stage

New York City Ballet

Mona Day Dance, Dine, See, stage

One of the world’s premier dance companies, New York City Ballet, will return to The Music Center June 24 through June 28 after over 20-years. The company will present two programs with a roster of company dancers and repertory that showcase the company’s storied legacy.  Both programs feature recorded music and live performances by the New York City Ballet Orchestra.

Rooted in founder George Balanchine’s revolutionary choreography, NYCB has shaped the ballet canon for over 75 years with its masterpieces by Balanchine and New York City Ballet Co-Founding Choreographer Jerome Robbins along with  groundbreaking contemporary works by Ulysses Dove, Justin Peck, Tiler Peck, Gianna Reisen and Christopher Wheeldon.  

Program A includes 4 pieces – Signs, Red Angels, A Suite of Dances, and The Times Are Racing – and runs for about two hours with two 20-minute intermissions.   

A contemporary ballet set to the music of Philip Glass, Signs is a highly athletic and introspective piece for 10 dancers.   

The dynamically charged, abstract work Red Angels  highlights the power and athleticism of its four dancers with bold choreography and intense lighting.  

A Suite of Dances, performed with an onstage cellist, is both a witty and pensive tour de force for its solo male dancer.

 

Dubbed a “sneaker ballet,” The Times Are Racing is a hyper-modern ballet that merges classical ballet technique with tap, hip-hop, and street dancing in a  high-energy performance in sneakers and streetwear. 

Program B also includes four pieces – Concerto Barocco, Allegro Brillante, This Bitter Earth, Concerto for Two Pianos – and has a run time of approximately one hour and 50 minutes with two 20-minute intermissions.

One of Balanchine’s greatest masterpieces, Concerto Barocco is music made visual as two elegant lead ballerinas depict a piano. 

An expression of Russian romanticism, Allegro Brillante is one of George Balanchine’s most joyous, pure dance pieces set to Tschaikovsky’s Piano Concerto No. 3 that the composer created from sketches for a composition that was intended to be his Sixth Symphony.  

This Bitter Earth is a breathtaking,  poetic pas de deux  set to the haunting, tenuous melodies of a remix of Dinah Washington’s soulful rendition of This Bitter Earth and Max Richter’s On the Nature of Daylight.

Concerto for Two Solo Pianos is a ballet for three soloists with  twelve female dances set to Stravinsky’s music and performed with two onstage pianos.  Its complex, percussive arrangement is  played out with intricate steps and partnering by its lead dancers in a modern, edgy style. The central female dancer in white is pulled between its two male dancers, one in red the other in black representing a piano theme that unites in a final pas de trois.

The Sunday June 28 will feature a Dance Talk at 1:15 pm by The Music Center’s President & CEO Rachel S. Moore offering insights into the programming.  

For more information and tickets, please visit https://www.musiccenter.org/

The Magic Flute

Mona Day Opera, stage, Theatre

LA Opera’s 40th anniversary season concludes with a revival of Mozart’s The Magic Flute conducted by James Conlon in his final 20th season as the company’s Music Director before becoming Conductor Laureate.

The opera follows the adventures of Prince Tamino and Papageno on their search for the Queen of the Night’s daughter, Pamina. To help them conquer the trials and tribulations on their quest, the duo are given magical musical instruments, including a magic flute.  It is a fairy tale celebration of true love conquering all in an enchanted fantasy world of good against evil. 

Unlike your typical opera, The Magic Flute  was not composed for an aristocratic audience, rather, it was written as a singspiel to be performed in the Schikaneder’s theater,  known for its mixture of vaudeville and pantomime, visual effects, and scenic extravaganzassort of like a Cirque du Soleil Vegas show of its day.

LA Opera presents The Komische Oper Berlin’s production of Mozart’s The Magic Flute, which it first presented in 2016 followed by a subsequent revival in 2019.  Premiering in 2012, this production builds on the opera’s populist origins, drawing out its fairytale quality, with a blend of  animated silent movie visuals with a sprinkling of quirky British humour.  The  take on has been hugely successful internationally.

