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Art >Ballet
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Description and Basic Information ::
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One of the West's major professional ballet companies, Oakland Ballet is celebrating its 32nd year with the 1997 Fall Season. The Company was founded in 1965 by Ronn Guidi, an Oakland native and student of Raoul Pause, a former student of the great Diaghilev dancer and choreographer Adolph Bolm. Among dance companies, Oakland Ballet has achieved a level of distinction not only by reaching its 32nd year, but also for being one of the only American companies still under the leadership of its Founding Artistic Director.
Throughout its 31-year history, Oakland Ballet has been internationally recognized for the historical reconstruction of important ballets from the repertoire of the legendary Ballets Russes of Serge Diaghilev, together with classic works of Americana and innovative contemporary choreography by major West Coast choreographers. Oakland Ballet was the first American ballet company to perform the masterworks of famed Ballets Russes choreographer Bronislava Nijinska, sister of the legendary dancer Vaslav Nijinsky, including the first reconstruction of Le Train Bleu, her famed 1924 collaboration with Darius Milhaud, Jean Cocteau, Henri Laurens, and Pablo Picasso. In 1981, Oakland Ballet staged the first U.S. performances of Nijinskia's Les Noces, set to the famous score by Igor Stravinsky based on Russian peasant folk themes. This production has since been revived numerous times worldwide, including an historical production in June of 1995 in St. Petersburg supervised by Oakland Ballet's Ballet Master Howard Sayette, which constituted the first native performances of Les Noces. |
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