Ballet’s usually steeped in tradition and classical training, but when the Eifman Ballet of St. Petersberg adds a little bit of a remix to a classic, you know that there’ll be nothing but standing ovations. On April 26th, 29th and 30th and May 1st, the company will perform a riveting interpretation of Don Quixote at the Segerstrom Center for the Arts, but on April 28th, the troupe will also be part of Tour de Force II, the center’s amazing celebration of dance.

Using classical ballet and infusing it with the spirit of contemporary choreography, Eifman creates compellingly original dance performances. Eifman describes his ballet, “I have taken on this ballet because I saw in it the possibility to combine the eternal, abiding beauty that people need so much, with the modern-day reality. In the new ballet, Don Quixote is one of the patients in a lunatic asylum, and this is not by chance: the play is modeled on real life. An ill man imagines himself to be Don Quixote and tries to be kind, caring, and loving towards other people – but is such an attempt a symptom of a mental disability? If it is, then long live the madman’s fantasy which allows him, albeit in a dream, to build a harmonious world which is able to transcend the mundane inertia of being and to challenge the power of evil engulfing humankind.”

Based on Don Quixote de la Mancha, this ballet is anything but your typical night of dancing — it’s energetic, colorful and adds twists and turns to what you might be used to with classical ballet in addition to changing the setting of a traditional Don Quixote.

Before each performance, Lorin Johnson will conduct free Preview Talks one hour prior to each performance. Johnson is a professor of dance at California State University, Long Beach as well as a former dancer with San Francisco Ballet and American Ballet Theatre.

The Segerstrom Center for the Arts is located at 600 Town Center Dr., in Costa Mesa. For more information or to purchase tickets to the Eifman Ballet’s performances of Don Quixote, call 714.556.2787 or visit their official web site at www.scfta.org.

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