{"id":240124,"date":"2026-03-28T01:14:19","date_gmt":"2026-03-28T01:14:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/240124\/"},"modified":"2026-03-28T01:14:19","modified_gmt":"2026-03-28T01:14:19","slug":"new-works-optimism-fuel-new-ballet-9th-annual-fast-forward-dance-fest-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/240124\/","title":{"rendered":"New works, optimism fuel New Ballet 9th annual Fast Forward dance fest"},"content":{"rendered":"

Dark clouds on the South Bay arts scene<\/a> haven\u2019t blotted out the light, not as long as New Ballet<\/a> provides a luminous silver lining.<\/p>\n

The March 13 Peninsula Lively Arts announcement that Peninsula Ballet Theatre<\/a> is shutting down at the end of June after six decades of training young dancers and presenting well-conceived productions was a shock but not a surprise given its high profile, ultimately unsuccessful, search for a new facility.<\/p>\n

New Ballet faced a similar challenge several years ago, relocating in downtown San Jose just months before the pandemic put almost every performing arts organization on hiatus. With the company\u2019s 10th season coming up in the fall and its 9th annual Fast Forward festival filling the Hammer Theatre Center with a promisingly eclectic program of new works this weekend, New Ballet seems to have cracked the code for connecting with South Bay dance fans.<\/p>\n

\u201cThings really changed for performing arts after the pandemic, but ticket sales are rebounding,\u201d said Dalia Rawson, choreographer and founding director of New Ballet. \u201cThe enrollment at our school is about 220. The upper levels are doing really well, but classes for 3-to 7-year-olds have not fully come back. Families are doing fewer activities, and it feels like we have to keep adapting.\u201d<\/p>\n

Fast Forward, which plays March 27 and 28, is perfectly adapted to TikTok-era velocity, with a program featuring new works set on New Ballet dancers by illustrious choreographers and budding dance-makers from the company\u2019s ranks.<\/p>\n

Montreal-based, Cuban choreographer Julio Hong, known for his work with Cirque du Soleil, has created a piece set to music by Cuban trumpet great Arturo Sandoval. Emmy Award-winning San Francisco choreographer, filmmaker, and composer Natasha Adorlee presents \u201cEnraptured,\u201d one of several pieces she\u2019s premiered recently for leading Bay Area companies, including Oakland Ballet and Axis Dance Company.<\/p>\n

In May, Oklahoma City Ballet premieres her new dance set to the music of soul great Otis Redding, one of several major commissions she\u2019s got coming up.<\/p>\n

\u201cShe\u2019s really sought after, and the work she created for us is so good,\u201d Rawson said. \u201cIt\u2019s energetic and rhythmic, fun and funny, with moments of real lightness. There\u2019s no way you can\u2019t be rocked to your core, and it\u2019s going to close the program.\u201d<\/p>\n

Rawson connected with Adorlee through Amy Seiwert, the glass-ceiling shattering choreographer who became the third artistic director for Smuin Ballet in 2024. Adorlee had worked with Seiwert\u2019s company Imagery, and Seiwert knew Rawson as a dancer from a short run with Smuin Ballet back in 2004.<\/p>\n

Tapped by Michael Smuin for a choreographic prot\u00e9g\u00e9 program, Seiwert got to work with Rawson while developing a new piece, \u201cand she was fantastic to create on,\u201d Seiwert recalled. Rawson had spent decades with Ballet San Jose as a dancer and running various programs when it shuttered in 2016 (in its final incarnation as\u00a0Silicon Valley Ballet).<\/p>\n

She launched New Ballet to fill the void, \u201cand to\u00a0see what she held onto from that seed and what that has grown into is so impressive,\u201d Seiwert said. \u201cDalia is a badass and nothing stops her. I\u2019m so impressed by her passion and love for the field.\u201d<\/p>\n

A central component of the Fast Forward concept is to give New Ballet dancers the opportunity to participate in the creation of a disparate array of new works. Rawson notes that the expectations for dancers when she was coming up were much more constrained.<\/p>\n

\u201cDancers now are both allowed and expected to be contributors, not just be a vessel,\u201d she said. \u201cYou have to have your own movement voice, and be able to improvise or create a movement based on an idea from a choreographer. Those are all skills you have to build.\u201d<\/p>\n

Rawson has created her own work for Fast Forward, a ballet\/tap collaboration with New Ballet guest artist Erica Patton set to several pieces by the sadly disbanded Bay Area chamber ensemble Tin Hat. The program also features new works by Mariana Sobral, director of San Francisco\u2019s eMotion Arts Dance, and award-winning dancer Joseph Phillips, co-founder and co-director of San Mateo\u2019s El Camino Ballet school.<\/p>\n

In many ways, Fast Forward embodies New Ballet\u2019s steady growth, first moving to the Hammer Theatre for a single night in 2023 and then adding a second show last year. For the company\u2019s 10th\u00a0season in 2026-27 New Ballet is partnering with Symphony San Jose and moving from the Hammer to the California Theater for the spring program, \u201ca huge step for us,\u201d Rawson said.<\/p>\n

And unlike the situation for too many arts organization in these difficult times, it\u2019s a step in the right direction.<\/p>\n

Contact Andrew Gilbert at\u00a0jazzscribe@aol.com.<\/p>\n

NEW BALLET <\/p>\n

Presents the 9th annual Fast Forward<\/p>\n

When & where: 7 p.m. March 27, 2 p.m. March 28 at Hammer Theatre Center, San Jose<\/p>\n

Tickets: $20-$147; newballet.com<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Dark clouds on the South Bay arts scene haven\u2019t blotted out the light, not as long as New…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":240125,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[7,1472,967,88,90,89,420],"class_list":{"0":"post-240124","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-san-jose","8":"tag-california","9":"tag-dance","10":"tag-entertainment","11":"tag-san-jose","12":"tag-san-jose-headlines","13":"tag-san-jose-news","14":"tag-things-to-do"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/240124","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=240124"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/240124\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/240125"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=240124"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=240124"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=240124"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}