The Alberta Ballet will present the world premiere of Kirk Peterson's athletic and theatrical Othello and a new dance based on Mozart's Requiem as part of its 2007-8 season.

Scene from Dancing Joni, this year's innovative new production by Alberta Ballet.
(Trudie Lee/Alberta Ballet)

The new season for the ballet, which plays in both Calgary and Edmonton, was announced Wednesday by Jean Grand-Maitre, the Quebec-born artistic director of the Alberta Ballet.

Grand-Maitre, who took over artistic direction of the classical ballet company in 2002, drew intense media attention in this ballet season with his choreography for Dancing Joni & Other Works, a ballet featuring the music of Joni Mitchell.

"This coming season is a testament to our company's impressive artistic growth which is now garnering extensive international attention," he said in a statement.

"Highly theatrical and intensely profound ballets probe the mysterious geometries of humanity and will hopefully reconcile us to the wondrous odyssey of life."  

New works and favourites

The 2007-8 season is a mix of daring new works with favourites such as Giselle and The Nutcracker.

Grand-Maitre plans to revive a success from 2004, Dangerous Liaisons, with his own choreography and music from Einojuhani Rautavaara, Giya Kancheli and Arvo Pärt.

Dangerous Liaisons is a story of seduction and cruelty set during the reign of French King Louis XVI, based on the Oscar-winning movie of the same title.

Alberta Ballet plans a Shakespeare cycle over the next three years beginning with this season's Othello, a new version of a ballet by U.S.-based choreographer Peterson, a dancer with the American Ballet Theatre.

Othello, the tale of the Moor who is undone by his jealousy over a woman is told with music by Jerry Goldsmith, accompanied by the Edmonton Symphony Orchestra (ESO).

The 2007 season will be the last for Mikko Nissinen's version of the Nutcracker Ballet.
(Trudie Lee/Alberta Ballet)

Alberta Ballet's Christmas classic, The Nutcracker, returns in its current form, as choreographed by Mikko Nissinen, for the last time in 2007. The family friendly ballet about a special Nutcracker who spirits a young girl to a magical world is danced to Tchaikovsky's score, played by the ESO.

The National Ballet is scheduled to dance Giselle, one of classical ballet's most technically difficult dances, in September at the start of the Edmonton ballet season.

The final ballet of the year, completely new, involves the ESO working with Edmonton Opera and the Richard Eaton singers, a total of more than 100 singers.

They will sing Mozart's magnificent Requiem while the 26 dancers of the Alberta Ballet are on stage in a new work choreographed by Grand-Maitre.