop will take place May 24, 2011. The Company continues to build a repertoire that underscores the creative leadership of its artistic directors, presenting timeless classics as well as innovative choreography from today’s contemporary artists. DOWNLOAD PDF Home / News / New Item

Colleen Neary to Stage Balanchine at the Paris Opera Ballet April 30, 2014 Company News from the Staff at LAB LAB Co-Artistic Director Colleen Neary will stage Le Palais de Cristal, which was choreographed by George Balanchine for the Paris Opera Ballet in 1947. The name was changed to Symphony in C when Balanchine revived it for New York City Ballet. Colleen Neary is a Répétiteur for The George Balanchine Trust. Home / News / New Item

Los Angeles Ballet "La Sylphide" May 19, 2009 Los Angeles Times by Chris Pasles Try summing up the themes of August Bournonville’s romantic 1836 ballet, “La Sylphide.” You might get a list something like this: Dreams, illusions, ideals versus reality and worse — irrational, implacable evil. No wonder the ballet survives, not only to entertain but to trouble, even deeply disturb. Los Angeles Ballet, founded in 2006, marked its latest stage of artistic growth by mounting a handsome production of “La Sylphide” Saturday at the Redondo Beach Performing Arts Center, with period sets and costumes borrowed from the Houston Ballet. (Performances continue over the next two weekends at other venues.) (Freud Playhouse, UCLA, May 23 and 24, and at the Alex Theater in Glendale, May 30.) The story is simple. James, a Scottish highlander, dreams of a magical, otherworldly creature, the Sylph, on the very day of his wedding to his beloved Effie. Suddenly incarnate, the Sylph lures James away from the wedding and into the forest. There, she inexplicably appears and disappears at will, always managing to stay just out of his grasp. James and the Sylph soon meet their destruction, however. James has deeply though mindlessly offended the witch Madge earlier during the wedding day. Now, seeking to bring his ideal Sylph into his arms, he drapes a veil he doesn’t know has been poisoned by Madge over the Sylph’s shoulders and winds it around her arms. The Sylph immediately loses her wings, comes to earth and quickly dies. James is stunned and collapses in grief. As danced Saturday by Eddy Tovar, a permanent LAB guest from Orlando Ballet, James was a bewildered dreamer, torn between the Sylph and Effie. He was also impulsive, flaring into outraged anger upon seeing Madge warming herself by the fire. A handsome, compact dancer, Tovar had the strength and style to execute Bournonville’s demanding foot beats with speed and clarity. Corina Gill was the poised, ethereal Sylph, balancing lightly and cleanly in high extensions. Her most arresting moments, however, came in her death scene, where she seemed to lose the power of sight as well as of flight. The other plum role, of course, is the evil Madge. She is first discovered cowering by James’ fire but is last seen towering triumphantly above his body. Why did she wreck such evil, so out of proportion to the original offense? Her answer is a drumming of her fingers on her chest. “I,” “I,” “I,” she gestures, because James offended her. The ballet ends with a terrible image. Madge pulls the fallen James up by the hair to see his beloved but dead Sylph float up into the heavens. With insouciant flicks of her wrists, Madge then dismisses James’ lifeless form. All in a day’s work, she seems to say, and easy work at that. Final curtain. Co-artistic director Colleen Neary, a former New York City Ballet principal, made a formidable Madge, only gradually revealing her malevolent powers. It was easy to laugh at her mumbo-jumbo antics with her four witch friends around the black cauldron at the start of Act 2. But nobody was laughing at the end of the ballet. In other roles, Grace McLoughlin danced Effie with sweet innocence. James Li was Gurn, James’ best friend, a naïf who winds up marrying Effie after James’ disappearance. (Peter Snow will take over the role in two of the three remaining performances.) Andrew Brader and Drew Grant were the friends. The corps, including the children, danced strongly. Melissa Barak, the First Sylph, gave notice of incipient major Sylph duties. The ballet, staged by co-artistic director Thordal Christensen, a former principal with the Royal Danish Ballet, was danced to pre-recorded music. DOWNLOAD PDF Home / News / New Item

