Principal Angelo Greco shares insight into Albrecht’s mind—and heart.

Even though Albrecht is the romantic lead of Giselle, he’s more complex than traditional princes. How do you approach his character?

Angelo Greco: It took me some time to understand the role—this isn’t my first time dancing Albrecht. I always try to be myself, and what helps the most is the partner you dance with. He’s a noble who feels trapped by his life and wants to escape. My first entrance is light and full of energy; I’m looking to discover something new. When I first meet Giselle, it’s just playful. But then, after we look at each other, something changes. The emotions come very quickly. With Karina [González, Principal Dancer], it feels natural because she’s such a passionate person herself. When you’re onstage with someone like that, it’s easy to open up; you’re really living that moment. That’s how the story develops. The beginning is always the hardest. If you try too much to create a mood with steps and counts, it doesn’t work. You have the choreography, but you need to really be in it. It has to feel like instinct, like those first emotions, like butterflies. That’s where it starts.

Albrecht deceives Giselle while already engaged. Do you see his actions as manipulation or impulsive love?

AG: For me, it’s more impulsive. I don’t think he realizes what he’s doing. He just wants to escape his life for a moment and doesn’t think it through. That’s why it still feels so real—even today, people do the same thing.

What goes through your mind during the mad scene?

AG: That’s the hardest part. The mad scene is very hard for Giselle, and I think Karina does an incredible job because she really feels it. For me, it’s about reacting to her. A coach once told me, “When you don’t know what to do, don’t move,” and now I understand that. If you move too much, it doesn’t read. But if you stand there and really feel her emotion—and the guilt, because it’s all your doing—it becomes much clearer. It takes vulnerability. You have to let yourself feel something we don’t always want to feel in real life. But I love that scene. It builds everything for Act II, which is so beautiful.

Does Albrecht truly earn Giselle’s forgiveness?

AG: I don’t know. The second act is very demanding—I’m onstage almost the entire time, and the exhaustion is real. That actually helps, because you don’t have to act it. I’m not sure if Giselle forgives him, or if it’s more Albrecht trying to find forgiveness for himself. It’s like when someone dies and you imagine what they would say to you. The second act feels like that—a kind of search for peace, for a way to move forward.

By Kharma Elvirez

We all know that feeling of realizing that you have been deceived by someone you once trusted. Your heart starts racing, breathing becomes shallow, and your stomach drops into a pit of despair. We see these emotions become realized during the iconic Mad Scene in Giselle. While there have been many interpretations of this scene, Stanton Welch’s version runs nearly three times longer than the traditional stagings, giving Giselle breathing room to process her grief thoroughly.

For Principal Yuriko Kajiya, who originated the role, the extension of this scene is not purely indulgent— it offers the audience a deeper perspective into the emotional journey of the character. “I don’t think she’s gone crazy,” Kajiya says. “She’s gone lost.” It is this distinction that shapes her approach to the scene. Rather than quickly descending into madness, she shifts in and out of reality—retreating into the private memories she shared with Albrecht then coming back to her senses. “She really just believed in what she had with him,” Kajiya explains.

By the end of the scene, Giselle is no longer fully in either world. The Wilis have begun pulling her toward their own. “She was almost halfway there,” Kajiya says, describing the moment Giselle nearly crosses over entirely. It’s only when Hilarion physically intervenes, shaking her back to reality, that she surfaces one last time. Her mother offers comfort, but it’s fleeting. The Wilis, Kajiya says, have already claimed half of her soul.

What makes the scene endure is how universally recognizable it is—the grief of discovering a painful truth, and the instinct to resist it. That recognition is exactly what Kajiya counts on. “In my mind, my duty is to bring the audience into my world,” she says. “Once the curtain goes up, we are all one.”

You had a uniquely close working relationship with Jerome Robbins—as a student, performer, and now staging his work. How did that firsthand experience shape the way you approach staging Dances at a Gathering?

