Dances Patrelle Presents GILBERT & SULLIVAN: The Ballet, Now thru 5/6

Dances Patrelle presents the return of Francis Patrelle's GILBERT & SULLIVAN, The Ballet!, a raucous evening of classical ballet set to live choral arrangements of G&S favorites, featuringprofessional dancers from across the country and some of the most talented students from NYC ballet schools. The production runs tonight, May 3 through May 6, 2012 at Dicapo Opera Theatre 184 E. 76th Street, NYC. Tickets are $35 and are available at www.dancespatrelle.org.

GILBERT & SULLIVAN, The Ballet! is a fun-filled revue of three favorite comic operas: The Pirates of Penzance, The Mikado and H.M.S. Pinafore. Francis Patrelle's choreography highlights the joys, trials and rewards of a life in the theater: Sir William Gilbert and Sir Arthur Sullivan battle over casting, bond over music, and get ripped off by their producer as a marvelous cast of dancers, singers, and musicians bring these operas to life. Dancers include: Joshua Cristopher; Jesse Marks of Colorado Ballet and Ballet X; Julie Voshell of Movin' Out; Amy Brandt of Suzanne Farrell Ballet; Therese Wendler of Ballet International; and John-Mark Owen of Ballet NY and American Repertory Ballet. In addition to these principal dancers, the production will feature roles for students from New York's top ballet schools, including Alvin Ailey, ABT, SAB and Brooklyn Ballet. To create this production, Patrelle worked with long-time collaborators Warren Helms (Music Director), Gillian Bradshaw-Smith (Set Designer), Rita B. Watson (Costume Designer), and Ben Travis (Lighting Designer). The company will also present a special Family Matinee performance featuring a meet and greet with the cast in costume after the show, although all performances are fun for all ages. Performances: Thursday - Saturday at 7:30pm; Saturday at 2pm (Family Matinee); and Sunday at 2pm. Appropriate for all ages.

Dances Patrelle (DP), now it its 24th year, is a dynamic professional ballet company that keeps the tradition of dramatic ballet alive and offers opportunities for young dancers to learn from and perform alongside top dance professionals. DP presents two annual performance seasons in New York: its holiday tradition, The Yorkville Nutcracker, now going into its seventeenth year at the Daniel Kaye Theater, and a spring season of original works created by DP's founder and director, Francis Patrelle. Mr. Patrelle has set over 50 ballets on the company, including works to the American songbook (Gershwin, Rogers and Hart, Noel Coward, Jerry Lee Lewis, among others), and works to commissioned scores from contemporary composers (including Patrick Soluri and Rod Hausen).

Francis Patrelle is the founder and director of Dances Patrelle and is a master teacher at Ballet Academy East. Heralded by Lynn Garafola in Dance Magazine as a choreographer with "a personal vision...classical because it is rooted in metaphor and symbolic language [and] populist because of its legibility and broad cultural resonance," Francis is honored to have created work for ballet legends Marcelo Gomes, Maria Riccetto, Donald Williams, Lourdes Lopez, Jock Soto, Merrill Ashley and prima ballerina Cynthia Gregory, among others.