With Main Street as the backdrop, Ballet Next will be performing Sunday afternoon at 1 p.m. at the lower Main Street stage during the Park Silly Sunday Market.
Ballet Next founder and artistic director Michele Wiles spent most of her professional ballet career with American Ballet Theater. As that wound down, she founded Ballet Next 11 years ago and moved the company from New York to Park City last year.
She has set up a month-long residency in Park City with dancers from the University of Utah and the Boulder Ballet company, turning a portion of her garage into a rehearsal space. They’re currently rehearsing for two public shows and two private ones.
The company will be performing four pieces on Sunday. The first will be the Black Swan pas de deux, featuring herself and Matt Helms.
“It's probably one of the hardest classical pas de deux that there is,” Wiles said. “The last time I performed, this was my last performance at American Ballet Theatre in New York when I was 31. And this is 11 years later, coming back to it. I just love the challenge. “
The second piece is called Elizabeth and Mary and is about the rivalry between Queen Elizabeth and Mary Queen of Scots, followed by the third piece, Dream, a collaboration with a Spanish guitarist. Wiles is especially excited about the final piece.
“I'm super excited to introduce String FX. It's an electric, violin and cello group. And we're going to be doing a classical mashup with Kashmir and Led Zeppelin. So, the music ranges in the show from Tchaikovsky to Vivaldi to Led Zeppelin to so people are gonna get a really good mix of music of things, maybe they don't know, things that they do know. And I think that's an exciting mix.
The program will be repeated on Tuesday, July 26th at 5:30 p.m. on the Jim Santy Auditorium stage. For more information visit balletnext.com.