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Commentary - Los Angeles Ballet on upswing in its fifth year December 5, 2010 Los Angeles Times by Lewis Segal Giselle’s character is straightforward, but that of Prince Albrecht is ambiguous. Is he merely dallying, really in love, torn between court and country? Unfortunately, Christopher Revels gave no clear take on the prince’s motives, although his repentance and sense of loss at the end looked genuine. Revels danced with princely bearing, partnered with consideration, and executed his second act marathon challenges with strength, though he looked more on the edge of real rather than dramatic exhaustion. Home / News / New Item

Ray & Ghada Irani Principal Dancer Tigran Sargsyan Hometown Yerevan, Armenia Schools Yerevan Choreographic Dance College, Dance Academy of Zurich, San Francisco Ballet School Companies Dortmund Ballet Theater Los Angeles Ballet 7th Season

"Ballet is Woman" but, Aha, The Men Revolt" March 1, 2010 Huffington Post by Donna Perlmutter The Peasant Pas de Deux was danced by Allynne Noelle and Zheng Hua Li (who alternates in the role of Prince Albrecht). Noelle was sunny and graceful. Li had crisp, flashing legwork, but tended to land badly. The corps looked well-schooled, although earthbound. The company danced to pre-recorded music. DOWNLOAD PDF Home / News / New Item

Cesar Ramirez Castellano Hometown Trinidad, Cuba Seasons with LAB 2021/2022, 2022/2023, 2023/2024, 2024/2025 Cesar Ramirez started his ballet training at Escuela Nacional de Ballet Fernando Alonso in Cuba under School Director Ramona de Saa. He also received his training from The Rock School for Dance Education under Bo and Stephanie Spassoff. Cesar has danced professionally with Ballet Nacional de Cuba and Los Angeles Ballet. He has had the pleasure of dancing to classical ballet repertoire and works by Christopher Wheeldon, Annab elle Lopez Ochoa, George Balanchine, and Melissa Barak. Cesar is grateful to be dancing another season with the Los Angeles Ballet and the company's diverse repertoire.

