(Englewood, NJ) -- Bergen Performing Arts Center (bergenPAC) presents back to back to back performances of dance by the New Jersey Ballet. On Saturday, April 18 at 8pm, NJ Ballet presents Shakespeare Evening and on Sunday, April 19 at 1pm and 4pm, the company presents Sleeping Beauty. The events are sponsored by Wilmington Trust and M&T Company.
Shakespeare Evening will feature two of the Bard's great tragedies: Romeo & Juliet about doomed young lovers and Macbeth about towering ambition. Get ready for an evening of powerful highs and lows, as unforgettable in its way as Shakespeare's original plays. Classic tales of doomed young lovers and towering ambition leap from the page. Expanded. New stagings. Added scenes. And witches!
Sleeping Beauty will be performed with original “storyteller narration” so even the littlest theater-goer can keep up with ease.
This beautiful ballet has been an enduring favorite with adults and children for more than a hundred years. NJ Ballet fills the stage with familiar characters: Princess Aurora, the Handsome Prince, the good Lilac Fairy, the wicked fairy Carabosse, Puss in Boots, Red Riding Hood, the Blue Bird and the Enchanted Princess. With its colorful costumes and scenery, and Tchaikovsky’s soaring score, Sleeping Beauty is a splendid introduction to dance theatre for young children and grand entertainment for the whole family.
Founded in 2003, the 1,367-seat Bergen Performing Arts Center, or bergenPAC, is the area’s cultural mecca. Housed in a historic Art Deco-style theater located at 30 North Van Brunt Street in Englewood, New Jersey, bergenPAC boasts one of the finest acoustic halls in the United States, bergenPAC attracts a stellar roster of world-class entertainment. The jewel in our crown is The Performing Arts School at bergenPAC – the innovative, educational performing arts initiative that reaches more than 30,000 students annually. The Performing Arts School provides community youth, age 2 months to 21 years, with unique, “hands-on” training in music, dance and theater by industry professionals. It is through the ongoing generosity of sponsors, donors, members, and patrons that the not-for-profit 501 (c)(3) corporation bergenPAC and The Performing Arts School are able to thrive and enrich our community.
About NJ Ballet
For more than half a century, New Jersey Ballet has thrilled audiences from Bergen to Cape May with top quality professional ballet and has given hundreds of thousands of adults and children their first introduction to ballet and inspired in many a lifelong love of the arts.
The founding of New Jersey Ballet created a profound change in the cultural landscape of New Jersey. Over the years, New Jersey Ballet has brought the magic of dance theatre to countless students, little children, senior citizens and adults of all ages. During its 26 week season, New Jersey Ballet performs a variety of works from classical, contemporary and jazz ballet at 10 venues throughout the state, and has toured nationally and around the world.
The repertory includes works choreographed by some of the greatest names in the world of dance: Balanchine, deMille, Tudor, Nebrada, North, Pourfarrokh, Taras, Sappington, Renvall, Tomal, Vernon, Vesak, Petipa, Chabukiany, Saint Leon and Bournonville. The company's artistic advisors include 3 of the greatest international dancers of the 20th century; Edward Villella, Eleanor D'Antuono and Leonid Kozlov, who coach the dancers in repertory they themselves danced at New York City Ballet, American Ballet Theatre and the Bolshoi.
New Jersey Ballet is proud to be designated a Major Arts Institution by the New Jersey State Council on the Arts. In 2009 and 2010, the company was voted New Jersey's Favorite Dance Company in an online poll sponsored by Jersey Arts Marketers.
"New Jersey Ballet Company is the ONLY dance organization in the New York metropolitan area that takes high quality programming and performances to urban, rural and suburban communities throughout New Jersey (and at a cost that is "affordable" in comparison with the major organizations in New York City who are at home at Lincoln Center). Residents of our state have access to a three hundred year-old dance tradition, frequently on their doorsteps. New Jersey Ballet is an assemblage of professional dancers who embody the highest standards of technique and artistry and they are OURS!!!"
