The company’s 2024/25 season finale features two world premieres and an acclaimed revival.
Vancouver, BC – Ballet BC returns to Vancouver’s Queen Elizabeth Theatre for its 2024/25 season finale, DUSK, May 8/9/10. The triple bill features awaited world premieres from Bobbi Jene Smith and Or Schraiber and company Artistic Director Medhi Walerski, plus the revival of Marco Goecke’s remarkable Woke Up Blind.
“We end the season with a program honouring something that is at the heart of Ballet BC: creation,” says Medhi Walerski. “With two world premieres, Vancouver audiences will be the first to witness new works created right here in our Granville Island studios, choreographed and performed by some of the world’s best dance talent. It’s also very much a program that celebrates the power of music, from rarely-played songs performed on a live piano, to the edgy, haunting vocals of Jeff Buckley, to an original score by a longtime creative collaborator of mine, Marcus Eriksson. A unique and meaningful program to round out what has been the company’s most successful performance season in its nearly 40-year history.”
Bobbi Jene Smith and Or Schraiber are taking the North American dance scene by storm. With backgrounds rooted in Ohad Naharin’s Batsheva Dance Company, the creative duo’s work has been called “wild and rebellious” (Le Figaro) and “darkly seductive” (Le Monde). Just-announced choreographic commissions include a co-production between the National Ballet of Canada and the Royal Danish Ballet and a summer 2025 run at New York City’s Little Island featuring original music by Caroline Shaw and Danni Lee’s Ringdown. Obsidian is Smith and Schraiber’s first work for Ballet BC, created for six dancers and set to the piano music of George Gurdjieff and Thomas de Hartmann, performed live on stage.
The partners in life and work also share a passion for the world of film, having collaborated on many acclaimed cinematic projects. Their latest, Waiting Places, is a full-length dance film now streaming on PBS. Upcoming releases include Maggie Gyllenhaal’s The Bride, co-choreographed by Smith and Schraiber; Wolf Man with movement direction by Schraiber, and Terence Malick’s The Way of the Wind, in which Schraiber appears. Their off-Broadway work includes choreography for Danny and the Deep Blue Sea (2023) starring Aubrey Plaza and Chris Abbot at the Lucille Lortel Theater in NYC.
Medhi Walerski is a French choreographer who has held the role of Ballet BC’s Artistic Director since 2020. With a long career as a dancer including time spent at Paris Opera Ballet and Ballet du Rhin followed by 15 years as an integral member of Nederlands Dans Theater, his choreographic work is informed by a strong foundation and admiration for refined physicality, combined with a bold sensibility and contemporary dynamism. His sixth world premiere for Ballet BC and third as its leader, Walerski has made a significant contribution to the diverse repertoire of the creation-based company.
The new work follows up Pieces of Tomorrow (2024), which premiered as part of a full evening of his choreography in Ballet BC’s 2023/24 season and featured a notable collaboration with renowned visual artist Lyle XOX. As with much of his acclaimed choreographic work, the new piece can be expected to highlight the versatile artistry of the company’s dancers through a sophisticated movement language infused with heart, inventive partnering, and intricate timing.
Woke Up Blind is a significant work from one of Europe’s most prolific choreographers, Marco Goecke, returning to the Ballet BC stage for the first time since its company debut in 2022. Its seven dancers embody Goecke’s truly distinct movement language, full of detailed gesturing and isolations that contribute to a unique emotional intensity. Originally created in 2016, the work is a rumination on love, longing, and loss, and centres on the music of storied American singer-songwriter Jeff Buckley who died tragically at the young age of 30. Two powerful songs, “You and I” and “The Way Lovers Do” are paired with pure, highly complex choreography—a mesmerizing combination.
Ballet BC presents DUSK at the Queen Elizabeth Theatre in Vancouver May 8/9/10, 2025 at 8pm, with pre-show artist talks each evening at 7pm. Tickets start at $19 and are on sale now at balletbc.com. For more information and to remain updated on upcoming Ballet BC performances and events, visit balletbc.com or follow them on Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube.
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