SUBSCRIBE NOVEMBER 18 & 19, 2023 LAB's Annual Nutcracker Tea! LAB’s signature holiday fundraiser at the Waldorf Astoria, Beverly Hills is an immersive afternoon tea in support of LAB's Outreach Education Programs. Enter Clara's Winter Wonderland of falling “snow”. Catered by Jean George, be treated to High Tea sweets and savories. Enjoy Sparkling Crafts, Mystery Gifts, scenes from The Nutcracker and more! Shop for holiday gifts at the LAB Nutcracker Boutique, and pose for a keepsake photo with Santa. LEARN MORE LOS ANGELES BALLET 2023/2024 Season This season includes exciting works by master choreographers Justin Peck, Hans van Manen, Yuri Possokhov and George Balanchine, and another world premiere by LAB Artistic Director, Melissa Barak. Plus, LA's holiday favorite, The Nutcracker. Subscriptions and Single Tickets on Sale Now! DOWNLOAD SEASON BROCHURE 2023/2024 Season > Subscribe Full Season Subscription Choose one date/time at any venue for Next Steps , Firebird/Serenade , and The Nutcracker * FULL SEASON SUBSCRIPTION Choose-2 Subscription Select one date/time at any venue for two productions from Next Steps , Firebird/Serenade , and The Nutcracker * CHOOSE-2 SUBSCRIPTION Opening Nights Series See the Opening Night of all 3 productions this season; Next Steps , Firebird/Serenade , and The Nutcracker * OPENING NIGHTS SERIES Saturday Nights Series See a Saturday night performance of all 3 productions this season; Next Steps , Firebird/Serenade , and The Nutcracker * SATURDAY NIGHTS SERIES New! Matinee Series See a Matinee performance of all 3 productions this season; Next Steps , Firebird/Serenade , and The Nutcracker * MATINEE SERIES Subscriber Benefits Keep Your Seat Like your seats this season? Retain your seats for subsequent seasons Free Exchanges Receive unlimited free exchanges within the same production Priority Seating Receive first choice of Los Angeles Ballet venue seating New! Arts Patron Invitations Receive invitations to arts & culture events from our Los Angeles cultural partners See It Again See a performance in your subscription again for only $40 Subscriber Standby Missed your scheduled performance? Be on Standby List for the next one Seat Upgrade Choose a production in your subscription to upgrade your seats for free Bring A Friend For only $25, introduce someone to world-class ballet ​ Need More Tickets? Get 10% off Add-on Single Tickets for any production Ballet Boutique Discount Subscribers save 15% on gifts and merchandise sold at performances Subscribe Choose a standard subscription or a themed series and enjoy all the benefits of being a Los Angeles Ballet Subscriber.

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DANCERS LOS ANGELES BALLET Repertoire Learn about the comprehensive and varied seasons of Los Angeles Ballet since its debut in 2006. Repertoire includes stunning classical ballets, exceptional stagings of Balanchine repertory, and relevant works by many of today’s most innovative dance-makers. VIEW REPERTOIRE LOS ANGELES BALLET 2023/2024 Season This season includes exciting works by master choreographers Justin Peck, Hans van Manen, Yuri Possokhov and George Balanchine, and another world premiere by LAB Artistic Director, Melissa Barak. Plus, LA's holiday favorite, The Nutcracker. Subscriptions and Single Tickets on Sale Now! DOWNLOAD SEASON BROCHURE 2023/2024 Season > Dancers MEET THE DANCERS Jake Ray Start Now Cassidy Cocke Start Now Lilly Leech Start Now Marcos Ramirez Start Now Hannah Keene Start Now Cesar Ramirez Castellano Start Now Kate Inoue Start Now Julianne Kinasiewicz Start Now Shintaro Akana Start Now Poppy Coleman Start Now Anna Jacobs Start Now Santiago Paniagua Start Now Jonas Tutaj Start Now Brigitte Edwards Start Now Lilly Fife Start Now Abigail Gross Start Now Andrew Conrad Start Now Simon Zinabu Costello Start Now Jacob Soltero Start Now Paige Wilkey Start Now Cleo Taneja Start Now Natalia Burns Start Now Aviva Gelfer-Mundl Start Now Sarah-Ashley Chicola Start Now Marco Biella Start Now

