Spring Performances 2024

Westside Ballet of Santa Monica presents two Spring programs as part of their annual Masters of Movement series.

This year’s Spring Gala will honor legendary ballerina Patricia Neary and will feature several works she danced during her storied career with the New York City Ballet.

The Masters of Movement series celebrates the choreographers and dancers who make music visible.

Featuring special guest performers Isabella Boylston and James Whiteside, American Ballet Theatre principal dancers, in Marius Petipa’s classic Black Swan pas de deux.

Among other highlights will be excerpts from George Balanchine’s Concerto Barocco and his playful Who Cares? and the pas de deux from Balanchine’s striking contemporary ballet Agon, with music by Stravinsky, performed by guest artists Andrea Laššáková and Adrian Blake Mitchell.

Alumni stars Lucia Connolly (Joffrey Ballet), Lyrica Woodruff and Joy Womack will take the stage in Yuri Possokhov’s acclaimed Bells pas de deux, Balanchine’s fieryTarantella, and the breathtaking Prelude pas de deux by Ben Stevenson, O.B.E., with Rachmaninov’s piano score performed live on stage.

The 50^th Anniversary Spring Showcase will be a tribute to Westside Ballet’s founders, Yvonne Mounsey and Rosemary Valaire.

This program will feature the pre-professional company dancers in Mounsey’s signature ballet and ode to Balanchine, Classical Symphony, with music by Prokofiev, and another piece she choreographed for younger dancers, Ecossaises, to the solo piano music of Beethoven, performed live.

While Mounsey was a protégé of Balanchine, Valaire was a First Soloist with Britain’s Royal Ballet. She was known for staging classical works with attention to the style of the great master choreographer Marius Petipa. Excerpts from Sleeping Beauty will pay tribute to her contribution to Westside Ballet’s formidable training and respect for ballets both past and present.

Several more works will be part of this special anniversary showcase including an excerpt from Balanchine’s Concerto Barocco, a new contemporary work by Vanessa van Wormer with live musical accompaniment, Caprice Walker’s charming Fête de Carnivale, and new jazz and ballet pieces by Westside’s own Michele Bachar Mendicelli, whose jazz adaptations are continual crowd pleasers.