VOLO – February 17-19, 2011

1st Flash

VANCOUVER PREMIERE

Choreography: JORMA ELO
Music: Jean Sibelius Violin Concerto in D Minor, Op. 47

Created for Netherlands Dance Theatre in 2003 for six dancers, 1st Flash is set to Sibelius’ inspired violin concerto and thrusts the dancers into a world of giddy, obsessive fun. The Sibelius music seems to interrupt the dancers’ silence and charge it with dynamic beauty and musicality, a wonderful unison of searing freshness. Born in Finland, Elo is resident choreographer of Boston Ballet and a former member of the Netherlands Dance Theatre, Cullberg Ballet and Finnish National Ballet. His critically acclaimed works are danced by major companies around the world.

WORLD PREMIERE

Choreography: SHAWN HOUNSELL

A former member of the Royal Winnipeg Ballet and Les Grands Ballets Canadiens, Shawn Hounsell’s choreographic work has been called “sparkling, delightful” and “a knockout.” In 1997, he received the Clifford E. Lee Choreography Award and went on to create works for Les Ballets Jazz de Montréal and Les Grands Ballets Canadiens, among others. International critics have called his work “lush” and “deftly conceived…profound dances that are solid and inventive, reflecting the unavoidable and individualistic world we live in, a frantically riveting/non-stop tour of human relations.”

WORLD PREMIERE

Choreography: MEDHI WALERSKI
Music: Medhi Walerski

Medhi Walerski received his dance training at the Conservatoire Supérieure in Paris, later dancing with the Paris Opéra Ballet, Nice Opéra Ballet and the Ballet du Rhin in Mulhouse. As a dancer and choreographer for Netherlands Dance Theatre, Walerski is a rising star in the European dance world, creating unique works full of imagery and adventure, a virtuosic and dazzling landscape of movement and ideas. Dance Europe has called him “an original voice” who makes dances that are “out of this world…a dreamlike experience. A dream you never want to wake from.”

For more information, please visit: http://balletbc.com