Romeo and Juliet

Dashing sword fights, ballroom grandeur, and a romantic balcony scene evoke the essence of Shakespeare’s iconic play. The ballrooms of Verona are filled with refined elegance and pure emotion as the star-crossed lovers tell their story. Rossen Milanov conducting the Columbus Symphony Orchestra will bring the beauty of Prokofiev to this timeless production.

This ballet is a full length, meaning, one ballet with intermissions, similar to a book with chapters.

A former dancer with New York City Ballet and Nederlands Dans Theater, Edwaard Liang has built an international reputation as a choreographer. Over the last decade, he has created work for the Bolshoi Ballet, Houston Ballet, Joffrey Ballet, Kirov Ballet, New York City Ballet, Pacific Northwest Ballet, San Francisco Ballet, Shanghai Ballet, Singapore Dance Theatre and Washington Ballet.

Born in Taipei, Taiwan and raised in Marin County, California, Mr. Liang began his dance training at age five with Marin Ballet. After studying at the School of American Ballet, he joined New York City Ballet in 1993. That same year, he was a medal winner at the Prix de Lausanne International Ballet Competition and won the Mae L. Wien Award. By 1998, he was promoted to Soloist. In 2001, Mr. Liang joined the Tony Award® winning Broadway cast of Fosse. His performance in Fosse was later televised nationally on PBS’ Great Performances series – “Dance in America: From Broadway: Fosse,” and subsequently released on DVD. By 2002, Mr. Liang was invited by Jiri Kylian to become a member of the acclaimed Nederlands Dans Theater 1.

While dancing with NDT 1, Mr. Liang discovered his passion and love for choreography. Since establishing himself as a choreographer, his works have been performed by dance companies around the world and he has won numerous awards for his choreography including the 2006 National Choreographic Competition.

In 2013, Mr. Liang was named Artistic Director at BalletMet where he continues to choreograph new works for companies both domestically and abroad. In 2017, he received an Emmy® Award for his short dance film, “Vaulted.” In 2018, he created a new ballet with Roberto Bolle for the opening of the World Economic Forum Annual Meeting in Davos, Switzerland.

Sergei Prokofiev (1891-1953) was a 20th-century Russian (and Soviet) composer, pianist and conductor who wrote in a wide range of musical genres, including symphonies, concerti, film music, operas, ballets, and program pieces. Prokofiev’s music can be defined as a synthesis of traditional tonality and stylistic innovation of 20th century composition. He was inspired by the ballets of Igor Stravinsky and other art forms of the period. He was also greatly influenced by his advisor Serge Diaghilev, a great ballet impresario. Well-known works written by Prokofiev include the Lieutenant Kijé suite, and Romeo and Juliet, the ballet from which “Dance of the Knights” is taken. In 1943, Prokofiev joined Sergei Eisenstein in Alma-Ata, the largest city in Kazakhstan, to compose the ballet Cinderella (Op. 87), one of his most melodious and celebrated compositions.