The singers perform in front of a huge screen, interacting in real time with animations projected around them.  Because they are interacting with animations, the lead singers Tamino, Pamina, and Papagena, have to learn complicated choreography, similar to puppet theater, except that the  puppets are replaced by humans.  The singers are now totally integrated in an endlessly colorful universe like a giant comic strip collage.

Characters are depicted in  animated forms. So to make Papageno loveable, the production drew  inspiration from Buster Keaton, and getting him to pet his animated cat.  The Queen of the Night is an enormous  bloodthirsty, skeletal black-widow spider queen hurling knives along with her high notes. During her aria ‘Der Hölle Rache’ she sends a swarm of baby spiders to overcome Pamina as she lies helpless in the Queen’s web. 

The choreography works with the score. Monastatos’s dogs lunge on their leashes ready to attack Pamina with the same snarling energy as Monastatos’s pointy vocal lines. Pamina and Papageno jump rooftop to rooftop, teasing out jaunty rhythms. Then, there is Pamina’s ‘Ach, ich fühl’s’ longing for Tamino while standing below a  leafless snow-covered tree, isolated in a snow globe. The production’s dreamspace with its archetypes and cartoon images that don’t make sense is a perfect vehicle for its fairytale character.  

For more information and tickets, please visit LAOpera.org/Flute.

FLOWER DRUM SONG

Mona Day See, Stage, Dance, Theater

East West Players will present Rodger’s beloved musical Flower Drum Song at Aratani Theatre at the Japanese American Cultural and Community Center in historic Little Tokyo from April 18 – May 31.  The show marks the grand finale of EWP’s 60th Anniversary Diamond Legacy season and its  final production before the 880-seat venue undergoes a major renovation.

The show is based on Tony-winner David Henry Hwang’s newly updated 2026 book based on the original book by Oscar Hammerstein II and Joseph Fields, which itself was based on the novel by C.Y. Lee.  Rodgers and Hammerstein’s beloved classic with its songs and characters returns to Los Angeles for the first time since the premiere of Hwang’s adaptation at Center Theatre Group’s Mark Taper Forum over twenty years ago.

The story follows Mei-Li, a young Chinese opera performer fleeing communism, as she arrives in America and is drawn into the vibrant and  dazzling world of the Grant Avenue nightclubs.  Set against the backdrop of 1960s San Francisco Chinatown, Hwang’s 2026 revision explores themes of immigration, assimilation, tradition, and community. Questions of identity, immigration, and cultural preservation remain as relevant today, making the show offer  perspective and depth.  

The show is 2 hours and 30 minutes long, and appropriate for ages 6 up. Regular performances take place on Fridays, Saturdays, and Sundays, with additional select weekday shows and matinees on Saturdays and Sundays. 

The largest producing organization of Asian American artistic work, East West Players was founded in 1965 at a time when Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders faced limited or no opportunities to see their experiences reflected outside of stereotypical and demeaning caricatures in the American landscape. Today, East West Players continues to ensure that their  stories are told and to increase access, inclusion, and representation in entertainment and media. The organization was designated by the Ford Foundation as one of America’s Cultural Treasures in 2020.

For more information and tickets, please visit eastwestplayers.org. 

Falstaff

Mona Day Opera, See, stage

LA Opera’s 40th anniversary season continues with a revival of Giuseppe Verdi’s final masterpiece Falstaff for six performances April 18 through May 10.

Based on Shakespeare’s comedy The Merry Wives of Windsor, Falstaff is Verdi’s final opera and the crowning achievement of his career, premiering in 1893 when the composer was 79 years old.  It came five decades after his only other comic opera Un Giorno Di Regno.

According to legend, the opera was prompted by a remark Verdi heard that he was incapable of writing a comic opera, and he unveiled Falstaff after two years of working in secret. 

