Coastal City Ballet presents Hansel & Gretel, Centennial Theatre, Sunday, May 6 at 2 p.m. Tickets 604-984-4484.
COASTAL City Ballet debuts its new ballet this weekend with a North Van teen in the title role.
Elizabeth Bishop will be stepping out as Gretel in the world premiere of Hansel & Gretel when the local company brings its original story ballet to North Vancouver's Centennial Theatre on Sunday.
This is the 17-year-old's first leading role in a full-length ballet and the young dancer is looking forward to the performance.
"There's a lot of acting in it and so it's really fun to do," says the Grade 12 student who first slipped on ballet shoes when she was two.
Bishop is enrolled in the North Vancouver school district's peak performance program, which allows her to attend half-days at Handsworth secondary so that she can train daily at Pacific DanceArts in Vancouver.
Pacific DanceArts formed Coastal City Ballet in September 2011 to offer preprofessional dancers local performance opportunities to help them develop their craft.
Bishop won the role of Gretel after auditioning for choreographer Irene Schneider, former artistic director of Germany's Magdeburg Ballet, who was commissioned by Coastal City Ballet to create the work for its inaugural season.
Adapted from 19th century German composer Engelbert Humperdinck's celebrated opera, the ballet is based on the Grimms' fairy tale of a brother and sister who get lost in the woods and stumble upon a gingerbread house, unaware that they are in a witch's trap.
With its playful story, imaginative set and fanciful costumes, Hansel & Gretel is perfect for families and children of all ages, says the company's artistic director Li Yaming, who read the story as a child in China, where tales by the brothers Grimm were popular alongside the stories of Hans Christian Andersen. "It's a story that everyone can understand," he says, adding that Hansel and Gretel, the opera, is popular and famous in Europe as a Christmas production.
"Often when audiences think of ballet, they envision the grand, romantic and tragic works like Sleeping Beauty and Swan Lake," he notes in a release. "This misses out on an incredible tradition of light-hearted and comic ballets, such as Coppélia and La Fille Mal Gardé." The enchantment of Hansel & Gretel adds to this whimsical balletic legacy.
In the role of Hansel is Mauricio Teixeira, a young dancer from Brazil who is training with Pacific DanceArts on a scholarship. Company dancer Kanae Akatsuka, of Japan, will perform the role of Gretel in the production's Maple Ridge performance on Saturday.
Tickets for this Sunday's 2 p.m. performance at North Vancouver's Centennial Theatre are $32 for adults, $20 for students and seniors, available online at www. centennialtheatre.com or by calling 604-984-4484.
