Houston Ballet presents ROCK, ROLL, & TUTUS

Continuing the Hometown Tour March 1-4 at the George R. Brown Convention Center's Resilience Theater, Rock, Roll & Tutus features four captivating pieces including three Houston Ballet Premieres. The first of Houston Ballet's "Unconventional Ballets at the Convention Center," the evening will include Filigree and Shadow, In Dreams, La Cathedrale Engloutie, and Cacti.

The fast-paced work Filigree and Shadow brings another Australian choreographer, Tim Harbour, into the Houston Ballet family. Created for The Australian Ballet, this work is filled with contemporary complexity in what Dance Magazine reviewed as "rooted in psychological territory." This will be Houston Ballet's first time performing Harbour's Filigree and Shadow and its first work by Harbour. Houston Ballet veteran and former Choreographic Associate Trey McIntyre makes his return, setting his contemporary ballet In Dreams with songs by the legendary musician, Roy Orbison. McIntyre's bold choreography pairs the movement of ballet with the soul of bluegrass and the swagger of rockabilly. Stanton Welch's La Cathedrale Engloutie, makes its Houston Ballet premiere as well. This captivating Pas de Deux is set to the music of Debussy and made its world premiere by San Francisco Ballet in 1997. Alexander Ekman's Cacti is also back by popular demand. This piece is a gleeful, hilarious parody of the excesses of contemporary dance and represents one of many contemporary dance creations that are currently circulating across various countries.

During performances of Rock, Roll & Tutus, Houston Ballet will showcase a tutu exhibit, titled Tutus: From Stitch to Stage. Upon entering the theater, audiences will experience a dazzling and creative lobby display, and can get up close to treasured tutus and beloved costumes, many of which were created in-house by Houston Ballet's Costume Shop. Patrons will even see an educational deconstructed tutu display, illustrating the painstaking process of creating these exceptional garments. Featured in the exhibit is a classical, hand painted tutu from Coppélia, an iconic, romantic tutu from Giselle, as well as an industrial-strength costume from Divergence, a contemporary take on a classical tutu. Spanning a wide variety of costumes, the exhibit will also feature an eye-catching tutu from The Sleeping Beauty, several stunning tutus from The Nutcracker, costumes from the famously jovial ballet Don Quixote, and Swan Lake, an emotionally rich, stunning production.

About Houston Ballet

Houston Ballet has evolved into a company of 60 dancers with a budget of $33 million (making it the United States' fifth largest ballet company.) 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 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 more than 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, 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 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 more than 60,000 individuals in the Houston area annually. Houston Ballet Academy teaches more than one thousand students every year, and approximately 50 percent of the current company was trained by the Academy.

For more information on Houston Ballet visit houstonballet.org.

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