If ballet is not your cup of tea, you can enjoy the Innovative and Modern Dance concoctions served up by Avis Hatcher-Puzzo when Fayetteville State University Dance Ensemble performs in Dance Works, The Concert, at Seabrook Auditorium, March 21 and 22.
On the other hand, if it is all about the ballet, then you can enjoy the North Carolina State Ballet’s Classics in the same program.
Directed by Charlotte Blume, the North Carolina State Ballet presents Act II, Swan Lake with guest artists Jessica Fry and Robert Royce along with the ever-popular Fairies from the prologue of Sleeping Beauty Ballet. “Jupiter” from Holst’s The Planets will be the final entry and the finale of the show.
Ballerina Jessica Fry dances Odette the Swan Queen. Robert Royce dances Prince Siegfried in Swan Lake.
Wei Ni, Assistant Director of the ballet, portrays Rothbart, half man half owl, a sorcerer that has turned girls into swans in a medieval forest of legend.
Jessica Fry is from and trained in New Orleans. She has worked with several professional companies, including Joffrey II in New York, Ballet Austin, Ballet Theatre of Maryland, and Burklyn Ballet Theatre. She has danced many principal roles such as Aurora in Sleeping Beauty, and Juliet in Romeo and Juliet. With Burklyn Ballet, she was invited to perform in the Fringe Festival in Edinbourgh, Scotland, three times. She was Sugar Plum Fairy in the North Carolina State Ballet Nutcracker 2013.
Robert Royce is a Greensboro native who received his major training at the North Carolina School of the Arts and the School of the American Ballet in New York. He has been a principal dancer with the Cincinnati Ballet, the Dayton Ballet, the Alabama Ballet and the Ballet Theatre of Maryland.
The Fayetteville State University Dance Ensemble, directed by Avis Hatcher-Puzzo will present choreography and performances by some of their graduating seniors in the University’s Dance Minor Program. The Koffee Dance Company, a modern/jazz dance company based in Raleigh, N.C., will be guests in the performance. Additionally, Puzzo has choreographed several pieces that reflect perspectives on American life and life on campus.
The performance of Dance Works, The Concert is on March 21 and 22 at Fayetteville State University’s Seabrook Auditorium. Tickets cost $16 and are available through etix.com and the Seabrook box office. Curtain times are Friday, March 21 at 7:30 p.m. and Saturday, March 22 at 3 p.m.
An encore performance of the entire ballet portion of the program by the North Carolina State Ballet Company is scheduled at Methodist University’s Reeves Auditorium on Sunday, March 30 at 3 p.m.
Photo: Dance Works, The Concert features ballet and modern dance.