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In its annual tradition, Citie Ballet winds-up its season with a delightfully original story ballet. Damsels of the Night (Les Demoiselles de la Nuit) is inspired by Jean Anouilh’s original idea from the 1948 ballet of the same name, and features excerpts of the original score by stage and film composer Jean Francais. But the formerly tragic tale been completely re-imagined as a comedy. Citie Ballet’s production will transport you to the romance of Paris’s rooftops, where alley cats play by their own rules, and a musician, a seamstress and a White Cat learn some lessons in love. The production is choreographed by Francois Chevennement and Laurence Menotti. The libretto is by Edmonton’s Katherine Koller, librettist for last season’s Murder at the Strand.

Sophie finds inspiration for dance in many different body-centric forms of expression, from acting to street dancing, professional athletics to offbeat performances she finds while cruising through YouTube.

This is Sophie’s second season with Citie Ballet, but her inherent love of movement became apparent early in life: she started dancing at age four because her parents sensed she needed more activity to alleviate her boredom while she was waiting to enter kindergarten.

Since then, she’s trained in ballet, contemporary, modern, jazz, lyrical, tap, ballroom dance at Dance Alberta, Edmonton Dance Centre, Edmonton School of Ballet, Canada’s Royal Winnipeg Ballet School Professional Division and the University of Alberta Dance Club.

Sophie played Rosie in Murder at the Strand with Citie Ballet last season, and has performed in many school productions, including The Snow Queen, Défilé, and Rodéo.

In addition to pursuing dance, she is working on her degree in Agriculture and Resource Economics at the University of Alberta. She is interested in food policy and the social and political sides of the agri-food system. She’s an avid cook and baker, and also enjoys rock climbing.

Jason Vaz is originally from Medicine Hat, Alberta. He did his early training at the Medicine Hat College Conservatory of Music & Dance, and finished his training at the School of Alberta Ballet. He has spent his summers at the School of Alberta Ballet and the Okanagan Summer Dance Intensive.

This is Jason’s fourth season with Citie Ballet. Among the roles he’s performed are Charlie in Murder at the Strand, Chopin in La Deracine, Don Jose in Carmen and Spartacus in Spartacus. His répertoire also includes Ununoctium, La Vivandiere, Les Sylphides Pas de Deux, L’Espoir, Once Upon A Pond, Angels and Urban Links.

He has also performed professionally with Ballet Jorgen and Alberta Ballet.

Outside of dance, Jason is a fourth-year medical student at the University of Alberta. His pursuit of two careers has been featured on CBC, Citytv, Global TV, CTV, Alberta Primetime, and Avenue Magazine.

In the summer of 2012, Jason will be one of 11 men from around the world selected to dance in the ballet program at the Jacob’s Pillow Dance Festival in Becket, Massachusetts.

Kaitlyn’s first experience with dance lessons occurred when she was a five year old, learning to tap dance. She switched to ballet when she was seven, intrigued by the power that the dancers she’d seen on video and in live performances had to move her emotionally. “It was visually and physically a way to dance from your soul,” she says.

Encouraged by a cousin who went on to dance with the Royal Ballet School in London, England. Kaitlyn trained mainly in ballet and jazz at the Beaumont Society School of Dance, and at several ballet intensives at EDC Dance Studio in Edmonton.

A newcomer to Citie Ballet this season, Kaitlyn is a resident of Beaumont, Alberta, where she’s in Grade 9. In addition to dancing, she’s devoting her energy to excelling at her first year of high school. “So if I am not in the studio, I’m usually studying my books.”

Danica was five years old when her mother enrolled her and a sister in ballet classes, and she pursued it steadily until she was 12, when she quit to ride horses. But by age 15 she had returned to ballet.

Before moving to Edmonton, she trained at the Newell Society for Dance Education in Brooks, Alberta. She then studied at the Edmonton School of Ballet, completing the Advanced II Cecchetti Exam, as well as the Associate and Associate Diploma Qualifying Examinations in the Cecchetti Method. Prior to joining Citie Ballet, she danced for five years with Edmonton Festival Ballet.

Now in her seventh season with Citie Ballet, Danica has performed the Lilac Fairy and Aurora variations from Sleeping Beauty, and was one of the faces of Carmen in Francois Chevennement’s interpretation of Carmen. For Festival Ballet, she performed Solo Soul, a piece created for her by Courtney Beshear. She’s also danced as a guest artist with both the Ukrainian Shumka Dancers and Mile Zero Dance.

Danica is inspired by dancers Lucia Lacarra, Alessandra Ferri and Sylvie Guillem, and admires the companies La La La Human Steps and Les Grands Ballets Canadiens de Montreal. In addition to dancing, she teaches all levels and ages of ballet, including unset work and pointe technique, and prepares students for International Examinations in the Cecchetti method.

As a toddler fascinated by what she saw in the studio where her mother teaches dance, Lauren began learning to dance, herself, at age three.

She studied many styles at the Art of Dance in St. Albert, including ballet, tap, jazz, hip-hop, modern and contemporary dance. At eight, she began attending the Edmonton Dance Centre to concentrate on ballet. Currently, she trains full time at the Edmonton Dance Centre with Deborah Morgan, preparing for her RAD Solo Seal Award and the Genee International Ballet Competition in South Africa. Lauren has also done summer intensives at Canada’s National Ballet School, Boston Ballet School and American Ballet Theatre.

Her roles have included lead sylph in La Sylphide, Marie in Murder at the Strand, and Clara in Alberta Ballet’s The Nutcracker.

Although she’s a Grade 12 student at Bellerose Composite High School in St. Albert, this is already Lauren’s third season with Citie Ballet.

Alert followers of Citie Ballet will recognize newlywed Mackenzie Murphy as the former Mackenzie Alcorn, who has been with the company for a total of four and a half seasons. She began during the second half of the 2005-2006 season, then returned for the 2007-2008 and subsequent seasons.

Mackenzie trained with the Edmonton School of Ballet from 1989 to 2005 and performed with the school’s Edmonton Festival Ballet from 2000 to 2005. She has trained in both the Cecchetti and RAD methods of ballet (she’s completed both Advanced II exams), as well as in modern, character, jazz, lyrical and tap dance. She attended summer schools at the School of Alberta Ballet (2005), and Ballet BC (2006). During the 2006-2007 season, she also completed the Ballet BC Mentorship program, where she performed pieces by John Alleyne, Martha Graham, Roberto Campanella, Day Helsic and James Gnam. Her recent roles for Citie Ballet include Violetta in Murder at the Strand, lead female in La Vivandiere, and one of the faces of Carmen in Francois Chevennement’s version of Carmen.

When she’s not dancing, Mackenzie works at the University of Alberta Hospital in one of the neuroscience clinics, and sings with her church’s music group.

Amber’s parents enrolled her in dance class soon after she learned to walk, because, “I wouldn’t sit still,” she recalls. “Whenever I heard music — which was frequently, because my dad was in a band that plays oldies music — I would dance around the house.”

She has trained and performed in ballet, jazz, tap, and contemporary dance at summer dance intensives and workshops in Edmonton, Chicago, Kelowna and Victoria B.C., and North Battleford, Sask. At 18, she auditioned to be one of the student dancers in the Moscow Ballet’s production of The Nutcracker in her hometown of Lethbridge, Alberta, and landed a role in the Arabian Dance. “It was an incredible experience to dance with them,” she says. “I feel very fortunate to have had the opportunity.”

When Amber’s not dancing, she listens to live music (she’s a keen fan of local
bands), plays her electric guitar, and explores the outdoors — in particular, the coulees near Lethbridge. This is her first season with Citie Ballet.