Up CLOSE, on HOPE
Program II, March 10, 11, 17, 2007
All premieres!

Dance so near you can touch it!

PROVIDENCE, RI –

Program:	Up CLOSE on HOPE, program II performances
Date:	March 10, 11, 17, 2007
Time:	Saturdays at 7:30, Sunday at 6:00 pm
Place:	Festival Ballet Providence Black Box Theater, 825 Hope Street, Providence, RI
Cost:	$40, includes performance and intermission wine and hors d’oeuvres
Program:	Five contemporary ballets in an intimate setting, by four choreographers, Colleen Cavanaugh, Mark Harootian, Viktor Plotnkov and Yury Yanowsky, performed by the Company’s international roster of dancers.
Information	Vist www.festivalballet.com , write info@festivalballet.com or call 401.353.1129.

Festival Ballet Providence’s award-winning series, Up CLOSE, on HOPE, showcasing exciting mixed repertory works in an intimate studio setting, will present the season’s 6th production of the season for two weekends in March. The program will include a dynamic and varied program of 3 world premieres and 2 Rhode Island premiere,
representing a broad span of choreographic talent. Up CLOSE on HOPE performances offer the chance to see thrilling, original contemporary dance in close proximity, to meet the dancers, and to mingle with the evening’s choreographers. Critics are in complete
agreement: Up CLOSE on HOPE is a great way for audiences to see dance!

The performances will take place March 10 11, and 17 at the company’s East Side studios at 825 Hope Street on Saturdays at 7:30 pm and on Sunday at 6:00 pm. Performances take place in the Grand Studio black box theater, for a limited audience of 90.

The success of Up CLOSE, on HOPE is largely due to the intimacy of the theater and the repertory chosen by Festival Ballet Providence Artistic Director Mihailo Djuric. The program spans a broad spectrum of styles and is intended to expand the audience’s taste for dance, to showcase established and rising choreographers, and to provide numerous challenging roles to the dancers in the company.

This program will consist entirely of world and company premieres.

The company premieres include Viktor Plotnikov’s Crazy Nun, winner of the choreography prize at last year’s Helsinki International Ballet Competition, and as well as his work for two dancers, Tension and Beauty. The latter was a featured performance by Mr. Plotnikov and his wife Larissa Ponomarenko for the reunion of former Ballet
Russes dancers captured so wonderfully in the film, “Ballet Russes”. Festival Ballet Providence has regularly commissioned Plotnikov to create works for company, including recent mainstage productions Carmen, The Widow’s Broom and Loof and Let Dime. His newest commission from Festival Ballet Providence will premiere as part of
the company’s American Masters program in April.

Company member Mark Harootian, who has created several memorable works for Up CLOSE on HOPE, will present the premiere of his largest work to date for the March program. A winner of the 2006 Arts Fellowship Award in Choreography from the Rhode
Island State Council on the Arts, Harootian has been inspired by his Armenian heritage to create an eighteen minute work for the Company. Each performance of this work will be accompanied by an Armenian band lead by noted musician, Mal Barsamian. Harootian
has applied the RISCA cash award toward the costs of the musicians, with additional fundraising assistance from Festival Ballet Providence supporters, Ara and Betty Sadaniantz. Harootian noted, “I identify strongly with my Armenian roots. They are a subtle but basic part of who I am today, and finally I am able to incorporate that identity into my career as an artist. The work uses motifs from Armenian folk dances, but I envision the piece to be contemporary, against the backdrop of the traditional music.”

Colleen Cavanaugh, founder of Cadence Dance Project and regular guest choreographer for Festival Ballet Providence, will create a new work for the company. It’s a trio with music by Tartini, with one of the dancers, Carolyn Dellinger, also playing violin. The piece explores devotion to one’s muse, despite having other loves, and the resulting inner struggle; to include everything in life, or to exclude things.

music is by Tartini and Carolyn will also be playing violin. I guess the piece is about the devotion to one's muse despite other loves and the struggle at times to include all or not to. I may call it The Bow.

Artistic Director Mihailo Djuric is enlisting another Boston-based choreographer, Yury Yanowsky, to create a new work for the company, to premiere as part of this Up CLOSE on HOPE program. Yanowsky’s choreography was often seen in the Boston area as a
part of the Raw Dance program presented by Boston Ballet.

Audience members will have the opportunity to explore the bounty offered on Hope Street with hors d’oeuvres and wine intermissions sponsored by neighboring East Side restaurants. The intermission sponsors of our March performances are Rue De L’Espoir, Oak and Blaze East Side, accompanied by wines courtesy of Laurine Ryan Perry and the Martignetti Companies of Rhode Island.

Tickets are available for $40 as general admission seating. Tickets are available by contacting Festival Ballet Providence, 01.353.1129. For further information, send email inquiries to info@festivalballet.com.

For additional information about upcoming programs visit www.festivalballet.com The 2006-2007 Up CLOSE on HOPE series is made possible in part by Up CLOSE on HOPE sponsor GLADWORKS, and additional support from NBC10, Acadia Consulting and the Rhode Island State Council on the Arts.

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The Festival Ballet Providence and the Festival Ballet Providence Center for Dance Education are together a not-for-profit arts organization whose EIN is 05-0377245 and whose Rhode Island Corporate ID number is ND-27-137.

