Company C Presents Contemporary Ballet Spring Program in San Francisco May 8, 2010

The world premiere of a new work by Artistic Director Charles Anderson highlights the closing program of Company C Contemporary Ballet's sixth season, with performances April 24-May 15. Anderson's "Beautiful Maladies", an amorous exploration set to recordings by quintessential California jazz legend Chet Baker, will receive its world premiere on the spring program, along with Twyla Tharp's arresting take on Euripides, "Surfer on the River Styx", and Val Caniparoli's buoyantly retro "Boink"!

"Our spring program demonstrates what Company C Contemporary Ballet is all about," says founder and Artistic Director Charles Anderson. "We bring together a wide range of engaging repertoire by some of the most innovative and influential choreographers of our time. The works themselves and the high caliber of our performers are the stars of Company C, and we are pleased to conclude our sixth annual season of contemporary ballet for the Bay Area with a program that sparkles with wit, bristles with high energy and is packed with visceral emotion and excitement."

In "Beautiful Maladies", Anderson picks up his movement exploration of the passions and foibles of love where he left off with last season's "You Don't Know What Love Is", expanding it into seven exquisitely emotional sections inspired by the ballads of California jazz icon Chet Baker. A percussive score by Donald Knaack and boundless imagination drive Twyla Tharp's 2000 "Surfer at the River Styx", loosely based on Eurpides' Bacchae, powerfully reframing the story of pride and punishment among the Gods. Val Caniparoli's 2002 "Boink!" is a quicksilver pop-culture romp set to retro 1960s "space age bachelor pad music" by Juan Garcia Esquivel, "The Busby Berkley of Cocktail Music."

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