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NHB to see NYCB

NYC Ballet performs Coppelia. Photo by Paul Kolnik (c) 2018.

Level 6/7/8 students are invited to see New York City Ballet’s production of the beloved classical ballet Coppelia on June 2, 2018!

Students will also have the opportunity to participate in a technique class with one of the dancers from New York City Ballet in their studios at Lincoln Center. The fee is $215 per student. This includes: round-trip train fare, performance ticket to Coppelia, ballet technique class taught by a member of the New York City Ballet Company, and lunch.

NHB is thrilled to sponsor this once in a lifetime opportunity for Level 6/7/8 students. Space is limited. For more information and to reserve your spot contact: administrator@newhavenballet.org

Costume Fundraiser

Baby NHB ballerinas try on butterfly and firefly costumes for Beauty and the Beast

Dear New Haven Ballet Families and Friends,

If you’ve been around New Haven Ballet (NHB) recently, you’ll notice that the halls and studios are buzzing with excitement about NHB’s newest production: a full-scale Beauty and the Beast, to showcase the school performance on Saturday, May 19, at the Shubert Theater.

For this year’s school performance, NHB is breaking with tradition—and starting a grand new tradition—by putting all students, from Creative Ballet 1 to advanced level 8, into a gorgeous new production of a real ballet. For the inaugural year, Artistic Director Lisa Sanborn has chosen the beloved fairy tale Beauty and the Beast, with brand-new choreography, staging, and costumes.

A production that includes parts for piglets, butterflies, fireflies, sugar cubes, “chips,” roses, bluebells, napkins, and townsfolk—in addition to New Haven Ballet Company performing the roles of Belle and her court, Madame Armoire, Feather Duster, and Lumiere, and featuring former Miami City Ballet Principal Dancer, Jeremy Cox as the Beast —needs a lot of costumes, and busy hands at NHB are hard at work creating them. Unlike The Nutcracker, in which costume makers can build on the previous year’s costumes, our costume department has little on hand to work with for all the costumes we need—almost 100 piglet costumes alone! Our designers have a lot of imagination, though, and NHB families are eagerly helping with the work. But even hard-working volunteer costumers need materials to work with, and NHB will have to purchase cloth, tulle, bodices, masks, headpieces, and other components.

This year we are asking for your help to stock our costume wardrobe. Once we have built up our costume stock, we’ll have the versatility to re-use costumes in future productions—we won’t have to start all over again for each new production.

Please consider helping to deck out our fireflies and flowers and napkins and townspeople and sugar cubes—not to mention all those piglets!—and make Beauty and the Beast dazzling. The smiles on our dancers’ faces as they perform in a real ballet with real ballet costumes will light up the theater. And isn’t that what going to ballet school is all about? Thank you.

CLICK HERE TO DONATE

New Haven Ballet is a 501(c) (3) non-profit organization.

Lacina Coulibaly Master Class

Lacina Coulibaly will offer a Master West African/Contemporary Class on Wednesday, April 11, from 6:00 to 7:00 p.m. for NHB level 6-8 students at the Whitney Arts Center, 591 Whitney Avenue, New Haven. Level 6-8 students are invited and encouraged to attend even if not enrolled in Contemporary class. Students are required to wear their class uniform. This is an incredible opportunity and honor for NHB students and we look forward to seeing you there!

Lacina Coulibaly –

Lacina Coulibaly was born in Burkina Faso. His professional dance career, deeply rooted in African traditional dances, later merged with European contemporary influences to create a uniquely African choreographic expression.

In 1995, Mr. Coulibaly created the Cie Kongo Bâ Teria with Souleymane Badolo and Ousseni Sako. Their creations, Frères sans stèles(1999), Vin Nem (2001) et Hydou Bye (2004) toured the world and won international awards, including the award of 3rd place at SANGA, les Rencontres Choréographiques for Vin Nem (2001) which toured more than 30 cities in Europe in 2002 and throughout the United States in 2004 on the Movement (R)Evolution tour.

The company Kongo Bâ Teria was recently featured in the documentary film Movement (R)Evolution Africa (2007), available from Documentary Educational Resources (der.org).

Mr. Coulibaly has danced and choreographed with other international dance companies, such as Salia ni Seydou, Faso Danse Theatre, and TchéTché and assisted Nora Chipaumire (Dark Swan) Urban Bush Woman. He has collaborated with individual artists, such as Emily Coates, Amy Sullivan, Wendy Jehlen, Kota Yamakazi and Seydou Coulibaly. He has also acted as a guest lecturer and artist in residence for Brown University, Yale University, New School, University of Florida, Cornell University, UCLA, Ohio State University, Sarah Lawrence College, and Barnard College, in addition to ECA in New Haven, EDIT, the Choreographic Development Center, and CDC la Termitière in Burkina Faso.

He is currently the artistic director of the Compagnie Artistique Hakili Sigi, associate choreographer to the project Engagement Feminine and guest lecturer at Yale University and Sarah Lawrence College.