WA Ballet artistic director Aurelien Scannella announces big 2023 season
![Matthew Lehmann for WA Ballet's The Nutcracker.](https://images.thewest.com.au/publication/C-8500577/c0ea54bd0a45e37b7640bf01f8d8707383d29bd1-16x9-x0y354w7926h4458.jpg?imwidth=810&impolicy=wan_v3)
While WA Ballet is busy in the rehearsal studio on the company’s highly anticipated Swan Lake, artistic director Aurelien Scannella is already looking ahead to its 2023 season.
The year will not only be another big one for Australian’s oldest professional ballet company, but also for Belgium-born Scannella and his wife, artistic associate and principal rehearsal director Sandy Delasalle-Scannella, who celebrate their 10 year anniversary of being at the WA Ballet helm.
“It went so fast and when we look back it doesn’t feel like 10 years and, to be honest, if we could start again, we would do it all the same again,” Scannella, who recently received a knighthood from the royal family of Belgium, says.
“We really saw this amazing potential. We had all this support and could feel there was an opportunity of growth there. I’m 47 and it’s been hard work, but it was worthwhile to go through that.
![Chihiro Nomura and Julio Blanes for WA Ballet's Ballet to Broadway.](https://images.thewest.com.au/publication/C-8500577/5035394a674399055892b9e1bd683f51f99d56d2.jpg?imwidth=810&impolicy=wan_v3)
“I’ve been asked many times how I feel about Perth being so isolated but I believe it’s a good thing. I’ve always seen it as an opportunity because we can bring the world to Perth.”
WA Ballet’s 2023 program features six production seasons and a four-stop regional tour (Port Hedland, Karratha, Bunbury and Mandurah), all starting in February with the company’s 30th year at City Beach’s Quarry Amphitheatre performing IN Cognito: Ballet at the Quarry, featuring four works under the night sky.
![Oliver Edwardson and Nikki Blain for WA Ballet's STATE.](https://images.thewest.com.au/publication/C-8500577/498d85d3012d8a4c3bf8b446222821cd93db86aa.jpg?imwidth=810&impolicy=wan_v3)
Ballet to Broadway comes to His Majesty’s Theatre in May as a new-format classical ballet triple-bill — Raymonda, Sylvia and George Balanchine’s Who Cares? — while winter contemporary season STATE returns to the State Theatre Centre of WA in June and July.
STATE choreographers Melanie Lane and Adam Alzaim have been given the chance to restage and extend their works, Slow Haunt and Gainsbourg respectively, after the 2021 STATE season was cut short by a snap pandemic lockdown.
![Jack Whiter, Polly Hilton and Alexa Tuzil for WA Ballet's Genesis.](https://images.thewest.com.au/publication/C-8500577/cb3d14285f473ceae8680a61aaf3cf24d473bb77.jpg?imwidth=810&impolicy=wan_v3)
Genesis, an annual season of short pieces choreographed by the company’s dancers at WA Ballet Centre, has moved to October and after a three-year hiatus, Scannella is bringing snow back to Perth with The Nutcracker in November.
Following the success of the company’s bestselling neoclassical ballet, Dracula, Scannella continues his passion for bringing fresh stories to the ballet stage with Van Gogh, a newly created full-length contemporary work — a first for the company — based on the harrowing life and artworks of Dutch post-impressionist painter Vincent Van Gogh.
![Ludovico Di Ubaldo for WA Ballet's Van Gogh.](https://images.thewest.com.au/publication/C-8500577/741af75f54755f45d9161af64bbcf6f9addc2d8d.jpg?imwidth=810&impolicy=wan_v3)
Known for her 2020 Ballet at the Quarry work, Architecture of Hope, Dutch choreographer Wubkje Kuindersma and an Amsterdam-based creative team have been making the biographical ballet since her 2020 Perth visit.
Scannella believes WA Ballet audiences are ready for such a work.
“In the past, some productions haven’t sold as well as we expected, but we are here to take risks and to challenge our dancers,” he shares.
“In the arts, if you don’t push the boundaries and take risks, you won’t move forward. It’s like riding a bicycle, if you don’t move forward, you don’t stay upright.”
2023 season packages are on sale from 7pm, October 13, with general tickets released November 1.
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