Soirée with Joburg Ballet

Joburg Ballet is now done with their shows and is now offering loyal audience members the chance to attend their soirées.

The ballet company closes its highly successful ballet year with a season of weekend soirées held in the company’s beautiful studios at Joburg Theatre from 19 November to 4 December.

Coming after acclaimed productions of Giselle, Romeo and Juliet and Cinderella, the Studio Soirées – which were launched last year – showcase Joburg Ballet’s dancers in both popular and less familiar highlights from the classics, as well as newly commissioned work.

This year, the soirées also include appearances by South Africa’s internationally applauded guitar duo, CH2, at four of the six performances, playing their favourite melodies for new works being choreographed by Joburg Ballet artistic director, Iain MacDonald.

The programme includes Joburg Ballet’s first performances of the classical Esmeralda Pas de Deux (a dance including two dancers) and the Russian version of the sparkling pas de deux from La Fille mal gardée.

New work by three SA choreographers – Laura Cameron, Shannon Glover and Angela Revie – will be seen at the Studio Soirées, highlighting the increasingly central role female choreographers play internationally in working with classical ballet companies.

Commenting on this trend, MacDonald said, “Shannon Glover and Angela Revie are both dancers with Joburg Ballet. Shannon is a principal dancer, Angela is a senior soloist. Both have choreographed before so we are happy to be able to offer them further opportunities to explore their talents as dance makers. Laura Cameron is a freelance choreographer with a growing reputation and Joburg Ballet is delighted to be working with her for the first time.”