2023/2024 Season > Dancers > Abigail Gross Hometown ​ Seasons with LAB 2023/2024 Bio Available Shortly MEET THE DANCERS LOS ANGELES BALLET Repertoire Learn about the comprehensive and varied seasons of Los Angeles Ballet since its debut in 2006. Repertoire includes stunning classical ballets, exceptional stagings of Balanchine repertory, and relevant works by many of today’s most innovative dance-makers. VIEW REPERTOIRE LOS ANGELES BALLET 2023/2024 Season This season includes exciting works by master choreographers Justin Peck, Hans van Manen, Yuri Possokhov and George Balanchine, and another world premiere by LAB Artistic Director, Melissa Barak. Plus, LA's holiday favorite, The Nutcracker. Subscriptions and Single Tickets on Sale Now! DOWNLOAD SEASON BROCHURE

2023/2024 Season > Nutcracker Tea! 2023 Need Assistance? tickets@losangelesballet.org / (310) 998-7782 Login

‘The Nutcracker’ is a Triumph for Los Angeles Ballet December 12, 2011 Los Angeles Ballet stepped into its sixth season with a delightful holiday performance of The Nutcracker at The Alex Theatre in Glendale last weekend. LAB alternately charmed and thrilled its audience with dancing that conveyed emotional depth, and bravura displays that combined strength and grace. Act I, Scene One (hallway) features wonderfully expressive acting by Clara (Mia Katz) and her annoying brother Fritz (Aidan Merchel-Zoric). The charm continues into Scene Two (The Party) with engaging choreography and a stunning performance by the Cossack Doll (Chehon Wespi-Tschopp): ten consecutive turns (tour a la seconde) followed by a quadruple pirouette. And Scene Three is both playful and serious in its dispatch of the Mouse King. Act II, Scene One is a feast of superb performances that range from exquisite to vigorous. And the final scene when Clara awakens marks Mia Katz as a gifted actress as well as dancer. Like The Wizard of Oz would do in the 20th century, Tchaikovsky’s 19th century masterpiece celebrates the amazing worlds a young woman unleashes in her dreams. In The Wizard of Oz, the heroine Dorothy creates a world that enables her to work through relationship issues with the adults around her. In The Nutcracker, our heroine Clara is a bit more ambitious. She dreams of a romantic ideal. The scene opens just before the guests arrive at the Christmas Eve party at the Stalbaum Family’s festive home.Clara is being tormented by her brother Fritz, who attempts to wrestle her baby doll away from her. Later on, when the party is underway, we see Fritz and other boys waving toy guns and running through the crowd as Clara and the girls hug their dolls all the more tightly. And so we see, through a child’s eyes, society’s central problem: how to harness the male energy so that it protects fragile life rather than destroys it. Clara’s dear Uncle Drosselmeyer presents Clara with a life-sized Nutcracker, an example of male energy properly harnessed: the Nutcracker is able to crack the shell without destroying the nut. And was it just a coincidence that Fritz got knocked over in his presence when he persisted in teasing Clara? That night, Clara’s dream is that of an innocent young girl, not yet sailing into the storms of adolescence. So, her vision of men behaving badly is not a gang of wolves or even rats, but overgrown mice. Uncle Drossmeyer, personifying the civilizing tradition, summons The Nutcracker, symbolizing the young hero who must defend civilization anew. The Nutcracker dispatches the Mouse King; man’s better nature has triumphed over his baser one. As a result, Uncle Drossmeyer can now usher both Clara and her Nutcracker into a world where the delicate things—like snowflakes—can safely dance. A world where strength serves beauty and grace. The Nutcracker is a young girl’s wonderful dream of civilization as it might be. And for a few hours, Los Angeles Ballet made that dream a glorious reality. If one of your New Year’s resolutions is to become more culturally involved, put LAB on your list. Then you’ll have at least one resolution you’re likely to keep long after the pounds have returned. The Nutcracker plays at Royce Hall, UCLA on Saturday the 17th and Sunday the 18th, at 1:00 p.m. and 5:00 pm. Then it plays at the Redondo Beach performing Arts Center on Thursday the 22nd at 7:30 p.m., Friday the 23rd at 7:30 p.m., and Saturday the 24th at 1:00 p.m. Call the Box Office at 310-998-7782 or visit www.losangelesballet.org . BurbankNBeyond by Greg Simay DOWNLOAD PDF 2023/2024 Season > News > Previous Item Next Item

