Rebecca Kelly Ballet Premieres DESIRE 4/22-4/24

Choreographer Rebecca Kelly has long used dance to celebrate the sheer beauty of the moving form while reflecting on human challenges and current events. Rebecca Kelly Ballet's (RKB)'s three performances April 22-24, at the Ailey Citigroup Theater will consider themes surrounding the human desire to be known, that drive us toward intimacy, anonymity, or independence.

Choreographer Rebecca Kelly has long used dance to celebrate the sheer beauty of the moving form while reflecting on human challenges and current events. Rebecca Kelly Ballet's (RKB)'s three performances April 22-24, at the Ailey Citigroup Theater will consider themes surrounding the human desire to be known, that drive us toward intimacy, anonymity, or independence.

The program includes the New York premieres of Desire, Trouve Moi, and the restaging of the 2002 favorite The Travelers. Featured dancers include Emily Adams, Giorgia Bovo, Robin Cantrell, Raul Peinado, Sean Scantlebury and Therese Wendler.

Desire - Kelly's newest work for six dancers, considers the many facets of desire. She has created a mood of restless longing, frenzy, and fractured timing, centered around the past and future possibilities of two central lovers. The music is set to the arresting sounds of the Finnish cello metal band, Apocolyptica.

A new duet Trouve Moi created for Therese Wendler and Raul Peinado, is set to a work for cello and piano by Brazilian composer, Egberto Gismonti. Starting as a gentle reach, movement becomes a metaphor for love's growing possibilities, as the pair unfurl their rapture.

The Travelers, (2001) called a sexy, slick dance noire by Back Stage, and explosive by Pointe Magazine, packs a punch with its suggestion of risky and uninhibited liaisons forming and reforming on a long train trip.

Founded in 1979 Rebecca Kelly Ballet is distinguished by lyric classicism fused with authentic spontaneity, reflecting Kelly's commitment to classical ballet within a contemporary repertoire. Kelly's conveys an articulate humanistic outlook through distinctive, emotive, and topical choreography. Her dancers, versatile in modern and classical ballet technique, were recently highlighted as being among "the most technically accomplished performers," and Kelly's choroegraphy as possessing "appealingly elaborate partnering moves, precise sculptural shapes, clean and unstrained lifts, by The New York Times.

The Ailey Citigroup Theater, Joan Weil Center for Dance, is located at 40 West 55th Street, 9th Ave. Tickets are $20 - $40. Performances are April 22-24, 2010, at 8pm.

BOX OFFICE: Ticket Central: 212-279-4200. (416 W 42nd Street, 12-8pm) Student, Senior, TDF, and Dance Pass discounts apply.

GALA BENEFIT: Thursday, April 22, 8pm. Opening Night Performance and Reception following Alvin Ailey Studios same location as theater. GALA tickets start at $125. Reservations are required, RKB: 212-431-8489.

STUDENT/ SENIOR/ GROUPS/ BALCONY PROJECT (free tickets for children under 10, accompanied by an adult, Friday and Saturday; kid friendly programs) 212-431-8489, RKBallet@ix.netcom.com.

For more information, click here.

Photo: Dress Rehearsal for Rebecca Kelly Ballet in Lake Placid, N.Y., Wednesday Jul 29, 2009 (Photo/Todd Bissonette - www.rtbphoto.com)