GISELLE and LA BAYADERE Set for Houston Ballet's 2014-15 Tour, Kicking Off This Weekend

Houston Ballet Artistic Director Stanton Welch announced touring plans for both Houston Ballet and Houston Ballet II, the second company featuring exciting young dancers from around the globe launching their careers, for the 2014-2015 season today.

Houston Ballet begins its touring in November, giving its first performances at the Detroit Opera House in Detroit, Michigan this weekend, November 1-2 in Ai-Gul Gaisina's staging of Giselle. This famous ballet from the Romantic era tells the story of a beautiful peasant girl who is deceived by the duplicitous Count Albrecht. Giselle is then transformed into a Wili (the ghosts of women betrayed on their wedding day) and ultimately saves her lover, Count Albrecht. For more information or to purchase tickets, visit www.michiganopera.org/2014-2015-season/dance.

In the spring of 2015, Houston Ballet returns to Canada to perform the Stanton Welch's acclaimed staging of La Bayadère, featuring scenery and costumes by Peter Farmer, in Calgary April 30 - May 2 at the Southern Alberta Jubilee Auditorium and in Edmonton May 8- 9, 2015 at the Northern Alberta Jubilee Auditorium. For more information and tickets, visit albertaballet.com.

Houston Ballet has toured to Canada regularly over the last decade, making appearances most recently in Montreal (in April 2014 performing Stanton Welch's Marie) and in Ottawa at the National Arts Centre (in October 2012 performing Marie.).

La Bayadère is a dramatic ballet, set in royal India. It tells the story of a temple dancer, Nikiya, and her lover, Solor, and the retribution that separates them in this life. La Bayadère is filled with dramatic elements of mystery, fate, justice, eternal love, and vengeance.

Houston Ballet II will perform a mixed repertory program on September 23, 2014 at University of New Hampshire in Durham in the Johnson Theatre, Paul Creative Arts Center, New Hampshire. Pieces that will be featured include an excerpt from the grand 19th century classical ballet Raymonda alongside such contemporary works as Ma Cong's Calling, Stanton Welch's A Dance in the Garden of Mirth, and Ilya Kozadeyev's Molto Espressivo. For more information and to purchase tickets, visit http://cola.unh.edu/celebrity-series/event/houston-ballet-ii.

The dancers of Houston Ballet II are coached by the internationally recognized Claudio Munoz, ballet master for Houston Ballet II; Sabrina Lenzi, ballet mistress for Houston Ballet II; Houston Ballet Artistic Director Stanton Welch; and Houston Ballet's artistic staff. In recent seasons, Houston Ballet II has toured to the Organizacion Para Las Artes in Guatemala City, Guatemala in October 2010; Budapest (International Youth Festival in October 2008 and 2011); New York's prestigious City Center for Music & Dance (in January 2007); and Switzerland (Prix de Lausanne Ballet Competition in February 2013).

About Houston Ballet - On February 17, 1969 a troupe of 15 young dancers made its stage debut at Sam Houston State Teacher's College in Huntsville, Texas. Since that time, Houston Ballet has evolved into a company of 55 dancers with a budget of $24.5 million (making it the United States' fifth largest ballet company by number of dancers), a state-of-the-art performance space built especially for the company, Wortham Theater Center, the largest professional dance facility in America, Houston Ballet's $46.6 million Center for Dance which opened in April 2011, and an endowment of just over $69 million (as of June 2014).

Australian choreographer Stanton Welch has served as artistic director of Houston Ballet since 2003, raising the level of the company's classical technique and commissioning many new works from dance makers such as Christopher Bruce, Jorma Elo, James Kudelka, Trey McIntyre, Julia Adam, Natalie Weir, Nicolo Fonte, and Edwaard Liang. Executive Director James Nelson serves as the administrative leader of the company, a position he assumed in February 2012 after serving as the company's General Manager for over a decade.

Houston Ballet has toured extensively both nationally and internationally. Over the last decade, the company has appeared in London at Sadler's Wells, at the Bolshoi Theater in Moscow, Russia, in six cities in Spain, in Montréal and Ottawa, at The Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C., in New York at City Center and The Joyce Theater, at the Théâtre des Champs Elysées in Paris, and in cities large and small across the United States. Houston Ballet has emerged as a leader in the expensive, labor-intensive task of nurturing the creation and development of new full-length narrative ballets.

Writing in Dancing Times in June 2012, dance critic Margaret Willis praised Houston Ballet and highlighted the fact that "During his own tenure, (Stanton) Welch has upped the standard and Houston Ballet now shows off a group of 55 dancers in splendid shape. With fast and tidy footwork, they are technically skillful and have strong, broad jumps and expansive, fluid movements. The dancers' musicality shines through their work, dancing as one with elegance and refinement -and they are a handsome bunch too!...if ballet were an Olympic sport, see Houston Ballet well on the way to achieving gold."

Houston Ballet Orchestra was established in the late 1970s and currently consists of 61 professional musicians who play all ballet performances at Wortham Theater Center under music director Ermanno Florio.

Houston Ballet's Education and Outreach Program has reached approximately 33,500 Houston area students (as of the 2013-2014 season). Houston Ballet's Academy has 950 students and has had four academy students win awards at the prestigious international ballet competition the Prix de Lausanne, with one student winning the overall competition in 2010. For more information on Houston Ballet visit www.houstonballet.org.

Pictured: La Bayadere. Dancer(s): Artists of Houston Ballet. Photo by Amitava Sarkar.

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