Jean-Pierre Frohlich: I was in quite a bit of his ballets, so I was kind of one of his instruments. I knew how he worked. Taking notes for him, seeing what he’s seeing and writing those notes, you begin to understand what those corrections are, and the difference they make in the movement or the intent of what’s happening on stage. From working with him so much, you start to think the way he would think to reproduce his work. His theater mind and his unique musicality—the way he put steps together—really influenced me as a person carrying on his legacy.

What are the key qualities or ideas you try to draw out of the dancers?

JF: Dance with each other. Forget there’s an audience. Jerry creates this atmosphere of family and group on stage, and sometimes the audience feels like they’re looking through a keyhole at something very intimate and private. With his ballets, there’s an easy quality. There’s a lot of walking, like you’re walking in the street instead of like a ballet dancer going through your feet. He wanted the audience to relate to the people on stage as they were watching themselves. For me, it’s really important to not just teach the steps but the intent of the steps and what’s really going on. Jerry would say, “Play the scene, baby.”

The ballet has a light and airy quality. What do you think creates that atmosphere?

JF: There’s never 10 people on stage except for the finale. The “Grand Waltz” has six people on stage, and that’s the only time there are that many. And I always tell them, “Please devour space. Devour it.”

Even though the finale has all 10 people, it still feels light.

JF: Because they’re just walking and looking at each other. And Brown Boy touches the floor. Jerry would sometimes walk barefoot in rehearsals and sit on the floor when we watched. He was very much into nature, and there’s an aspect of that for me in the finale—just looking at something fly, this movement at the end. It’s very emotional because I think of Jerry right away.

What does Dances at a Gathering evoke for you personally?

JF: I made it. When I was dancing it, being in the costume, I really felt special. I felt very lucky. I got to do a ballet that I’d seen when I was young and never thought I would have the opportunity to dance. Now I get to teach it and move it on—keep it alive.

By Kharma Elvirez

When the lights come upon Stanton Welch’s Tapestry, the audience is drawn into an exhilarating display of Houston Ballet’s talent and virtuosity. Back-to-back overhead lifts, trust falls that make you hold your breath, and dancers being tossed in the air from one partner to the next. The ballet wastes no time announcing itself. Many of these striking moments unfold within the pas de trois, a trio that sweeps through the first movement like a current. Its success, according to Principal Dancer Connor Walsh, who originated one of the roles, depends on something deceptively simple: communication.

“Partnering is about touch and feel,” Walsh explains, describing the unspoken language dancers rely on in a traditional pas de deux. In a trio, however, that instinct is disrupted. “There’s always somebody doing something that you can’t quite feel or understand,” he says, turning the process into “a game of telephone.” With a third partner in the mix, Walsh notes that a pas de trois requires “triple the communication to get everybody on the same page.”

During the creation of Tapestry in 2012, Walsh recalls that working with Ballet Master and former Principal Ian Casady “was a dream.” Despite the strength and precision required, he believes the most important quality a dancer can develop is character, adding, “you have to be so collaborative.”

That collaboration is most visible in the ballet’s traveling tosses, where trust must be absolute. “First you have to gain courage,” Walsh explains, “then you can slowly increase distance.” What looks effortless onstage depends on each dancer staying fully attuned to the others, adjusting in real time to maintain a sense of flow and ease.

Do you remember your first time performing in Studies?

Ava Oubre: We were 11, in Intermediate, and it was 2019. I just remember being so excited—like, the biggest smile on my face the entire time. It was our first time performing with live music, and that feeling was unforgettable.

Katherine Oubre: I remember being in rehearsals with all the older dancers and even HBII. We would watch them and imagine which parts we’d get to do one day. It felt like stepping into a whole new world.

Looking back, how has that moment shaped you as dancers today?

KO: It made me realize how special it is to perform, but also how much work goes into it. At the Academy, things don’t just have to look good—they have to be precise. That was a big shift for me.

AO: I think it taught us discipline early on. You don’t always see the effort behind the performance when you’re younger, but Studies really showed us what it takes.

What has it meant to experience this journey side by side as twins?

AO: It’s like having your best friend with you all the time. We’ve always been there for each other, and that’s made everything more fun and less overwhelming.

