New Jersey Ballet dances to a Latin Beat

November 15 at The Community Theatre
at Mayo Center for the Performing Arts, Morristown

This season, New Jersey Ballet becomes the first New Jersey dance company to reach the half century milestone, and every performance promises something special for dancers and audience alike.

The company’s season opener at The Community Theatre on November 15 is called Ballet with a Latin Beat. The program promises a spicy trio of works with South of the Border flair, a showcase for New Jersey Ballet’s versatile artists.

The Latin evening will celebrate Spanish-American culture with two premieres and a major revival.

Guajira, a ballet by Cuban-born choreographer Pedro Ruiz, longtime principal dancer and choreographer for Ballet Hispanico, will receive its New Jersey premiere. Guajira weaves memories of childhood visits to his grandfather’s farm with Ruiz’ own experience of life in the Cuban countryside and sets the mix in motion to a medley of Afro-Cuban and Latin music.

When Guajira premiered in 1999, Phyllis Gordon of Backstage applauded “Guajira is a gem” and Ruiz’ “fine taste [and] exquisite passages.” Melissa Ladd noted the choreography created “a fluid and melting effect.”

For the second premiere, New Jersey Ballet has commissioned choreographer Frank Regan to create ballet of classic Latin ballroom styles including mambo and rumba. The work, Sophisticated Salsa, takes advantage of a current ballroom style with a “substantial following.” Regan is fresh from an assignment for Miami City Ballet for which he co-choreographed a work with that company’s legendary Director, Edward Villella.

A United States Latin Dance Champion, Frank Regan is a master of translating ballroom technique to the language of the stage. He has choreographed over 100 productions and is a recipient of, among many honors, the “Legends of Dance Award.” Other recipients include

Such luminaries as Cyd Charisse, Marge Champion, and Francois Szony, pioneer of Adagio dance and frequent guest on the Ed Sullivan Show.

Rounding out the program is Entre Dos Aguas, a dramatic piece by internationally celebrated choreographer Robert North, which has not been performed for New Jersey audiences in over a decade. Aguas is a fusion of ballet, jazz dance and flamenco, with highly stylized movement and plenty of flash and dazzle. The New York Times’ Anna Kisselgoff called it “energetic and seductive, smoldering with sensuality” and filled with “style…sophistication and wit.”

The Ballet with a Latin Beat program is sponsored in part by Espinosa & Espinosa, LLP, law firm serving the Hispanic community, and its parent company, leading Morristown law firm McElroy, Deutsch, Mulvaney & Carpenter, LLP.

New Jersey Ballet at The Community Theatre, 100 South Street, Morristown. Saturday, November 15 at 8:00 p.m. Tickets $40, $30, $20. Call 973-539-8008 or log on to mayoarts.org. New Jersey Ballet’s Saturday Night Series at The Community Theatre is sponsored by the F. M. Kirby Foundation. Other performances in the Series are scheduled for January 10 (Ballet on Broadway) and May 16 (the classic of all classics, Giselle). Subscribers to the series save on tickets and ensure best seating. For information, call New Jersey Ballet at 973-597-9600.

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