Matthew Golding
Ballet's Greatest Hits
Presented by Youth America Grand Prix (YAGP), the world’s largest dance education initiative, and subject of the award-winning ballet documentary “First Position,” “Ballet’s Greatest Hits” presents a one-of-a-kind glimpse of ballet from today and yesterday. The film is hosted by “American Idol” and “So You Think You Can Dance” Executive Producer, Nigel Lythgoe, and stars leading figures from the world of ballet. Dancers such as Stella Abrera, Isabella Boylston, Skylar Brandt, Marcelo Gomes, Veronika Part and Hee Seo from American Ballet Theatre, Taras Domitro and Maria Kochetkova of San Francisco Ballet, New York City Ballet favorites Ashley Bouder and Daniel Ulbricht, Matthew Golding of Dutch National Ballet, Alejandro Virelles of Boston Ballet and Greta Hodgkinson of National Ballet of Canada perform iconic roles from the classical repertoire including Swan Lake, Nutcracker, Giselle, Flames of Paris and Don Quixote. Audiences will gain special insight from backstage interviews with the performers and ballet luminaries such as Alexei Ratmansky, Angel Corella, Benjamin Millepied, Edward Villella, Jose Manuel Carreño, Mathieu and Denys Ganio, Matthew Bourne, Susan Jaffe and many others. See them dance, hear them talk and feel their passion in a unique dialogue between ballet’s history and its present.
Don Quichot
Don Quichot - an audience favourite of prestigious companies worldwide - is a dazzling display of high spirits, virtuosity and Spanish temperament. The flamboyant leaps, dizzying pirouettes and crisp pointe work that are standard features of the production give the performers every opportunity to show off their technical prowess. But at the same time, the comic story based on Cervantes' masterpiece makes strong demands on the dancers' acting abilities. The leading Russian choreographer Alexei Ratmansky has drawn inspiration for his production from the libretto of the first version of Don Quichot by Marius Petipa, created in 1869. The former artistic director of the Bolshoi Ballet and Artist in Residence of the American Ballet Theatre now has also added his own new elements and choreography to the ballet. The modern designs for the ballet, by the renowned French designer Jérôme Kaplan, refer to the times of Cervantes.