Bigger is better for Avant Chamber Ballet’s 2023-2024 season. The Dallas ballet company recently announced its ambitious 11th season, full of world premieres, classic love stories and fairytales and the company’s Fort Worth premiere.
As the pandemic eased, the company saw audiences return, especially for last season’s Alice in Wonderland.
“Alice in Wonderland exceeded our expectations by 50%. It was almost sold-out which we’ve never done with a non-Nutcracker show and we had three shows at Moody [Performance Hall],” said Katie Puder, the company’s Artistic Director. “We’re still pinching ourselves that okay, I think we really can move on and plan big things and that’s really the season we have planned.”
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The season begins with the world premiere of Puder’s Dracula with a score by Philip Glass October 27 and 28 at Moody Performance Hall in the Dallas Arts District. Glass created the score to accompany the 1931 horror film classic.
“I absolutely love the music. I love the score by Philip Glass. That’s what gave me the idea to do it first. I just thought it was amazing music on its own. I just want to do the music justice,” Puder said.
This Dracula is a modern reimagining of Bram Stoker’s novel.
The Scene
“I’m excited to do storytelling in a really modern way, very theatrical but it’s in a timeless world so this is not Transylvania from 200 years ago. This could be today. It could be tomorrow.”
The company will celebrate the holiday season in two cities with Paul Mejia’s The Nutcracker. The holiday favorite will be presented in Dallas at Moody Performance Hall December 8-10 and in Fort Worth at Will Rogers Memorial Auditorium December 22-23, marking Avant Chamber Ballet’s Fort Worth debut. The production will also include a large children’s cast with children from Dallas and Fort Worth.
The Fort Worth performance will also be a homecoming for the piece and for Puder, who grew up in Fort Worth.
“This production was actually created for Will Rogers and Fair Park before we had the Winspear and Bass Hall,” Puder said. “It’s a fantastic huge space. All of our scenic design will fit well there, and it be fun to perform in what feels like home.”
The Fort Worth production of The Nutcracker will feature the Fort Worth Symphony Orchestra, making it the first time there has been a performance of The Nutcracker in Fort Worth with a live orchestra since 2007.
“It’s really going to be like Nutcracker in concert,” Puder said. “The orchestra is actually going to be on the back 2/5 of the stage on risers so you will see the whole almost 50-member orchestra onstage the whole time. All of our set design is going to frame the orchestra and the dancers.”
The company begins 2024 with Star-Crossed : Romeo & Juliet + Swan Lake Act 2 February 17-18 at Moody Performance Hall. The program includes George Balanchine’s Walpurgisnacht Ballet, the premiere of Katie Puder’s Swan Lake Act 2 and Paul Mejia’s Romeo & Juliet.
Swan Lake Act 2 is designed to challenge the dancers technically.
“Every year, we try to do something extremely classical for the company. That’s important to check-in as a ballet dancer. Yes, we can do these new modern works and work with new choreographers and move in different ways, but we can still go back to our heart and our technique as dancers and what we’ve trained for our entire lives,” Puder said.
Romeo & Juliet is a romantic pairing for Swan Lake Act 2, featuring a large cast and story that begins with Juliet waking up in the tomb and the story unfolding in flashback vignettes.
“It’s such a fun ballet for everybody. It’s extremely hard work for Romeo and Juliet because it’s like a 30-minute pas de deux that just doesn’t stop. But for everybody else, technically it’s really fun and really dramatic, but not technically challenging. It’s a wonderful balance for the company,” Puder said.
In March, the company will present Women’s Choreography Project, a program featuring new works by female-identifying choreographers who are under-represented voices in the creation process in the world of dance . This evening of world premieres and commissions with live music in an intimate setting allows audiences to experience dancing up close and meet the artists after the performance.
Some of those works represent the emotional toll of current events. Before the pandemic, choreographer Jennifer Mabus prepared a dance about community and loss, a piece never performed by Avant Chamber Ballet. Her contribution to Women’s Choreography Project 2023 reflected a sense of hope.
“She went in a completely different way of being inspired by the love of tango that she found during the pandemic that helped her get through the pandemic,” Puder said. “We have to process everything we went through as artists but then also celebrate being on the other side. That we are all still here, able to create is something to celebrate.”
The season concludes with the second full-length world premiere with Katie Puder’s Snow White with a score by Tchaikovsky. In sharp contrast to the season opening production of Dracula, Snow White will be bright and cheerful with a nod to the Disney version.
“There will be a little bit of Disney,” Puder said. “I’m blending the classic fairytale of Snow White, which like every classic fairytale is different than what we know from Disney, but also the fairytale of Snow White and Rose Red, the two sisters.”
The production will feature new sets, costumes and plenty of familiar characters.
“It’s a story about friendship and love beyond family, but also about beauty and beauty not being skin deep,” Puder said.
After a couple of years of pandemic frustrations, Avant Chamber Ballet is growing, and Puder is excited about the future.
“I’m extremely optimistic,” Puder said.
Learn more: Avant Chamber Ballet
