Balanchine | Mendelssohn
The season opens with an enchanting tale of love that epitomizes what Miami City Ballet does best: infusing the timeless work of George Balanchine with a distinct Miami flair.
Premiered as part of the company’s 30th anniversary, this inventive reimagining of Balanchine’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream — his first original full-length story ballet created in America — transports the mystical woodland lovers of Shakespeare’s comedic masterpiece to the spellbinding underwater world of the Florida coast. With Michele Oka Doner’s transformative costumes and sets, the kingdom of magical fairies becomes a floating motif of coral and seagrass populated by manatees, seahorses and other underwater life, evoking the heart of South Florida’s treasured marine ecosystems.
Mendelssohn’s mesmerizing score sets the stage for mischief, merriment and mismatched romances, embodied in equal measures of whimsy and dazzling prowess by a breathtaking company of dancers. Take a dip into the familiar story of feuding Titania and Oberon, a quartet of hapless romantics and the fiendish Puck, retold in the setting of the Port of Miami.
