The State Ballet of Georgia makes its Crescent City debut Saturday as the New Orleans Ballet Association brings its season to a close at the Mahalia Jackson Theater for the Performing Arts in Armstrong Park.
The Tblisi, Georgia-based corps will perform George Balanchine's "Serenade" and "Concerto Barocco," accompanied by the Louisiana Philharmonic Orchestra. The finale is a worked created for the company by Ukrainian native Yuri Possokhov.
Tickets for the 7:30 p.m. program start at $35 at nobadance.com.
'Serenade' by the State Ballet of Georgia.
Based in the Opera and Ballet State Theatre in the capital city of Tbilisi, the company is under the artistic direction of Nina Ananiashvili , former prima ballerina with Bolshoi Ballet, The Royal Ballet and American Ballet Theatre. She returned to her native country in 2004 to lead the company.
She was the first dancer from the former Soviet Union invited to perform in Balanchine’s theater in New York and is the only ballerina to win the highest awards in all four major ballet competitions.
Under Ananiashvili’s leadership, the company added contemporary ballets from choreographers such as Jiří Kylián and Trey McIntyre and reimagined works from the classical repertoire. Georgia’s lineage of Russian and Italian ballet combines with Ananiashvili’s approach to the art to present an amalgam of classicism, tradition, virtuosity and invention.