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Contact: Mary DeTurk
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UNH Celebrity Series presents Houston Ballet II
October, 2009
Durham NH –The University of New Hampshire’s Celebrity Series will present Houston Ballet II on Tuesday, October 20th at the Paul Creative Arts Center’s Johnson Theatre at 7:00pm.
Houston Ballet II is the second company of Houston Ballet, America’s fourth largest ballet company. Under the leadership of Stanton Welch, the company tours in Texas, nationally and internationally. In recent seasons HBII has traveled to Mexico and to New York’s prestigious City Center for Music & Dance (in January 2007).
Featuring a stellar array of young artists, HBII performs a wide array of dance works, ranging from excerpts from the great classics to contemporary works by Houston Ballet Artistic Director Stanton Welch.
Inspired by the music of the famous Kronos Quartet’s Pieces of Africa, choreographer Stanton Welch uses aspects of tribal dance to create fluid interactions and classical technique in Fingerprints. The movement style, a combination of classical skill and contemporary movement, is magnified by the costumes created by London-based designer Kandis Cook. The beautiful sheer black and white zebra print skirts amplify the male and female dancers’ fluid leg movements, highlighting the dancers’ clean lines and strength. Originally performed by Cincinnati Ballet in 2000, Fingerprints was a co-production with Cincinnati Ballet, Texas Ballet Theater, Tulsa Ballet, and Washington Ballet.
Den III is an exciting and edgy work for four dancers set to the music of the Flemish Renaissance composer Tielman Susato with eye-catching costumes by Travis Halsey. Den III is choreographer Garrett Smith’s third piece for Houston Ballet II and toured with great acclaim to Budapest, Hungary in the November 2008.
Stanton Welch’s energetic early work Blue is an ode to the beauty of classical dance and the body set to music by Antonio Vivaldi. Blue explores different emotions through the colors of chakras, the seven energy centers of the body.
Showcasing their classical technique, Houston Ballet II performs the extravagant third act of the love story Raymonda. Set in the time of the Crusades, the ballet’s heroine Raymonda has been saved by her fiancé Jean de Brienne, a Christian knight, from abduction by the Saracen knight Abderakhman. Act three depicts the marriage and celebration of noble Raymonda and de Brienne, and provides a feast of spectacular classical dance.
The dancers of HBII are coached by the internationally acclaimed teacher Claudio Munoz, ballet master for HBII; Sabrina Lenzi, ballet mistress for HBII; Shelly Power, associate director of Houston Ballet’s Ben Stevenson Academy, Stanton Welch, and Houston Ballet’s artistic staff.
Houston Ballet II dancers have gone on to join such prestigious international companies as Houston Ballet, San Francisco Ballet, American Ballet Theatre, and the Joffrey Ballet.
Tickets, priced at $30 general admission and $10 for youth, are available by calling the Memorial Union Building box office at 862-2290 Monday – Friday, 10am to 4pm or online at www.unhmub.com/ticket.