OK, you can’t do the full Light the Knight shmear, with the cocktails and seated dinner in the lobby, if you don’t already have a pricey ticket. Those coveted tickets are gone. But the cocktails and din-din are just acts one and two of the four-act extravaganza, which also includes performances by the host company, North Carolina Dance Theatre, followed by onstage dancing for you and yours to the music of Big Swing and The Ballroom Blasters. Desserts and backstage tours are also offered during act four. Plenty tickets are still available for the act three and act four excitement. Every reason, then, to get duded up and join the gala celebration.
We can’t tell you what the high-energy Blasters will play, but we can definitely tell you about the six pieces NCDT will dance – punctuated by a couple of the evening’s multitudinous live auctions.
The full company, appropriately enough, opens with an excerpt from the recently-premiered collaboration between dancer/choreographer Sasha Janes and visual artist Shaun Cassidy, Glass Houses. Then we’ll be treated to a special premiere of Mark Diamond’s At Knight, danced by Anna Gerberich and Justin VanWeest to music by Bach played live by the Charlotte Symphony and violinist David Russell.
A prime slice of Balanchine is served up next as Alessandra Ball and Addul Manzano dance the Tchaikovsky Pas de Deux. Next come very special second helpings of Sasha Janes’s choreography, with Janes and spouse Rebecca Carmazzi reprising Lascia la Spina, Cogli la Rosa – accompanied live for the first time, as mezzo Amy Van Looy sings the lovely Handel aria and a septet plays along.
Two more crowd-pleasers round out the NCDT offerings. Traci Gilchrest and David Ingram dance the pas de deux from Alonzo King’s MAP, probably the most-often reprised non-Nutcracker work in NCDT’s repertoire. An excerpt from Dwight Rhoden’s rousing Moody Booty Blues – boogied by Rebecca Carmazzi, Anna Gerberich, Addul Manzano, Justin VanWeest, and Dustin Layton – will get the audience in a dancing mood.
Opening night attire is recommended. And dancing shoes.
This article appears in Jan 5-11, 2010.
