Houston Ballet Dances Into Recovery With MAYERLING and POETRY IN MOTION

Houston Ballet is grateful for the outpouring of support received over the past two weeks. With significant post-Harvey challenges ahead, the company is heartened by the way the city has come together to begin the recovery process. Although this recovery will be difficult and prolonged, Houston Ballet joins all Houstonians in the steadfast belief that the great city of Houston will emerge stronger than ever.

Houston Ballet's dancers, artists and staff are safe, although many have been displaced and suffered significant losses following Hurricane Harvey. Houston Ballet Center for Dance sustained substantial water damage from the flooding of the building's garage and first floor. The studio floors of both the "Little Brown" Studio and the Margaret Alkek Williams Dance Lab have been lost, but repairs to these spaces and others in the lobby and throughout the first floor are well underway.

Despite this activity, the building returned to full operations on Sept. 6. Company dancers, who have continued to attend daily classes and rehearsals at METdance in preparation for Poetry in Motion and Mayerling, will return to the Center for Dance later this week. Houston Ballet Academy classes are scheduled to resume fully on Monday, Sept. 11.

All performances at Wortham Theater have been cancelled through October 15, leaving Houston Ballet unable to perform the opening two programs at the company's home venue.

However, Houston Ballet is pleased to report that select performances of fall programming have been rescheduled at THE HOBBY CENTER - SAROFIM HALL, as follows:

Mayerling - rescheduled at HOBBY CENTER

-Friday, Sept. 22 at 7:30 PM

-Saturday, Sept. 23 at 1:30 PM

-Saturday, Sept. 23 at 7:30 PM

-Sunday, Sept. 24 at 2:00 PM

Poetry in Motion - rescheduled at HOBBY CENTER

-Thursday, Oct. 26 at 7:30 PM

- Friday, Oct. 27 at 7:30 PM

Ticketholders will be notified via email with how they can exchange or donate their tickets should they not be able to attend any of the rescheduled, relocated dates.

Houston Ballet has evolved into a company of 59 dancers with a budget of $33 million (making it the United States' fourth largest ballet company by number of dancers.) With a state-of-the-art performance space built especially for the company, which is the largest professional dance facility in America, Houston Ballet's $46.6 million Center for Dance opened in April 2011, with an endowment of just over $74.1 million (as of July 2017).

Australian Choreographer Stanton Welch AM 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, Alexander Ekman, William Forsythe, Ji?í Kylián, Trey McIntyre, Julia Adam, Edwaard Liang and George Balanchine. 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 past fifteen years, 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, at The Arts Center Melbourne State Theatre in Melbourne, Australia, in Los Angeles at The Music Center's Dorothy Chandler Pavilion, 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 consists of 61 professional musicians who play for Houston Ballet's performances at Wortham Theater Center under Music Director Ermanno Florio.

Houston Ballet's Education and Community Engagement Program reaches over 60,000 individuals in the Houston area annually. Houston Ballet Academy teaches over one thousand students every year, and approximately 50% of the current company was trained by the Academy.

For more information on Houston Ballet, visit houstonballet.org.

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