Straying far from Shakespeare's familiar path, the peerless Joffrey Ballet returns to Berkeley with Alexander Ekman's daring and exuberant Midsummer Night's Dream, a mind-bending trip to a surreal realm of unearthly delights. This "odd, wonderful, provocative and utterly original work" (Chicago Sun Times) begins during the traditional Scandinavian summer solstice festival--the dancers celebrating a day of revelry and romance under the maypole--but soon blossoms into a sensual, otherworldly fantasy. Featuring Swedish indie rock sensation Anna von Hausswolff and performed to a score by composer Mikael Karlsson, Midsummer is a bold fusion of classical and contemporary ballet that artfully blurs the line between the real and the imagined, and makes us wonder, is it all a dream?
"Despite all that can be written about this work, the only true way to fully believe its fantastical, ground-breaking, playfully sexy, grand-scale, one-of-a-kind quality is to see it" (WTTW Chicago).
Alexander Ekman, choreographer
Mikael Karlsson, composer
Anna von Hausswolff, vocalist
Straying far from Shakespeare's familiar path, the peerless Joffrey Ballet returns to Berkeley with Alexander Ekman's daring and exuberant Midsummer Night's Dream, a mind-bending trip to a surreal realm of unearthly delights. This "odd, wonderful, provocative and utterly original work" (Chicago Sun Times) begins during the traditional Scandinavian summer solstice festival--the dancers celebrating a day of revelry and romance under the maypole--but soon blossoms into a sensual, otherworldly fantasy. Featuring Swedish indie rock sensation Anna von Hausswolff and performed to a score by composer Mikael Karlsson, Midsummer is a bold fusion of classical and contemporary ballet that artfully blurs the line between the real and the imagined, and makes us wonder, is it all a dream?
"Despite all that can be written about this work, the only true way to fully believe its fantastical, ground-breaking, playfully sexy, grand-scale, one-of-a-kind quality is to see it" (WTTW Chicago).
Alexander Ekman, choreographer
Mikael Karlsson, composer
Anna von Hausswolff, vocalist
read more
show less