KO: Especially during the pandemic—we came back and didn’t know anyone in our level. Having each other gave us confidence and helped us keep pushing forward.

Have you inspired each other differently along the way?

KO: Definitely. If one of us figured something out, we’d help the other. We’ve always pushed each other to grow.

AO: And it’s never been about comparison. We’ve always had our own journeys, but we celebrate each other’s successes.

What’s next for you both?

AO: We’re both going to the University of Oklahoma. I’ll be double majoring in ballet performance and aerospace engineering.

KO: And I’ll be studying ballet performance and biology on the pre-med track. We’re excited to take everything we’ve learned here into this next chapter.

By Kharma Elvirez

Russian-American ballet legendMikhail Baryshnikov writes in his autobiography, “La Bayadère is one of the great, if not the greatest, classical works in the history of ballet.” That reverence is widely shared, and the “The Kingdom of the Shades” scene—Act III’s luminous, dreamlike sequence—has long been considered a rite of passage for young dancers.

This spring, for the first time in Academy Spring Showcase history, 24 dancers will perform the corps section, joined by three Houston Ballet II dancers taking on the soloist roles in this iconic passage. 

As each dancer enters the stage one by one, they repeat the same controlled sequence of arabesques—unfolding, pausing, and lowering in perfect unison. The opening alone tests both stamina and focus; as Principal Instructor Susan Bryant explains, it requires “a lot of self-determination.”

Once all 24 dancers are onstage, they form six precise, single-file lines—an arrangement that leaves virtually no margin for error. Dressed identically in white, every detail is exposed: line, timing, balance, and control. “They have to dig deep and use their technique,” Bryant says. The result is a study in unity, where even the smallest inconsistency can disrupt the illusion.

By the end of the nearly 20-minute sequence, the physical and mental demands are unmistakable. Bryant compares the experience to “running a marathon,” noting that the dancers leave with a profound sense of accomplishment. “It makes them realize that all their hard work can be so rewarding,” she says.

Just as importantly, “Shades” teaches dancers how to function within a corps de ballet—an essential skill for any professional career. “No one is right, no one is wrong, but you have to move together,” Bryant reminds them. It is this balance of individual responsibility and collective awareness that defines the work. In mastering “Shades,” these young artists are not only refining their technique—they are learning how to belong to something larger than themselves, a lesson that will carry forward onto every stage they step onto next.

By Jasmine Fuller Cane

Did you already have a concept for a new ballet and the music matched it, or was it the other way around?

Stanton Welch AM: With Stereo is King, the Mason Bates music was so unique. It had so much variation within its structure that it really became the story itself. I’m trying, in many ways, to capture all the different elements of the sound through the dancers. The music is quite short but incredibly rich.

Setting aside the electronica element for a moment, have you ever created a ballet for a percussion ensemble?

SW: I did a ballet called Taiko to Japanese drums for San Francisco Ballet, a ballet in Australia called X, which used an American percussionist, and a ballet here at Houston Ballet called A Doll’s House.

Percussion ensembles can offer something different from a traditional orchestra— more texture and clearer, complex rhythms. Does that change how you approach creating movement?

SW: When you’re dealing with percussion, it feels primal in a way. For most people, the first time you dance—before you can even speak—you respond to a downbeat, like a drum or clapping. So I find percussion a very creative space. When it’s all percussion, it gives you a strong sense of dynamics and movement. The range of sounds in a percussion ensemble is remarkable. Some even sound like parts of everyday life, which is fun. It’s not always orchestral; sometimes it feels more like a surrounding environment.

There are Thai gongs and Tibetan prayer bowls, but the score leans modern with Western influences. Do you hear any Eastern influences besides the instruments?

SW: I find it very American-sounding. I think Mason Bates has captured modern America—phones, computers, those kinds of sounds. That baseline beat was such a big part of our dance and celebration culture from when I was 18. Including that in orchestral work makes it more relatable for people who might otherwise feel ballet or orchestras are a little removed from their everyday life. It feels like music of how we live now.

Was there a moment in the music you were especially excited to get into the studio and create to?