The story involves  the amorous mishaps of Shakespeare’s aging knight, a grandiose, rotund, impoverished rogue of an anti-hero Sir John Falstaff who comes up with a plot to simultaneously improve his love life and his finances by seducing two merry, and more importantly wealthy wives of Windsor so he can live out his days in luxury. That could have worked out well, except that  the bumbling knight sends both his targets the same love letter. 

The women – Alice Ford and Meg Page discover Falstaff’s audacity and are now determined to humiliate their would-be suitor and teach him a lesson.  Together with their allies, they set up elaborate deceptions and pranks involving a whirlwind of disguises and deceptions,  jealous husbands, mistaken identities, and farcical situations, including an unexpected dip in the River Thames. The result is riotous chaos, and an unabashed celebration of human folly in Merry Olde England’s lusty days and bawdy nights that include horseplay, chase scenes, and a climactic plunge into the river Thames. 

Now humbled in comedic fashion, the now soggy Falstaff is in a foul mood. He rants and raves, the world is bleak and conspiring against him, a brave and noble knight, but eventually comes to terms with his fate `Let’s pour a bit of wine into this Thames water.’ Beatings, insults, more confusion and embarrassment follow, but a good natured acceptance of defeat bring a happy outcome and the show closes with a festive ensemble music celebrating human folly, forgiveness, and humor.

The music plays off the raucous bravado of the men with the lighter, more intricate exchanges between the women, and both against the romance and ardor of the young lovers Nanetta and Fenton.

Needless to say, Falstaff stunned the opera world with its comedic brilliance and laid to rest any doubts about Verdi’s ability to do comedy.

The current production of Falstaff is a revival of the company’s 2013 original LA Opera production created by the late Lee Blakeley.  It will be conducted by James Conlon who is currently in his 20th and final season with the company as Music Director before taking on a new role of Conductor Laureate. The lavish  scenery and costumes sets and costumes of merry old England  were designed by Adrian Linford.  

The title role will be performed by Craig Colclough, a bass-baritone who began his career with the company, rising from supporting parts to leading roles including, most recently, Figaro in The Marriage of Figaro, Leporello in Don Giovanni, and Capulet in Roméo et Juliette.

The cast includes several additional returning company favorites, including soprano Nicole Heaston as Alice Ford and mezzo-soprano Hyona Kim as Mistress Quickly, along with two alumni of our Domingo-Colburn-Stein Young Artist Program, tenor Anthony León as Fenton and mezzo-soprano Sarah Saturnino as Meg Page. The music plays off the raucous bravado of the men with the lighter, more intricate exchanges between the women, and both against the romance and ardor of the young lovers Nanetta and Fenton. 

The opera is sung in Italian with English subtitles and has a run time of approximately two hours and 40 minutes, which includes one intermission.

Music Director James Conlon will present his popular  free pre-show introduction  to the  history and plot of the opera, and key musical moments highlighting one hour before showtime.

For more information and tickets, please visit LAOpera.org/Falstaff.

Akhnaten

Mona Day Opera, See, stage, Theater

LA Opera’s 40th Anniversary Season will bring a revival of Philip Glass’s Akhnaten for  six performances February 28 through March 22.

The  opera is the last of composer Philip Glass’s portrait trilogy examining consequential figures in science (Einstein in Einstein on the Beach), politics (Gandhi in Satyagraha) and religion (the Egyptian pharaoh Akhnaten).  Glass describes this an opera about ‘religion, orthodoxy and reaction’.  

A co-production of LA Opera and English National Opera, its story is set in Ancient Egypt where the titular Akhnaten, a doomed visionary with plans to abandon the old gods and lead Egypt into a new age. His feats and foibles put his life in peril.  

Glass’s music has permeated modern culture from New York City Ballet to  Netflix’s Stranger Things.  Its most notable feature is an infinite ritualistic repetition which admirers find hypnotic transcendence as well as a test of endurance.  