Catia Boucher Hometown Seasons with LAB 2024/2025 Bio Available Shortly

Los Angeles Ballet's 'New Wave LA' A Company for the 21st Century May 21, 2010 Culturespot LA by Penny Orloff I love ballet. I love the grace, the magic, the sheer beauty of it all. But, once in a while, ballet isn’t merely attractive young dancers in white tutus, assembling in lovely tableaus to strains of Mozart and Delibes. Once in a while, ballet is the tumultuous and heartstopping and transformative theatrical experience I had on May 15, when Los Angeles Ballet presented “New Wave LA” at the Redondo Beach Performing Arts Center. Back in the 1950s my ex-ballerina mother hoarded her housekeeping money in order to take my sisters and me to the ballet. Having fallen in love with Tchaikovsky and Petipa at a young age, she favored classic “white” ballets like “Swan Lake” and other traditional works of the late 1890s and early 20th century. It wasn’t until I relocated to New York in the 1970s that I experienced what decades in the New World had done to an elitist European amusement. George Balanchine had revolutionized classical ballet, working with Stravinsky, Hindemith, and other giants of 20th-century music and creating a uniquely American style reflective of a post-war, increasingly urban culture. My mother found it disturbing, but I was an avid member of the young audience that flocked to the New York State Theatre, taking ownership of this suddenly relevant iteration of a traditional art form. In the 35 years since, I have seen the new audiences of the ’70s grow old and gray – like myself. Except for the young mothers of each new crop of baby ballerinas, today the majority of my fellow balletomanes – like the aging devotees of classical music and opera – are on the far side of the hill, a disturbing percentage of our decreasing numbers rigidly clinging to an increasingly irrelevant artistic sensibility. Or so I thought. Last week I watched, incredulous, as the lobby of the Redondo Beach Performing Arts Center filled with a hyperactive horde of tattooed and pierced twenty- and thirty-somethings, eager – nay, impatient – for the unveiling of the four world premieres featured in Los Angeles Ballet’s production of “New Wave LA.” Inside the theater the electricity was palpable, the buzz deafening. No polite hand clapping greeted the appearance of co-artistic directors Colleen Neary and Thordal Christensen. Instead, cheers worthy of European soccer erupted as the couple stepped on stage to welcome their audience. Unfamiliar with ballet, most of this young crowd has discovered dance through “American Idol,” “Dancing With the Stars,” and “So You Think You Can Dance,” where passionate demonstration has supplanted decorous appreciation. Largely ignorant of the current crop of TV dance shows, I was not acquainted with the work of Mandy Moore, Travis Wall, and Sonya Tayeh, all of “So You Think You Can Dance.” Together with MYOKYO founder and choreographer Josie Walsh, these young artists represent a new voice, new dance vocabularies, performed to new music – with nary a tutu in sight. Mandy Moore’s “Wink” opens the show, dealing with the tangled web of Internet dating “and all the awkwardly beautiful moments along the path to finding true love,” she writes in the program notes. The curtain rises on a lineup of 10 characters who deliver “profile” introductions directly to the audience: “Hi, I’m Chelsea…” “I love walks on the beach…” “I’m an Aries…” The music by Cirque Eloise underscores Moore’s complex interactions. She expertly weaves the daring with the lyrical, the humorous with a thread of melancholy, as richly detailed ensembles give way to a quasi-traditional pas de deux. The audience, unused to the capabilities of bona fide ballet dances, rewards individual virtuosity and group precision with a torrent of screams and applause – and just like that, we’re not in Kansas, anymore. After a brief intermission, choreographer and former international ballerina Josie Walsh, founder of MYOKYO Renegade Rock Ballets, offers “Transmutation.” The specially commissioned, driving rock score by Walsh’s husband, Paul Rivera, Jr., pulses and throbs as three couples act out the visceral “interplay between the male and female energies” in a tour de force display of physical exertion. Walsh told me that the greatest challenge of this piece was the sheer endurance factor for the dancers. Pressed to their limits, all six reveal uncommon depth of personality and character. Tiny Grace McLoughlin, especially, unleashes a raw, wild abandon. She is like an animal possessed. Drew Grant, Andrew Brader, and Alexander Forck are individually and collectively astonishing, as they negotiate the tremendous athleticism of Walsh’s huge compound leaps and spectacular lifts. The audience screams itself hoarse, until shocked into pin-drop silence by the transcendent finale. Travis Wall’s “Reflect. Affect. Carry On…” is a time-bending, nonlinear love story set to Queen’s “Bohemian Rhapsody,” U2’s “With or Without You,” and Sigur Ros’ “Samskeyti.” His star is rapidly rising on the contemporary dance scene; nevertheless he is a master of classical ballet technique, infusing his sui generis style with enough tradition to satisfy the most rabid haters of the unfamiliar. Through a personal vocabulary of movement, Wall creates a surreal dreamscape of desire, memory, yearning. One cannot begin to guess what this 22-year-old phenom may become. The dancers execute the unique combinations with total commitment. At one point, their meticulous and precise delivery of an extended fugue provokes a long, audible gasp from the previously vociferous audience – literally taking our breath away. Sonya Tayeh’s “the back and forth” is a sexy, wild ride of a finale to music of the Paris Gotan Trio, Björk, and tango king Astor Piazzolla. The alchemy of Tayeh’s quirky, signature style of “combat jazz” melded with virtuoso ballet elements whips the packed house into a frenzy. The bullfight-inspired dance features unexpected, increasingly dramatic interactions between the bare-chested men and flamenco-clad women. This is dance as unbridled passion, dance as spectacle, dance as Theatre. The audience was on its feet, screaming even before the curtain came down. The dancers took a bow to deafening roars. The ovation surged again with the appearances of Neary, Christensen, and the four choreographers. After the show, hundreds of fans stood in long lines to get autographs and have their photographs taken with the young choreographers. I’d conclude that Neary and Christensen’s experiment bodes well for the future of classical ballet. Catch Los Angeles Ballet’s “New Wave LA” on May 22 at 7:30 p.m. at the Alex Theatre, Glendale; on May 29 at 2 p.m. (just added) and 7:30 p.m. (sold out) and May 30 at 2 p.m. (sold out) at the Broad Stage, Santa Monica. Tickets and information: (310) 998-7782 or www.losangelesballet.org . DOWNLOAD PDF Home / News / New Item