Ballet Tucson performing 3 new works, including a world premiere

Chances are pretty good that most folks attending Ballet Tucson’s Winter Concert this weekend will have never experienced the popular pas de deux from Tony Award-winning choreographer Christopher Wheeldon’s ballet “After the Rain.”

The piece, set to Arvo Pärt’s “Tabula Rasa,” has been danced by big companies like the Joffrey, San Francisco Ballet and the Royal Ballet, companies with the pedigree and talent to do the piece justice.

And now Ballet Tucson.

The 36-year-old company will perform the piece this weekend after it reached out to Wheeldon (“MJ the Musical”) and former dancer Wendy Whelan, who originated the piece with New York City Ballet, to secure the rights. The piece is on the company’s winter concert program, which it will perform as part of the Tucson Desert Song Festival.

“It’s an exciting thing for Tucson,” said Ballet Tucson Artistic Director Margaret Mullin. “We really believe that Tucson deserves great art and Tucsonans shouldn’t have to travel (to Los Angeles or New York). We have the talent right here.”

The pas de deux is one of three company premieres on the program, including the world premiere of resident choreographer Chieko Imada’s “Eternal Love — Songs of Edith Piaf,” featuring Tucson vocalist Katherine Byrnes and pianist Khris Dodge.

Imada said “Eternal Love,” which will feature Ballet Tucson’s full company of 30-plus dancers, is woven around the French singer’s songs to tell her story, from her career as one of France’s biggest entertainers in the 1940s through 1960s to her tragic love life that included two marriages and an affair with a French boxer that grabbed international headlines.

Through the tragedies and struggles, Imada said she hopes the audience sees Piaf’s desire to find love and her deep love for her music.

“Hopefully the audience will catch that part of her passion,” Imada said.

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Imada had first flirted with creating the ballet when the Tucson Desert Song Festival focused on the contributions of women for its 2022 season. But the piece requires a strong vocalist who can sing in French, which is not an easy ask.

Enter Khris Dodge, who in addition to being executive director of the Tucson Jazz Festival and Tucson Pops Orchestra music director has his own entertainment production company. He recommended Tucson native Byrnes, a French-speaking versatile vocalist who has toured around the world, including with Amos Lee, and has sung with everyone from the Tucson Symphony Orchestra to Calexico and Orkesta Mendoza, as well as her band Sweet Ghosts with her husband, Ryan Alfred.

Tucson audiences also will experience “Lost In Light,” a ballet that Mullin created in 2012 for the Pacific Northwest Ballet’s 40th anniversary season. Mullin, a native of Tucson, spent her professional dance career with the Seattle company before coming home three years ago to lead Ballet Tucson.

“It’s a ballet I really loved and wanted to see on stage again,” she said.

Despite its Pacific Northwest origins, “Lost In Light” is uniquely Tucson. In addition to Mullin’s choreography, the piece features a score by TSO Composer in Residence Dan Coleman and costumes by Tucson-born designer Alexis Mondragon.

Ballet Tucson opens its winter concert with “Giselle Act II,” with Imada’s choreography based off French choreographer Marius Petipa’s late 19th and early 20th-century revivals of the work.

Ballet Tucson will perform the concert at 7 p.m. Friday, Feb. 9; 2 and 7 p.m. Saturday, Feb. 10; and 2 p.m. Sunday, Feb. 11, at Leo Rich Theatre, 260 S. Church Ave. Tickets are $20-$50 through ballettucson.org or by calling the Tucson Convention Center Box Office at 520-791-4101.