SW: There are many elements I love—it’s hard to pick one. But there are definitely anthems or themes that return. I gave those to certain dancers, and I love when that music comes back and you can twist it or play with it in a different way. Several dancers have a melody or theme that appears with them, and that was really fun to build.

By Dr. Elizabeth Klett

In 2016, choreographer Annabelle Lopez Ochoapremiered her one-act ballet Broken Wings, based on the life and work of legendary Mexican artist Frida Kahlo, for English National Ballet. Created on Spanish ballerina—and then–Artistic Director of the company—Tamara Rojo, the work later expanded into the full-length Frida for Dutch National Ballet in 2020. Vibrant and moving, the ballet draws from Kahlo’s tumultuous life and some of her most famous paintings to illuminate her physical and emotional trials—and her artistic triumphs.

As a teenager, Kahlo fell in love with fellow student Alejandro Gómez Arias, imagining a future shaped by intellectual curiosity and political engagement. That future was violently disrupted by one of the defining events of her life: the 1925 bus accident that shattered her pelvis, spine, and legs. Bedridden for months and left in debilitating pain for the rest of her life, Kahlo endured dozens of surgeries and years in restrictive medical corsets.

It was during this long convalescence that she began to paint. Working from a mirror affixed above her bed, Kahlo turned inward, making herself both subject and symbol. In her 1944 self-portrait The Broken Column, her torso is split open and held together by a stiff corset, nails driven into her flesh—an image echoed in the ballet when Frida appears in a white banded costume, trading her pointe shoes for flats and adopting movements marked by agony and immobility.

“Frida wouldn’t be Frida without the accident,” Lopez Ochoa says. Kahlo transformed isolation into artistic revelation, developing her prodigious talent in a style markedly different from her contemporaries—intimate, surreal, steeped in Mexican folk imagery, and unflinching in its depiction of the body. “She was forced into it,” Lopez Ochoa adds, “but she transformed it proactively, leaving a legacy behind.”

Kahlo used her pain to create a series of self-portraits. In The Wounded Deer (1946), she painted her head on a deer’s body riddled with arrows, underscoring the prominence of pain but also the vital connection with nature that pervades her work.

Animals, skeletons, flowers, and vibrant color became part of an iconography that asserted both Mexican identity and personal mythology. In Broken Wings, these elements reappear onstage: ominous skeleton figures haunt Frida, perhaps foreshadowing her early death, while a recurring deer woman provides a comforting presence to lead her back into the world. “The deer became her alter ego for me,” Lopez Ochoa explains. “It appears when she feels most alone.”

Kahlo’s marriage to fellow artist Diego Rivera, when she was 22 and he 43, played a major part in her return to life. Their relationship, which lasted on and off from 1928 until her death, was passionate but tortured, marked by mutual infidelities and repeated miscarriages. Rivera’s affair with Kahlo’s younger sister Cristina dealt a particularly deep wound. In 1932, while living in Detroit, Kahlo suffered a miscarriage that she later confronted in her searing self-portrait Henry Ford Hospital. In the painting, red threads unspool from her body as she lies in an abject posture, blood pooling around her.

Yet even in anguish, Kahlo returned to creation. In works such as Roots (1943), vines sprout from her body into the earth, suggesting regeneration and connection. Again and again, she reimagined suffering as growth, crafting a visual language in which the body—broken, constrained, adorned—remained central.

“I didn’t want to celebrate Frida’s suffering,” Lopez Ochoa says. “I wanted to celebrate her resilience and joy for life.”

Kahlo died in 1954 at just 47. Although the ballet concludes with her death, it is symbolic rather than literal Frida rises in rebirth—first pinned to a butterfly, echoing her famous quote: “Feet, why do I need them if I have wings to fly?” Then a bird emerges representing the colorful legacy she left behind. Reimagined through ballet, and through the artistry of Lopez Ochoa and her dancers, Frida soars—albeit on broken wings.

By Nichelle Suzanne

When Artemis releases her arrow, she believes she has struck an unseen enemy in the distance. Only afterward does she understand her betrayal and who has been lost.

