The Female Factor at Victoria Theatre

Since the beginning of time when the natural movement of body to music evolved into its own art form, women have shaped the face of dance in the most sensuous and exhilarating of ways. In fact, the very origins of Dayton Ballet began with the work of two creatively brilliant and determined women when Josephine and Hermene Schwarz founded The Experimental Group for Young Dancers in 1937. In Spring 2017, Dayton Ballet honors the women of dance by presenting a program that shines a spotlight on the ingenuity and talent of a few female choreographers of our time in a repertory program called The Female Factor.

Internationally acclaimed choreographer Gina Patterson returns to Dayton Ballet with her wildly popular ballet Your Provision.

Choreographer Jessica Lang has gained worldwide fame working with ballet companies across the U.S. and abroad since 1999. In 2011, she established her own ballet company in New York City, called Jessica Lang Dance, and it has quickly become one of the most exciting companies in today’s dance scene. Dayton Ballet brings back to the stage her exciting and innovative work entitled From Foreign Lands and People, a clever and captivating ballet with beautiful movement to music by Robert Schumann. This original ballet features large black rectangular boxes on stage to represent the black keys on the piano. Boxes will be laid on their sides, tilted, propped on others to form slides, erected as pillars, and built into structures. “Dancers will crawl, slide, walk, and dance on, over, and around the boxes,” explains Karen Russo Burke. “The boxes will truly become part of the choreography.” If you haven’t seen this before, this is a ballet not to be missed.

The program continues with a work created by Dayton area native Susanne Payne called Dreams of Flight, which received its world premiere with Dayton Ballet in 2014. Ms. Payne is a graduate of Wright State University and winner of Dayton Ballet's 2009 "New Music for New Dance" competition. In Dreams of Flight, nine men will fill the stage with decidedly contemporary movement, raw energy, and pure power, combined with exciting lifts, athletic floor work, technical mastery, and unique partnering. “Loosely inspired by The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho, Dreams of Flight is a powerful and rigorously athletic contemporary ballet that consists of seven parts,” says Ms. Payne. “The work depicts the magical experiences, realizations, and lessons learned when one truly commits to the pursuit of a dream.”

With these stunning works from three female composers, Dayton Ballet focuses fittingly on The Female Factor for this final presentation of the season. If you missed these highlights from recent repertory ballets, then you are fortunate that all three ballets will appear on the same program in Spring 2017.