Los Angeles Ballet Enchants with Nutcracker Tradition December 28, 2022 After seeing Los Angeles Ballet’s The Nutcracker this past Thursday during a 2pm matinee at The Dolby Theatre , I am convinced it’s the only time of day to see the ballet. All the excited children sat anxiously in their seats, bows in, ties on, and buzzing with holiday fever. During the entire course of the production, the children would laugh at the Rat King, or verbally shout “behind you!” to Uncle Drosselmeyer in Act I, and I was suddenly reminded how inviting and magical this production is and continues to be each Christmas season. Besides its traditional staging value, it continues to be an interactive ballet, perhaps the only one that can reach the hearts and dreams of children and adults alike. LAB truly delivered a spectacular creation under its new Artistic Director Melissa Barak who noted in the program, “Los Angeles is a city brimming with talent, resources, and creativity. There is nothing that can stop Los Angeles Ballet from becoming a major dance force on the world stage.” After seeing tiny little tweaks that elevated this enchanting ballet, I began to believe every word Barak wrote. Keeping with tradition, Act I, scene one with the arrival of the guests remained fairly traditional with Clara and Fritz eagerly anticipating the gifts of their Uncle, and the festivities of the Stahlbaum Family Christmas party. In Act I, scene two is where we see a slight reimagination of events, as Uncle Drosselmeyer, played by Eris Nezha, gives Clara a life size Nutcracker instead of a small toy version. Another variance is Fritz, played by Spencer Collins, who ends up being knocked over by the life size Nutcracker, when traditionally speaking Fritz would accidentally break the beloved toy version of the Nutcracker sending Clara into tears. Clara also had more challenging choreography, being played by company member Poppy Coleman , instead of a member of the youth ballet. From the audience’s perspective, she was believable as Clara, an adolescent girl with a hyper imagination and zest for big dreams and seemed to have been more loved by the adults than the children. Coleman, who played Clara slightly older, was able to tap into that beautiful moment in life when you are wanting more freedom and ready to break out. Still needing the comforts of home, Mr. and Mrs. Stahlbaum, played by Jacob Ray and Julianne Kinasiewicz , tuck Clara into bed before entering Act I, scene three when Clara dreams. The dreamland production value did not disappoint, as Clara’s brass bed, with a lacy white quilt and bed skirt moved clear across the stage, and the already large Christmas tree, placed upstage, began to grow taller and taller and taller. These are the traditional elements of the ballet world that keep surprising you no matter how old you get. With physical props, and larger than life costumes, we enter the epic battle scene between the Mouse King, played by Ryo Araki , and The Nutcracker, played by Santiago Paniagua . In Nutcracker’s past, I have gotten through this scene without much attention or remembrance, but LAB made this incredibly memorable with its costuming and humor. The mice came out with enormous heads and tails, making the scene surreal and larger than life. The mouse king, and all his little followers, were high-spirited and theatrical with each movement. Not only dancing for the first few rows but being just outlandish enough that the back row of the theater would understand each emotion. Not to mention the children’s excitement with each lunge of the sword, and each march of the nutcracker. It’s the tale of good vs evil, of right vs wrong, that stands the test of time. The exceptional choreography, with all its hazards of heads and tails flinging about, was well executed and enjoyable to watch. After the Mouse King is killed, and whisked away off stage, Clara and her Nutcracker are taken to the beautiful land of snow in a moving golden sleigh pushed by Uncle Drosselmeyer. The effect of snow falling from the rafters was the extra touch during the snowflake dance that made you feel like you’ve entered another world. And the Los Angeles Ballet, with set design by Catherine Kanner , continued this whimsy with dramatic icicle head pieces and long iridescent skirts that sparkled in the light. The dance of the snowflakes, a milestone casting for any aspiring ballerina, remains quite simple in its execution by challenging the body in its duration and longevity. The dance of the snowflakes mimicked the fall of snow, having moments of lull and coasting through the air, until a gust blows and swirls a snowflake into a frenzy of exciting leaps and bounds. It’s with this mimicry that we begin to understand the dreamland, and this is made more apparent by Los Angeles Ballet upon the introduction of Marie, played by Kate Inoue . Each ballet across the world seems to have a different imagination of The Palace of the Dolls, and the Dolby Theater stage was transformed into a Palace by the Sea for the grand entrance of all of Clara’s dolls come to life. Marie, or traditionally known as The Sugar Plum Fairy, directly reflected Clara’s costuming in a simple off white gown with red satin details. Marie, likewise, wore an off white tutu with three large red satin bows down her torso. The simple decision of costuming, by Mikael Melbye, really honed in on the idea that Clara is dreaming by reflecting her costuming. In Act II, Scene One we are introduced to the Spanish, Arabian, Russian, Harlequin and Columbine, and the Sunflower dances. By far, the crowd pleaser of the evening was the Russian dancers, played by Cesar Ramirez Castellano , Ryo Araki , and Jacob Soltero . The three men defied gravity all together, while the audience broke out into a rhythmic clap of celebration! Feeling the power of community through dance, is perhaps the only true attribute of a ballet to begin with. And while we had a sense of awe with the Arabian dancers, and a sense of play with the Harlequin dancers, it’s that interactive choreography that breaks the wall between audience and dancer, between what is a dream and what is reality. In the dance of the Sunflowers, we were introduced by another show stopper, the Rose played by Petra Conti , who remains LAB’s only female principal artist. The Sunflowers and Rose were another showstopper in the Palace of the Dolls by engaging us with their stamina and ease rather than complicated footwork and quick staging. The long petaled skirts and bonnets were muted in earth colors and tones rather than the usual bright flashy costumes of the past. It all became so easy on the eyes, and incredibly calming and enjoyable to sit back, take it all in, and watch. And as Act II, scene two opens with Clara on the floor, her parents come in to see that she’s fallen asleep. Upon lifting her back into her own bed, the drums desist, and Clara quickly sits up, eyes wide, mouth gaping, and we wonder if it was in fact a dream or real. The Nutcracker has continued to defy audiences since its premier in 1892, and has been revisited, reconceptualized, and remains relevant to the spirit of Christmas and the holidays today. Los Angeles Ballet was able to tweak and modify the original story in a playful and simple way that continued to delight and surprise. If this is anything like what we have to look forward to under Melissa Barak’s direction, then audiences are in for a real treat this 2023 season. For more information about Los Angeles Ballet, please visit their website . Written by Grace Courvoisier for LA Dance Chronicle. Featured image: Los Angeles Ballet – Kate Inoue and Santiago Paniaqua in The Nutcracker – Photo by Reed Hutchinson LA Dance Chronicle Grace Courvoisier READ ARTICLE AT SOURCE 2023/2024 Season > News > Previous Item Next Item

