Missing live performing arts? Charlotte Ballet, Davidson theater perform free online

If you’ve ever wanted to attend a performing arts premiere in your pajamas, this Friday’s your night.

Two arts groups, the Charlotte Ballet and the Davidson College Theatre Department, are hosting performances online and free to viewers.

Charlotte Ballet will present what it is calling the “online world premiere” of choreographer Christopher Stuart’s “Dispersal” Friday at 7:30 p.m.

Dispersal was created by Stuart for the ballet’s 2020 winter series, Innovative Works: Beyond the Mint. For this series, Stuart and two other choreographers were tasked with creating new works inspired by the Mint Museum exhibit, Immersed in Light: Studio Drift at the Mint. The score, “Il Nodo,” was composed for this work by Nashville musician Cristina Spinei.

The pre-recorded performance will be posted on Charlotte Ballet’s Facebook page and YouTube channel, and will feature behind-the-scenes footage and interviews, followed by a full performance by Charlotte Ballet company dancers.

Charlotte Ballet was hours away from its premiere of “Sleeping Beauty” earlier this month when it decided to postpone all performances because of the new coronavirus pandemic.

“We started working on this as soon as we had to cancel Sleeping Beauty, because we want more than anything to stay in touch with the community right now,” ballet leaders wrote in a statement released Thursday.

A televised world premiere

Also Friday at 7:30 p.m., the Davidson Theatre Department is staging a world premiere reading of the play “The Refugees” via the Zoom app.

The play, written by Davidson alumnus and visiting assistant professor of drama Steve Kaliski, was scheduled to premiere this Friday. So instead of canceling, Davidson is hosting a live reading in which all the actors will perform their roles live from their living rooms.

You can find the link to the live performance here, at https://www.davidson.edu/events/virtual-theatre-department-presents-refugees.

The play takes place in an imaginary city-state loosely based on ancient Greek myths. Generational conflict erupts around how to handle the mass of desperate, uprooted migrants outside the city walls.

It was inspired by the current refugee crisis in southern Europe, and partially developed through on-the-ground faculty-student research.

This story was originally published March 26, 2020 at 5:40 PM.