PORT ANGELES — Ballet Workshop will premiere a brand-new full-length production of “Sleeping Beauty,” presented by the Juan de Fuca Foundation for the Arts, on Saturday and Sunday.
The shows will be at 7 p.m. Saturday and 2 p.m. Sunday at the Port Angeles High School Performing Arts Center, 304 E. Park Ave.
Tickets are $15 to $35, depending on seating, with youths 14 and younger getting in for $10. Ticket outlets are online at www.jffa.org and at Port Book and News in Port Angeles and Joyful Noise Music in Sequim.
Proceeds from the performances, which took 10 weeks to prepare, will go to Ballet Workshop’s production fund and student scholarship program.
The production will showcase 95 dancers from ages 3 to 65. More than 90 Clallam County ballet students are performing in the show alongside guest artists from the San Francisco Ballet Company, National Ballet of Canada in Toronto and Grand Ballet Vancouver.
“This classic new staging of ‘Sleeping Beauty’ produced by Port Angeles’ own Ballet Workshop Productions promises to be a dance performance that you do not want to miss,” said Dan Maguire, executive director of the Juan de Fuca Foundation for the Arts.
“With music by Peter Ilyitch Tchaikovsky, ‘Sleeping Beauty’ has been a magical audience favorite for over 100 years.
‘A timeless story’
“It’s the timeless story of a sleeping princess, a handsome prince and the triumph of good over evil. “
Lauren Ostrander, apprentice with the National Ballet of Canada, will perform in the leading role of Princess Aurora, while Hansuke Yamamoto, soloist with the San Francisco Ballet Company, will perform the male lead of Prince Désire.
Zac Boresow, a student at the San Francisco Ballet School, and Ashley Coupal, student at Grand Ballet Vancouver, will perform the Bluebird Pas de Deux.
“These guest artists have been hand-selected and hired for their suitability to portray these iconic roles, as well as their incredible technical and artistic acumen,” said Kate Long, director of the Ballet Workshop.
Having rehearsed their parts separately, the guest dancers met 48 hours before opening night in Port Angeles to prepare their roles together, flying into Seattle on Wednesday to take a class with Pacific Northwest Ballet and rehearse with Long before arriving in Port Angeles on Thursday.
“All local Clallam dancers cast in the show get the opportunity to work and interact with these elite professionals, enhancing their educational experience as young students,” Long said.
Ostrander is a native of Seattle who graduated from the Vancouver Junior Professional Division under Long in 2010 and went on to study at Central Pennsylvania Youth Ballet and San Francisco Ballet School.
Upon graduating from SFBS, she danced with the Pennsylvania Ballet Company and later the National Ballet of Canada.
Yamamoto hails from Chiba, Japan, where he trained at the Akira Egawa Ballet School before studying at the Royal Ballet School in England. He joined the corps de ballet of San Francisco Ballet in 2001 and was promoted to soloist in 2005.
One-fourth of the cast of “Sleeping Beauty” is pictured outside the Ballet Workshop studio.
Dancers pictured from left are Brianna Jack, Selah Johnson, Anna Pedersen, Meiqi Liang and Courtney Smith. (Diane Urbani de la Paz)