Colleen Neary to Stage Balanchine with the Norwegian National Ballet October 1, 2012 LAB Artistic Director, Colleen Neary will work with The Norwegian National Ballet in October 2012 and early January 2013 to stage Balanchine's Symphony in C and Ballet Imperial. She previously worked with this company in 2004, staging Symphony C. Company News from the Staff at LAB 2023/2024 Season > News > Previous Item Next Item

2023/2024 Season > Staff > Director of Development Danielle Bearden-Mead Danielle Bearden-Mead is a Los Angeles-based Development Director specializing in performing arts advancement with two decades of arts management experience. Prior to joining Los Angeles Ballet, she served as Interim Managing Director & Director of Philanthropy at The Shakespeare Center of Los Angeles and a Senior Development Officer at Geffen Playhouse, Wallis Annenberg Center for the Performing Arts, and UCLA School of Theater, Film, and Television. Exposure to numerous art forms and genres led Danielle to attend the Boston Ballet Summer Intensive Training Program, train at Alonzo King's Lines Ballet, and work on "Two and a Half Men" for four seasons. Danielle has a BA in Theatre Arts from CSULB and is a co-founder of The Garage Theatre. Next Staff Member Previous Staff Member

2023/2024 Season > Single Tickets > Accessibility In-person Ticket Sales Group Sales Venues Accessibilty Gift Certificates Tax-Deductibe Donations Terms & Conditions of Sales In-house Policies Privacy Policy Venues have differing policies regarding accessibility and procedures for requesting access. Please call the LAB Box Office at least 24 hours in advance of the performance for assistance securing these options. For questions and support, please contact the Box Office at (310) 998-7782 to purchase by phone, Monday through Friday, 12:00pm to 5:00pm.

Commentary - Los Angeles Ballet on upswing in its fifth year December 5, 2010 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. Los Angeles Times by Lewis Segal 2023/2024 Season > News > Previous Item Next Item

2023/2024 Season > Staff > Design Director Catherine Kanner Catherine Kanner worked as a founding Board Member and Design Director for Los Angeles Ballet from 2005 to 2022. During that period she oversaw and provided all promotional materials for Los Angeles Ballet. For more about Catherine Kanner catherinekanner.com Next Artist Staff Previous Artistic Staff