New Orleans Ballet Association

“Thrilling Spectacle…fiendishly ingenious.” – Dallas Morning News

NEW ORLEANS, LA-With daredevil stunts and gravity-defying choreography, Los Angeles-based dance company Diavolo returns to New Orleans on May 9 to close New Orleans Ballet Association’s 39th season. The one-night-only performance will be at 8pm at the Mahalia Jackson Theater of the Performing Arts.

Diavolo redefines dance as an extreme sport. Led by Paris-born director Jacques Heim, who choreographed Cirque de Soleil’s Las Vegas show Ka, this ensemble of dancers, gymnasts, rock climbers and actors performs on giant oversized architectural structures that provide the playground for risky movement and fearless acrobatics. Whether it’s flying off of a 15-foot staircase or spinning through an 18-foot steel wheel, the dancers of Diavolo leap, fly, and twirl to create their ingenious, provocative, and fun work.

The evening’s program includes four popular works by Diavolo. Foreign Bodies puts the dancers against three mobile pyramids that are constantly manipulated into various configurations to convey the epic journey of the evolution of mankind and abstractions of strangers in a strange land. Tete En L’Air, which literally translates into “head in the sky,” is inspired by surrealist French filmmaker Jacque Tati and paints the journey of isolation faced by citizens in the modern world. The third piece, Caged, features the dancers with a giant cage-like structure to explore the themes of confinement, pressure, freedom, escape and entrapment. The evening’s finale is the company’s signature work, Trajectoire, which calls on the idea of ‘sink or swim,’ and is set on an enormous Twenty-First Century Galleon upon which the dancers swing, slide, tumble and dance as the boat rocks and tips, sometimes at a 90-degree angle. A 15 minute question and answer session with the company will immediately follow the performance.

In addition to directing Diavolo, Heim is in constant demand to choreograph and direct live events for corporate clients such as Amgen, General Motors and Wells Fargo. He is currently working on Cirque du Soleil’s yet-to-be-named Dubai project; set to open in 2011.

Tickets for the performance range from $30 to $80. Students and seniors (65 and older) receive a $7 discount off the regular ticket prices. Group discounts also are available. For tickets or information, call the New Orleans Ballet Association Box Office at (504) 522-0996. Tickets may be purchased online through www.nobadance.com, or via Ticketmaster at (504) 522-5555 or www.ticketmaster.com.

In addition to the main stage performance, Diavolo will also conduct a half-week residency in New Orleans, including two master classes and a student performance. On Friday, May 8 at 10:30 am, the company will perform for local students at the Mahalia Jackson Theater of Performing Arts. That evening, the company will conduct a master class, open to the community, from 6-7:30 pm at Tulane University’s McWilliams Hall. For more information about residency opportunities call (504) 522-0996 x. 203 or email shirsch@nobadance.com

The Diavolo performance is sponsored by Schlumberger Oilfield Services.

NOBA is the Central Gulf region’s premiere presenting and service organization dedicated solely to the art of dance. NOBA’s dynamic Main Stage season annually features a diverse array of world-class companies and artists. Each year NOBA provides concerts, classes, workshops and lectures to more than 25,000 area dance enthusiasts of all ages. In addition, NOBA’s nationally recognized award-winning education programs provide the youth of our community access to quality arts programs with 2,500 free dance classes and workshops annually at ten sites throughout the Greater New Orleans area. For more information on the upcoming season or to subscribe, call NOBA at 504-522-0996, Ext. 201 or visit www.nobadance.com.
This project is supported in part by an award from the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA), which believes that a great nation deserves great art; a grant from the Louisiana Division of the Arts, Office of Cultural Development, Department of Culture, Recreation and Tourism, in cooperation with the Louisiana State Arts Council as administered by the Arts Council of New Orleans (ACNO); a Community Arts Grant made possible through the City of New Orleans as administered by ACNO; a grant from the Louisiana State Arts Council through the Louisiana Division of the Arts and the NEA.

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