This morning, Kansas City Ballet artistic director Devon Carney announced the company’s 2021-2022 season, which opens with a mixed repertoire featuring Celts, celebrating movement and music, continues with the highly anticipated return of The Nutcracker, then Michael Pink’s mesmerizing Dracula, and concludes with the return of Devon Carney’s The Wizard of Oz. “It’s an incredible season of crowd favorites,” he says. “What’s not to love?”
Here’s a sneak peek at three performances:
Celts
Oct. 15-24 | Kauffman Center for the Performing Arts
The 2021-2022 season opens with a mixed-repertoire performance featuring three acclaimed ballets that celebrate the emotional combination of movement and music. The program concludes with the featured work, Celts, the Kansas City premiere of a fiendish fusion of ballet and Irish step dance.
Lila York debuted Celts at Boston Ballet—a year before Michael Flatley’s Riverdance became a sensation—and is a stunning fusion of Irish folk dance and ballet. Set to the music of The Chieftains and more, this celebration of Irish culture has brought audiences to their feet with its choreographically intense jigs and captivating energy.
Dracula
Feb. 18-27, 2022 | Kauffman Center for the Performing Arts
Based on Bram Stoker’s classic gothic horror story and performed by the world-class dancers of Kansas City Ballet, Dracula is a spellbinding story of the nocturnal Count who survives on the blood of the living. Audiences will be mesmerized as they venture into the dark and eerie world of the infamous Count Dracula.
With thrilling sets and shocking special effects, Dracula delivers sensuality and danger in a dance/theater narrative combining story-enhancing sound effects like the beating heart that opens the show and the frightened voices of the humans Dracula is stalking.
The show is accompanied by the Kansas City Symphony. It features an ominous score, and the cinematic scenery will keep audience members captivated from curtain rise to curtain fall. Choreographer Michael Pink shares, “The show has developed somewhat of a cult following, breaking box office records all over the world. I’m thrilled to be bringing it to Kansas City Ballet for the first time.”
The Wizard of Oz
May 13-22, 2022 | Kauffman Center for the Performing Arts
Next May, the 2021-2022 season concludes with the much-anticipated return of the record-breaking performance of The Wizard of Oz, a $1 million production. Every aspect of this ballet has been custom designed and created to wow audiences. The numbers are impressive: the show features 30 company dancers and 15 second-company dancers. There are also 120 stunning costumes and 112 hats in the production. (If you’re keeping score, that’s at least 60 costume changes throughout the production.)
The production will also be accompanied by Kansas City Symphony and will feature two different children’s casts—a total of 46 children in all—performing in The Wizard of Oz. That promises to provide a huge asset to the development and growth of the Kansas City Ballet School.
Want to know more or purchase tickets? Subscriptions, which range from $141 to $305 for the three-ballet package, are now are available online at www.kcballet.org or by calling the Kansas City Ballet ticket office, 816-931-8993.