The opera is sung in English, ancient  Hebrew and Akkadian. The libretto draws upon ancient texts like The Book of the Dead, ancient hymns, prayers, letters and inscriptions.  Highlights are the funeral music of Act I and the Hymn to Sun in Act II.

The spectacular production is visually arresting, featuring towering sets and costumes with animal heads, exotic plumes and intricate beadwork.  It is replete with soaring acrobats and astonishing juggling acts that pay homage to the earliest known record of juggling found in a four thousand year-old mural in an Egyptian cemetery complex.  Anthropologists think that the tomb depiction may be an analogy between balls and circular mirrors as representation of solar objects, birth and death.  The show’s choreographer, however, leaves its role as deliberately undefined: the objects can be alter egos to the characters’ ideas, miniature globular deities, bouncing thoughts, or even desert sand.

Making her LA Opera debut is Finland’s Dalia Stasevska, principal guest conductor of the BBC Symphony Orchestra.

The show is  approximately three hours, including two intermissions. Dr. Tiffany Kuo will present a pre-show talk in Stern Grand Hall one hour before every performance.

For more information and tickets, please visit LAOpera.org/Akhnaten.

DANCE CAMERA WEST

Mona Day art, celebration, Dance, Entertainment, Film, See

Dance Camera West will present the 2026 edition of its dance film festival on January 22-25, with events on January 22-24 anchoring at Theatre Raymond Kabbaz in West Los Angeles. 

Continuing the Festival  tradition of honoring a major dance figure, the Festival opens January 22, 7:30 pm with a  Gala Retrospective and Tribute to David Roussève.   The evening will screen four of his films –  Bittersweet,  Hold your Heads to the Sky, Two Seconds of Laughter and Chili Pepper followed by a moderated discussion and a gala reception.

Roussève’s three-decade career weaves  movement, text, and multimedia to probe identity, race, queerness, and resilience and has resonated across generations. His company, David Roussève/REALITY has performed to much nationally and internationally to wide acclaim. 

Preceding the main program will be Stories and Tales, a selection of five short dance films from the US and the UK telling stories and creating portraits through dance and film.

Next day January 23, 7:30PM will present Shorts, a selection of 13 short experimental dance films with  a Francophone focus from France, Québec, and Belgium, along with an international selection from Finland, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Korea, Mexico, Netherlands, Russia, and Spain.

January 24, 2:00PM will Doc Day Afternoon with two films.  The first, Dance to the End celebrates dancer, choreographer, artist and writer Eileen Kramer who lived and travelled the world for 60 years and continued working after returning home at age 99. 

The second film Origins  is a cinematic odyssey into the heart and mind of world-renowned choreographer Alonzo King, offering an intimate look at his creative process and his profound belief in the limitless potential of the human spirit. 

Saturday, January 24, 2026, 7 pm  will present LA Pops Up at the  Colburn in Downtown LA.  The new project spearheaded by Hysterica Productions and Dance Camera West celebrates a vibrant mix of styles spanning contemporary, hip-hop, poppin’, jazz, and more.   The screening will be followed by a filmmaker discussion.

Sunday, January 25, 2026 1:00 pm will present Experimental Experts at the Philosophical Research Society in Los Feliz.   The afternoon will feature Embodied Filmmaking with Karen Pearlman,  a screening of six films by Shirley Clarke.  The book launch and discussion celebrates the publication of Shirley Clarke: Thinking Through Movement.   

The workshop will audience to participate in a series of exercises designed to develop concepts, images, sounds, movement motifs, structures, and rhythms for new screen dance works. 

Camille A. Brown & Dancers

Mona Day Dance, stage, Theater

The 2025 – 2026 season of Glorya Kaufman Presents Dance with the Music Center kicks off  with Five-time Tony® Award-nominated director and choreographer Camille A. Brown’s West Coast premiere of I AM at the Ahmanson Theatre for three performances only:  7:30pm on evenings of Friday  9/12, and Saturday  9/13, and a Sunday 2pm matinee on  9/14.  The company is  known for blending visceral movement into stories and inviting socio-political dialogue about race, culture, and identity. 

