Brecon Festival Ballet is a registered charity, based at Theatr Brycheiniog, that exists to bring high quality professional dance to Brecon, while also providing opportunities for the local community to get involved. Our annual production of The Nutcracker is now a regular Christmas favourite and draws many people into Brecon each December.
This year, for the first time, BFB is presenting a Spring production, with three performances on the weekend of 6th - 7th April. This double bill of ballets features Act 2 from Swan Lake and our new Welsh ballet, Tanio’r Ddraig (Fire up your Inner Dragon!), bringing together 20 professional ballet dancers (including 7 from Wales and 4 who originally trained in Brecon) with 32 local talented ballet students. Swan Lake is a well-known, traditional classical ballet, set to Tchaikovsky’s famous and beautiful music and featuring the sad story of a princess cursed to take Swan form by day, only returning to human form at night. Act 2 from this ballet is also renowned for the beautiful choreography for the “corps de ballet”, with 16 “Swans” moving in mesmerising unison. In contrast to this classic, Tanio’r Ddraig is a brand-new ballet for Wales, featuring some of Wales’s best known traditional songs (such as Myfanwy, Men of Harlech, Tros Y Garreg and Sospan Fach) reimagined in the language of dance. These well-known songs are linked by original composition by local pianist, Penny Hughes, who plays the ballet live to accompany the dancers and the backdrop is a series of original paintings of beautiful local scenery by Brecon-based artist, Phil Clark.
In this production, the lead roles of Odette, the Swan Queen and Y Ddraig Goch, the Red Dragon, will be danced by two wonderful, experienced professional dancers, Natasha Trigg and Harlan Rust. Both of these dancers grew up in Brecon and had their early dance training here, before going on to full time training and impressive, international professional careers.
Tickets are selling fast and you can get your seats in person at the Theatr Brycheiniog box office, by ringing 01874 611 622 or by visiting the theatre’s website https://www.brycheiniog.co.uk/en/whats-on