SALT LAKE CITY, Utah (Good Things Utah) – Ballet West is celebrating its 60th Anniversary with an exciting lineup of productions for the 2023-2024 Season, which has just been announced. The season includes audience favorites, works by founder Willam Christensen, company premieres, tours that include The Kennedy Center in Washington D.C., and return of the Choreographic Festival.

“For this season, I wanted to honor the legacy of our founder, Willam Christensen, a visionary committed to the history of ballet, but also to its future,” said Adam Sklute, Ballet West Artistic Director. “In addition, I want to pay homage to all of my predecessors in unique and subtle ways by presenting a mix of audience favorites and new creations.”

The season opens with the return of Ben Stevenson’s Dracula from Oct. 20 – 28 at the Janet Quinney Lawson Capitol Theatre. Back by popular demand and just in time for Halloween, the production was hailed by the New York Times as “a Dracula beyond Stoker’s darkest dreams.” This blockbuster show is set to the music of Franz Liszt, as arranged by John Lanchberry. It features exciting pyrotechnics, flying vampires, and a ghostly coach that careens on-and-off stage.

Additional season highlights include:

Firebird, Nov. 3-11

The Nutcracker, Dec. 8-27

Swan Lake, Feb. 9-17

Love and War, April 12-20 (Blake Works I, Red Angels & The Green Table)

The Family Classics Series returns in March 2024 with Beauty and the Beast, and The Choreographic Festival returns June 5-8 at the Rose Wagner Theatre.

Visit BalletWest.org for more information on the new season and to secure tickets.

Ballet West was established in Salt Lake City in 1963. Willam F. Christensen was the company’s first artistic director, co-founding the company together with Utah’s “First Lady of the Arts” Glenn Walker Wallace. In 1951, Christensen had established the first ballet department in an American university at The University of Utah and with the tireless assistance of Mrs. Enid Cosgriff this program grew into the Utah Civic Ballet, Ballet West’s first incarnation. But this was not the first ballet company Willam Christensen founded. Along with his brothers Lew and Harold, Christensen made history by establishing the oldest ballet company in the western United States, the San Francisco Ballet. There he went on to create the first full-length American productions of Coppélia, Swan Lake, and his evergreen production of The Nutcracker, which remains in Ballet West’s repertoire to this day.

Sponsored by Ballet West.