Join BTC for ‘Up Close’ featuring Swan Lake and two world premieres.

BTC dancers in Up Close Spring 2022 performing Kate St. Amand’s “Dixit Dominus”. Photo Credit: Kai Whalen

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Ballet Theatre Company (BTC) will present its second, intimate, mixed-repertoire performance, Up Close: Spring at its Ron and Nancy Compton Studio located at 20 Jefferson Ave. in West Hartford, CT. BTC offers two performances on March 4, 2023 at 7 p.m. and March 5, 2023 at 2 p.m.

Up Close offers the unique chance to view BTC’s dancers at close range, giving a completely new perspective on ballet, and appealing to new and returning audience members alike. While dance in a traditional theater setting is thrilling, hearing the dancers’ breath and shoes on the floor, and watching them prepare in the “wings” between each entrance brings audience members enchanting insight into the physicality behind this powerful art form.

This intimate performance will showcase BTC’s resident company dancers and pre-professional Junior Corps de Ballet in  a diverse program of classical, contemporary, and jazz repertoire. Melanie Ramos, BTC’s guest choreographer for the performance, will present a world premiere commissioned for the company. Ramos, born and raised in Miami, FL, received her BFA in Dance from SUNY Purchase’s Conservatory of Dance and is a former member of Ballet Hispanico’s second company, BhDos. In 2018 she received the Eryc Taylor Dance New Choreographer Grant and was accepted to the Ann & Weston Hick Choreography Fellows Program at Jacob’s Pillow.

Guest Choreographer Melanie Ramos. Courtesy photo

Ramos’ new work, titled Odyssey, is “A journey of personal discovery as the dancers explore the realm of the human psyche encountering their deepest emotions and desires and facing their own fears. Emerging triumphant with a renewed confidence in their own self image, the dancers revel in the joy of life.”

In addition, the program will include the classical Pas de Trois from Act I of Swan Lake, and Artistic Director Stephanie Dattellas will premiere a new work Por un Cabeza, commissioned by Sun West Mortgage to help promote their new product “Morgan.”

To round out this dynamic program, Dattellas launched a new initiative giving its resident professional dancers the opportunity to choreograph a piece on its Junior Corps de Ballet for Up Close: Spring. Interested dancers were invited to submit a choreographic proposal and resident company dancer James Felton II was selected.

“I’ve been wanting to launch this choreographic initiative for a long time allowing professional dancers an opportunity to hone their skills in addition to dancing,” said Dattellas. “If I was never given a chance to choreograph, I wouldn’t be where I am now. I wanted to pay that forward. I find that the most engaging dancers are those who have an expansive movement vocabulary. I am eager to see how our student dancers embrace a dance style they have little experience in, and even more excited to watch them rise to the challenge.”

Felton will be challenging the talented young artists of BTC’s Junior Corps de Ballet with an energetic jazz routine that is a stark contrast to the classical ballet repertoire they typically rehearse and perform. Felton shares, “The Junior Corps de Ballet is a group of young pre-professional artists honing their craft as exemplary students in and out of the studios. … I’ve been thoroughly impressed by this group of young artists since I first arrived in West Hartford. … They quickly pick up on advanced choreography alongside the professional company dancers in a number of roles.”

Details

Tickets are $35 online and $40 at the door. To purchase tickets online please visit, https://dancebtc.org/up-close-spring. Please note that there are a limited number of tickets for each performance. For any questions please contact [email protected] or call the office at 860-570-0440.

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