"Fancy Free" with Fernando Sabino (Richmond Ballet 2013, photo by Sarah Ferguson)
Set in wartime New York City with jazzy, high-energy choreography by Jerome Robbins and music by Leonard Bernstein, the popular 1944 American ballet Fancy Free inspired the 1949 film On the Town, starring Frank Sinatra and Gene Kelly.
Fancy Free will open the Richmond Ballet’s 2015-2016 season, along with Stolen Moments, an original piece by San Francisco-based choreographer Val Caniparoli, who is no stranger to the company.
“Val Caniparoli’s work is always surprising and always wonderful," says Richmond Ballet Artistic Director Stoner Winslett. "He has a really cool choreographic style, and the dancers do it with whole heart. ... One of the things I like about Val’s work, and I think the audience also enjoys, is that he is definitely a ballet choreographer. He almost always uses pointe shoes, and he uses the ballet lines and vocabulary. But he has a very unique interpretation of the classical lexicon, making the movements very current. It’s ‘now’ ballet, and that’s a really special gift that he has, to use that language in a way that speaks so strongly in 2015.”
Here's a video profile of Caniparoli by the San Francisco Ballet:
The performances take place in Richmond Ballet’s Studio Theatre, Sept. 29 to Oct. 4. Tickets start at $20. 344-0906, ext. 224 or richmondballet.com.
