Dance company Morphoses/The Wheeldon Company to perform January 23, 2010

Jan 23, 8pm to 10pm; Jan 24, 7pm to 9pm

Morphoses/The Wheeldon Company, the dynamic young dance company founded in 2007 by choreographer Christopher Wheeldon, will perform a program of four works as well as a Family Matinee at 2 p.m. Sunday, January 24 at Novellus Theater.

The evening performances open with "Continuum," commissioned in 2002 by the San Francisco Ballet with choreography by Wheeldon and the music of Gyorgy Ligeti. Also on the program are "Distant Cries" (2005), music by Tomaso Albinoni; "Bolero" (2001) music by Maurice Ravel; and "Rhapsody Fantaisie" (2009), Wheeldon's new ballet set to selections from Rachmaninoff's "Suites for Two Pianos." Both "Rhapsody Fantaisie" and "Continuum" will feature music performed by pianists Julie Steinberg and Betty Woo, and harpsichordist Genevieve Lee.

San Francisco Performances is presenting Morphoses/The Wheeldon Company in association with several other area presenters: Morphoses will also perform at Stanford Lively Arts (January 22); the Robert & Margrit Mondavi Center at UC Davis (January 26); and UC Santa Barbara Arts & Lectures (January 29).

Christopher Wheeldon, the company's artistic director and co-founder, is one of the ballet world's most exciting talents. He has created ballets for companies all over the world, including New York City Ballet, the Royal Ballet, Bolshoi Ballet, San Francisco Ballet, Boston Ballet, American Ballet Theatre, as well as the Metropolitan Opera. Morphoses executive director and co-founder Lourdes Lopez is a former New York City Ballet principal dancer, as well as the former Executive Director of the George Balanchine Foundation. A native of Havana, she is also a founder of the Cuban Artists Fund, which supports emerging Cuban and Cuban-American artists in a variety of fields.

Official Website: http://www.performances.org