ballet kelowna

november 16th

7:30 p.m.

Founded in 2002, Ballet Kelowna is the sole professional dance company in BC’s Interior. The organization is committed to its role as a leader in the region through encouraging, promoting, and developing Canadian dancers and choreographers. The company performs annually for more than 12,000 audience members in Kelowna and on tour and provides unique dance training opportunities and outreach programs. Its Artistic Director and CEO, Simone Orlando, is an award-winning choreographer and former dancer with Ballet BC and The National Ballet of Canada. Under Orlando’s direction, Ballet Kelowna was named the 2024 Artistic Company of the Year by the BC Live Performance Network (formerly the British Columbia Touring Council) and was an organizational recipient of the Lieutenant Governor’s Arts and Music Award in 2022.

Masterclasses will be offered for ballet students. Information will be available from dance studios.

The Cowboy Act Suite and Other Works program features a stunning lineup of signature works from Ballet Kelowna’s contemporary ballet repertoire. With Cameron sinkʷə Fraser-Monroe’s compelling taqəš, Guillaume Côté’s mesmerizing Bolero, and Fraser-Monroe’s satirical The Cowboy Act Suite, this high-energy program promises to please a wide range of spectators.

Cameron sinkʷə Fraser-Monroe brings his classical ballet training, knowledge of traditional Coast Salish, Grass, and Hoop Dance, and experience as a contemporary dancer to taqəš [tawKESH], which means “to return something” in Ayajuthem, the language belonging to the Homalco, Klahoose, K’omoks, and Tla’amin Nations. Set to several songs by Polaris Prize-winning composer and singer Jeremy Dutcher, taqəš follows the traditional story “Raven Returns the Water,” centred around ῤoho (raven) and walθ (frog). 

 Next, National Ballet of Canada Choreographic Associate Guillaume Côté brings strength and fragility to a fascinating interpretation of the beloved Boléro by Maurice Ravel, one of music’s most famous and identifiable melodies. A “riveting tour de force” (Dance Magazine), Bolero features breathtaking lifts and virtuosic choreography. 

Rounding out the program, Cameron sinkʷə Fraser-Monroe's The Cowboy Act Suite is a work that explores the dichotomy between "Cowboys and Indians." While these caricatures have been portrayed on pages, stages, and in films, they are often penned from a colonial perspective. Fraser-Monroe's intuitive take on the swashbuckling strut of the Cowboy informs this intellectual unpacking of a one-sided lens and flips the script to ask, what happens when an Indian directs the Cowboys through their history?