Intermission sponsors for Up CLOSE on HOPE are:

March 10	Restaurant Oak
March 11	Blaze east side
March 17	Rue de L’Espoir

Wines for the intermissions will be provided courtesy of the Martignetti Companies of Rhode Island and Laurine Ryan Perry.

BIOS: Guest Choreographers
Colleen Cavanaugh, Guest Choreographer
Colleen Cavanaugh danced professionally in New York and Europe before returning to her native Rhode Island to complete a medical degree at Brown University. She choreographed for and directed Cadence Dance Project for four years and is now working as an independent choreographer, making ballets for regional companies and college dance programs. Cavanaugh received a Rhode Island State Council on the Arts fellowship in choreography as well as several project grants. Two of her ballets were selected and presented by Ballet Builders in New York City, a showcase for contemporary ballet. Her choreography has been presented in New England, New York and Europe. Her commissioned work, I Corpi Celesti, inspired by Galileo, was premiered in May 2003 by Festival Ballet Providence to great acclaim. Ms. Cavanaugh’s works
have been featured regularly for the Up CLOSE on HOPE series including Caress, Demeter’s Tears, Schumann Songs, Scarlet Tangents and Little Girl Blue. Colleen is also a practicing
Obstetrician/Gynecologist and is an Assistant Clinical Professor at Brown University School of Medicine.

Mark A. Harootian, Company member, Guest Choreographer
A native of Worcester, Massachusetts, Mark received his early training from the Performing Arts School of Worcester dancing with the Worcester Youth Ballet and Burncoat Senior High’s dance
department. He matriculated to University of Utah’s ballet department on scholarship and as a member of Utah Ballet, graduating with a BFA, emphasis on performing and teaching. There
Mark performed and choreographed in many of the department’s seasonal shows as well as dancing many leading roles with Utah Ballet. In addition Mark has performed at Disney’s Epcot Center, the 2002 Salt Lake City Olympics Medal Plaza, the Festival of White Nights in Pushkin Russia. Aside from memorable roles including The Captain in Carmen, The Sailor in Con Amore and Doug Spivey in The Widow’s Broom, Mark has captivated audiences and inspired his colleagues by choreographing new works Breaking the Limits, Let it Go for a While, and Mutable Air for the Up CLOSE, on HOPE series. In 2007 Mark received the Arts Fellowship Award in
Choreography from the Rhode Island State Council on the Arts. This is Mark’s third season with Festival Ballet Providence.

Viktor Plotnikov, Guest Choreographer
Viktor was born in Kharkov City, Ukraine, and began his training at the age of 11 at the Kiev-Ukraine School and continued at the St. Petersburg Ballet Academy. From 1987 to 1990 he was a soloist with Donetsk Ballet Company in the Ukraine. In 1990 Viktor joined Ballet Mississippi as a principal dancer. Additionally he has appeared as a guest artist with Tulsa Ballet Theatre and Dance Inc, and has toured Russia and the US.

In 1993 he joined Boston Ballet as principal dancer, performing major roles in the company’s classical and contemporary repertory, and retiring from the company in 2005.

Plotnikov created numerous works specifically for Boston Ballet dancers and members of Boston Ballet II. He has choreographed a number of works for institutions throughout the region, including performances in Boston Ballet’s Grand Studio, Dance on the Top
Floor, Company performances in Nantucket, and Khachaturian’s Centennial at Boston Conservatory. Plotinokov created solos and duets, performed at International Gala Performances. His creations include works for the 2002 International Ballet Competition in Jackson, MS. Plotnikov also created two one act ballet’s My Impressions, set to symphonic Pink Floyd and Short Stories for A Small Magazine for the Dancer’s Resource Fund, and at the well received annual choreographic event “Raw Dance” in collaboration
with Boston Ballet and Boston Center for the Arts. With Crazy Nun, Viktor won the Choreography Award at the 2005 Helsinki International Ballet Competition. In the last year his choreography credits have soared, with works created for institutions from coast
to coast.

Festival Ballet Providence Artistic Director Mihailo Djuric commissioned Mr. Plotnikov to create his first full-length ballet, Carmen in 2003, and followed that in 2005 with the commission of The Widow’s Broom. He left days after that premiere to create a new work for the Bolshoi Ballet under the artistic direction of Alexei Ratmansky. Plotnikov’s sublime Elegant Souls was featured as part of Festival Ballet Providence’s Up CLOSE on HOPE series in March 2005. His stunning ballet, Loof and Let Dime, created in 2006,
was noted by the Providence Journal as a “masterful modern work” that “led local dance in 2006”.

Mr. Plotnikov is married to Boston Ballet principal dancer Larissa Ponomarenko.

Yury Yanowsky, Guest Choreographer
Mr. Yanowsky was born in Lyon, France and grew up in Madrid and Las Palmas, Spain. He began his training with his parents, Carmen Robles and Anatol Yanowsky, and also trained at Ballet Nacional de Cuba. In 1992 he won first prize a the Prix de Lausanne in Switzerland, and in 1994 he won the Senior Silver Medal at the Jackson International Ballet Competition. Yanowsky joined Boston Ballet in 1993, and was promoted first to soloist in 1995 and to principal in 1999. Throughout his career Yanowsky has participated in numerous international ballet galas. His choreography was a regularly featured as part of Boston Ballet’s Raw Dance. While he has been a guest dancer for Festival Ballet Providence’s Up CLOSE on HOPE series, this is the first time Yury will create a ballet for the company.