NMDT-PC News:

The New Mexico Dance Theater Performance Company (NMDT-PC), directed by Susan Baker-Dillingham, will truly move you next weekend with its newest production, “Be Moved,” when Baker-Dillingham’s company of 25 pre-professional dancers perform four of her original works.

Emotions will run the gamut with the four original ballets in store next weekend, all choreographed by Baker-Dillingham.

The poignant and emotional ballet, “Our Beloved Weeping Souls” opens the evening of dance. Based on the family unit, the ballet focuses on six elements including Love, Father, Mother, Child, God and the reality of Death we will each face one day.

Featured second in the program the vibrant, “Back Brandenburg Concerto” highlights the pure joy of dance and extremely feisty footwork in the first and third movements, while the second movement portrays the moving relationship between a brother leaving home for the first time and his young sister behind.

After intermission, “The Diamond Dance” will peak your interest in an edgy, suspicious way. This social commentary on the gossipy types we all know and love to hate will leave you wondering whom to trust, or not.

The comedy “Ah! Spring” rounds out the evening with it’s hilarious antics. The ballet’s storyline, written by Baker-Dillingham, is a satire based on the very first school play anyone ever did, but uses dance as the medium. Characters such as a Shepherd and his Lambs, a Mountain Girl, a Tyrolean, Gypsies, a Princess, a Dragon, a Spider, a Ladybug, a Flower, a Tree, a Bee, a Butterfly, a Cat, a Villain, a family of Cave Dwellers, a Countess and Cupid will have you wishing for more.

“This children-friendly mixed bill type of production truly shows off the NMDT-PC dancers and the versatility they possess due to the many different ballets, styles of dance, and music they have performed in the past,” Baker-Dillingham said. 

Over the last nine years Baker-Dillingham and NMDT-PC has presented such well received ballets to the Los Alamos community as: Dracula, Snow White, The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, Sleeping Beauty, Cinderella, Alice in Wonderland, Aladdin, A Christmas Carol, The Nutcracker and several mixed bill productions.

“Be Moved” is no different and will continue to escalate NMDT-PC to the forefront of pre-professional dance in northern New Mexico,” Baker-Dillingham said.

Performance dates and times are 7:30 p.m. Nov. 15 and 16 and 2 p.m. Nov. 17 at Duane Smith Auditorium. Tickets can be purchased in advance at Uli’s Cottontails or 45 minutes prior to performance times at the door and are $12 for adults, $8 for students and seniors, and children age four or under are free.

Registration for classes at the NMDT School is ongoing. The NMDT studios are located in the heart of downtown Los Alamos at 147 and 149 Central Park Square. Check the website at NMDT.org or call 661-3226 for more information on “Be Moved.”

Louisa Belian and Devon McCleskey performing in Susan Baker-Dillingham’s ‘Our Beloved Weeping Souls.’ Design by Holger Waschinski/Photo by Brittany Felton