Ballez | “Sleeping Beauty & the Beast”
WORLD PREMIERE
Choreographed by: Katy Pyle, with Jules Skloot and the Company
Conceived and Directed by Katy Pyle
The Ballez returns to radically, queerly re-imagine another tale from the ballet canon. Celebrating the lives of lesbian, queer, and transgender people in the L.E.S., Sleeping Beauty & the Beast is a two-act Ballez spanning two theaters at La Mama, and two eras of L.E.S. activist herstory separated by 100 years. Featuring selections of Tchaikovsky’s classic score played live by the Queer Urban Orchestra, original House Music compilations by JD Samson, and a diverse cast of over 20 queer performers, the Ballez infiltrates the ballet canon with expressions of queer desires, queer and gender-queer embodiment, framing all these expressions as a new kind of virtuosity. Humorous, sensual, and heartbreaking, Sleeping Beauty & the Beast is a powerful testament to struggle, survival, and legacy.
Funding for this work has been provided by the Jerome Foundation and developed through a two-year Artist in Residence at Brooklyn Arts Exchange, through a residency at Lower Manhattan Cultural Council’s Process Space program, and with the support of Mertz Gilmore Foundation, and Brooklyn Arts Council.
Music
The Queer Urban Orchestra playing excerpts of Tchaikovsky’s “Sleeping Beauty,” conductor Julie Desbordes
Harpist Stephanie Babirak and Cellist Bjorn Berkhout playing Camille Saint-Saens “Le Cygne,”
and House Music DJ set by JD Samson
Creative Team
Costumes: Karen Boyer
Lighting Design: Chloe Brown
Production Consultants: Aaron Rosenblum and Caleb Hammons
Dramaturg: Clarinda Mac Low and Sam Greenleaf Miller
WORLD PREMIERE CAST
Beast: Jules Skloot
Aurora: Madison Krekel
Carabosse: Deborah Lohse
Violet Faerie: Chris De Vita
Scarlet Faerie: Charles Gowin
Azure Faerie: Chris Braz
Bluebird: Ashley Yergens
Bluebird: Lindsay Reuter
The Grey Wolf: iele Paloumpis
Little Red Riding Hood: Janet Werther
Cinderella: Khadija Griffith
Prince Charming: Erica Ricketts
Puss in Boots: Mei Yamanaka
White Cat: Kirstin Dahmer
Firebird: Erica Ricketts
Lesbian Princess: Eliana Dell’Anna
Dying Swans Include: Ahmaud Culver, Hans Rasch, Michael DiPietro, Helen Fourness, and Max Steele
MUSICIANS OF THE QUEER URBAN ORCHESTRA
Conductor: Julie Desbordes
1st violin: Nick Johnson and Nicolas Mirabile
2nd violin: Alva Bostick and Stephanie Stattel
Viola: Marvin Li
Cello: Bjorn Berkhout
Bass: Adrienne Lloyd
Flute/Piccolo: Craig Devereaux
Oboe/English Horn: Amy Yamashiro
Clarinet: Travis Fraser
Bassoon: Barbara Ann Schmutzler
French Horn: Peter DelGrosso and Kim Spagnola
Trumpet: George Gehring
Trombone: Jason Svatek
Percussion: Sean Foradori
Harp: Stephanie Babirak
Piano: Christian Smythe
Music arranged by: Bjorn Berkhout and Nick Johnson
Orchestra General Manager: Andrew Berman
Orchestra Personnel Manager: Liann Wadewitz
La MaMa Moves! Dance Festival
La MaMa Moves! Dance Festival continues to support La MaMa’s commitment to presenting diverse performance styles that challenge audience’s perception of dance by featuring performance/installations, experimental film screenings & public symposiums which address dance artists’ engagement with the current political climate, as well as honoring diasporic histories and legacy, ancestral inspirations and inter-generational dialogue.
“Katy Pyle and Her ‘Misfits of Ballet’”
In the world of tutus and tiaras, Ms. Pyle’s troupe, Ballez, seeks to discover and display “what lives inside of us.”
By GIA KOURLAS