On May 18 and 19, Rising Star Dance Studio will delight Bangkok audiences with a full-length ballet production at M theatre on New Phetchaburi Road. The studio will be staging the acclaimed ballet Don Quixote, based on the 1605 novel by the Spanish writer Miguel de Cervantes _ the story which has been described as celebrating "the glory of fantasy over the real world".
Don Quixote
presented by the Rising StarDance Studio, takes place on Saturday and Sunday, May 18 and 19, at 2.30pm atMTheatre onNew Phetchaburi Road. Tickets cost750 baht. Part of the proceeds will benefit the Wild Animal Rescue Foundation of Thailand. For ticket reservations, call 081-908-3931, 081-553-0656, 084-456-4433 or email ristar@loxinfo.co.th.
Don Quixote remains one of the world's most accessible ballets, blending farce with serious and philosophical issues with sprinklings of love, magic, chivalry, pageantry, enchanted forests and tilting at windmills. It is sure to delight audiences of all ages, Thai and expat. You probably already know the Tony-award winning musical Man Of La Mancha, also based on the novel, as well as the characters of Don Quixote, his sidekick, Sancho Panza, and his imagined love, Dulcinea. The Don Quixote ballet was first performed by the Bolshoi Ballet in Moscow in 1869, choreographed by Marius Petipa to the music of Ludwig Minkus. The first full-length production outside Russia was presented by The Royal Ballet in 1950, and in 1966 Rudolf Nureyev staged his version for the Vienna State Opera Ballet.
Rising Star's production, choreographed by director Fay Pansringarm, is based on the famous 1980 version mounted by Mikhail Baryshnikov for the American Ballet Theatre.
Fay brings many years of experience as a ballet dancer, director and choreographer in New York City to her work here in Thailand. She incorporates the charm of younger dancers along with the powerful performances of professionals incorporating a cast of more than 125 dancers, ranging in age from four years to adults, from over 25 nationalities who currently study or teach at Rising Star Dance Studio. Maho Mashimo dances the lead role of Kitri.
Maho is a former student of Rising Star who trained professionally at the prestigious Rock School in the US and is undoubtedly the most exciting new talent in Thailand.
Last year, she danced the lead in Rising Star's Sleeping Beauty. Partnering with Maho as Basil is Anurak Ngamta, Thailand's foremost male ballet dancer, trained in Khon Kaen and performing in Bangkok musicals and ballet performances for several years now.
Yuko Nakamura, Rising Star's lead ballerina for many years and now its associate director, who trained and performed with the San Francisco Ballet Company, will still grace the stage partnered by Thailand's Wasin Somsaising. Pattanon Semrat (assistant choreographer of Thai TV's The Star and the musical Lom Hai Jai) dances Gamash, the foolish nobleman who wishes to wed Kitri.
Watcharapong Kaewploy (professor at Rajabhat Suan Sunandha University where he is finishing a master's degree in Performing Arts, as well as a former dancer with Italy's Teatro Oplas) is Don Quixote, and Pallop Namsom is Lorenzo, Kitri's father. Sancho Panza is danced by Uraiwan Kamawatana, former SEA Games gold medallist in rhythmic gymnastics and professor at Chulalongkorn University. Featured as the Gypsy Dancer is Carla Rivera, a professional flamenco dancer from Ecuador.
The performance is presented in two acts totalling 120 minutes, plus a 20-minute intermission. Rising Star Dance Studio has been training and entertaining audiences since 1995.