Drawing inspiration from a narrative within HBO’s Lovecraft Country and the pulse of the film Drumline, the work features original live music, interweaving of African diasporic dance ranging from Modern, Hip hop, African, Ballet, and Tap to tell stories that connect history with contemporary culture. Strongly character-based, it expresses each topic by building from little movie-like moments that blend theater, poetry, visual art, and music of all genres into powerful storytelling and celebration of cultural identity, joy and resilience.   

Founded in 2006, the CBDC company has performed at major national and international venues, including The Joyce Theater, The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, Lincoln Center Out of Doors, American Dance Festival,  New York City Center’s Fall for Dance Festival, Celebrate Brooklyn. In 2014, CABD received the Bessie Award for Outstanding Production for “Mr. TOL E. RAncE.”

The Music Center’s 2025/2026 Dance Season is Dedicated to the Memory of Glorya Kaufman.

For more information and tickets, please visit https://www.musiccenter.org/

SWAN LAKE

Mona Day Dance, See, stage, Theater

The 22nd season of Glorya Kaufman Presents Dance at The Music Center will conclude its 2024-2025 season with one of the most recognized pieces in the classical canon – the iconic Swan Lake.  The performance by Boston Ballet June 26–29 marks  the company’s  long-awaited debut at the Music Center.

Swan Lake tells the story of Princess Odette, who is cursed by the sorcerer Von Rothbart to be a swan during the day and a woman at night, and only true love can break the spell.  Prince Siegfried, captivated by her beauty, pledges his eternal love, but the sorcerer tricks Siegfried into breaking his vow leading to her tragic fate by conjuring an illusion of Odette. 


This timeless story of love, betrayal, deceit and sacrifice in a world of sorcery and romance is set to Tchaikovsky’s soaring score. The second act, originally choreographed by Lev Ivanov, is widely considered one of the finest pieces of classical choreography ever created for the corps de ballet.  

Boston Ballet’s artistic director Mikko Nissinen and the company’s adaption of Tchaikovsky’s masterpiece dazzles with stunning audiovisuals highlighting  Robert Perdziola’s impeccable set and costume designs, and amplifying the emotional rendering and technical precision of the company’s dancers. The performance will be accompanied by a live orchestra conducted by Boston Ballet music director Mischa Santora. 

Boston Ballet’s has been performing to international acclaim since 1963 and has cultivated a compelling and dynamic collection of classical, neo-classical and contemporary repertoire.  

Artistic director Mikko Nissinen has been defining the company’s image since 2001.  Born in Finland, Nissinen trained at The Finnish National Ballet School in Helsinki and the Kirov Ballet School. He danced professionally with The Finnish National Ballet, Dutch National Ballet, Basel Ballet and San Francisco Ballet where he was a principal dancer for a decade. Nissinen is committed to developing the art form and the future of dance and actively promotes progressive new works and creations.

Boston Ballet’s Los Angeles stop will extend its visit beyond the Music Center stage to lead  a free outdoor movement workshop on Saturday, June 28, 10:00 a.m.–11:00 am, on Jerry Moss Plaza at The Music Center on Saturday June 28, 10:00 a.m to 11:00 a.m. Taught by two of the company’s artists, Associate Director of Boston Ballet Joan Boada and Principal Dancer Chyrstyn Mariah Fentroy, the free special workshop ‘Plié & Play: A Swan Lake–Inspired Movement Workshop’ is open to the public and will explore the elegance and expression of ballet and the joy of movement in a fun, accessible way. No dance experience or special attire is needed; participants of all ages are encouraged to wear comfortable clothes and be ready to move. For more information and tickets, please visit musiccenter.org/bostonballet or call (213) 972-0711.