American Repertory Ballet to Present Three-Part Dance Workshop

American Repertory Ballet is pleased to announce that it is the recipient of a grant from the New Jersey Council for the Humanities, a state partner of the National Endowment for the Humanities. The grant money will be used in support of a three-part seminar series aimed at engaging the community through the exploration of humanities and dance.

ARB’s program revolves around its new production of the ballet Romeo and Juliet, and is designed to give audiences insight into how various humanities disciplines interpret and communicate specific themes of the human condition.  The three lecture-demonstrations will feature the expertise of local humanities scholars in the areas of musicology, literature and dance.  It will also explore the three key themes of love vs. hate, passion vs. apathy, and familial and community responsibilities vs. individual desires, found in Shakespeare’s play, Romeo and Juliet, which inspired the creation of the ballet of the same name.

The first program will take place at 5:15 p.m. on Friday, Jan. 6, 2012 at the Princeton Ballet School in Princeton, N.J. Simon Morrison, Professor of Music at Princeton University, will be discussing the humanities subjects of musicology and music history in relation to Prokofiev’s score for the ballet, Romeo and Juliet.

The second program will take place at 6 p.m. on Wednesday, March 21, at the Rider University Theater in Lawrenceville, N.J. The program will discuss the literature and dance history of Romeo and Juliet.

The last installment of ARB’s humanities program will take place at 1 p.m. on Saturday, May 19, at the Victoria J. Mastrobuono Theater at Rutgers University in New Brunswick, N.J. ARB Company Director, Douglas Martin, will lead this third presentation, which will focus on the key themes as presented in Romeo and Juliet, the ballet. 

This three-part seminar series is free and open to the general public.  For more information regarding American Repertory Ballet’s humanities program, performances or other events, please visit www.arballet.org.

These programs are made possible by a grant from the New Jersey Council for the Humanities, a state partner of the National Endowment for the Humanities.  Any views, findings, conclusions or recommendations expressed in this program do not necessarily represent those of the National Endowment for the Humanities or the New Jersey Council for the Humanities.”

-American Repertory Ballet