In Sylvia, Artemis leads, protects and commands, holding much of her inner life close. She does not chase love or surrender easily to it. Losing the one person who knows her behind all her defenses shapes every decision that follows, not only for Artemis herself, but for the women whose lives intersect with hers. Her story becomes the emotional center of the ballet as she confronts the costs of choosing duty over connection and leaving things unsaid.

When choreographer Stanton Welch reimagined Sylvia in 2019, he turned to Greek mythology to give Artemis greater emotional weight and narrative purpose. She lives in the shadow of her twin brother Apollo, striving for recognition from a father who favors him and proving her worth through authority and resolve. “She hardens herself and tries to only choose work over life,” says Welch, describing an Artemis who mistakes self-discipline for protection.

Like the goddess of myth, Artemis carries tenderness beneath the strength that defines her publicly. To understand Artemis from the inside out, Principal Jessica Collado, who originated the role, focused on what she values, what she guards, and why she makes the choices she does. Onstage, Artemis’ authority reads through powerful, deliberate movement and a physical presence that signals leadership to her army of nymphs. “It’s a skin of armor that she wears,” Collado explains, one that allows Artemis to lead with confidence and control, even as it creates distance between her and those she commands.

Artemis’ guardedness softens only in her scenes with Orion. Their relationship is a bond rooted in trust and intimacy rather than pursuit. Collado describes the shift as a physical one — a softening in the chest in his presence. Moments between them suggest words nearly spoken, feelings deferred, connections interrupted. “There were things she never got to express,” Collado says. “And then she has to live with that.” For Welch, that hesitation carries lasting consequence. “You can’t wait,” he says. “That’s the lesson of Artemis.” Love left unspoken can shape a life as powerfully as love declared.

Experiencing grief so publicly and so profoundly does not undo Artemis’ authority, but it alters the way she wields it. She begins to lead differently, with greater awareness of what strength alone cannot protect. When Psyche’s life hangs in the balance, Artemis recognizes the injustice of her suffering and intervenes, restoring Psyche in an act of mercy toward her sworn enemy Eros, who now needs her help. A devoted follower, Sylvia asks to leave the nymph army for love. Seeing her own decisions mirrored in Sylvia’s plea, Artemis chooses to act where she once hesitated. As Welch explains, “When she sees Sylvia about to make the same mistake, it changes everything.” In granting Sylvia her choice, Artemis ensures that others are not defined by the regret she carries.

Collado describes the shift in Artemis as growth rather than a surrender to weakness. “Vulnerability isn’t a liability,” she says. To fly straight and true, an arrow needs flexibility. Artemis learns the same lesson, bending toward empathy instead of governing solely through control. She listens. She reflects. And in these moments of resilience, her leadership deepens.

By the ballet’s final moments, Artemis’ trajectory is changed. Confronting her brother brings long-denied recognition from her father Zeus. More fully herself, the reunion with Orion reframes her story not as tragedy, but as a hard-won happy ending. In guiding others toward their own futures, Artemis reclaims her own.

By Jasmine Fuller Cane

In December 1877, Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky wrote to fellow composer Sergey Taneyev after hearing Léo Delibes’ Sylvia in Vienna: “This is the first ballet in which the music constitutes not just the principal, but also the sole interest. What charm, what gracefulness, what melodic, rhythmic, and harmonic richness! I was ashamed of myself. If I had known this music before, I wouldn’t have written The Lake of Swans.”

It is a startling confession—especially considering that Swan Lake would soon become the cornerstone of the classical ballet canon. Why, then, was Tchaikovsky so taken with Delibes’ score? What gave Sylvia its rare combination of charm, elegance, and musical substance, and how did it quietly change the future of ballet music?

Paris and the Spirit of the Second Empire

Delibes composed Sylvia in the cultural climate of France’s Second Empire, a period defined by polish, spectacle, and pleasure, but also by political and social transition. “Paris is a musical capital,” Houston Ballet Music Director and Chief Conductor Simon Thew explains. “There are many opera houses, many theaters, and a powerful state-supported cultural system, with a public hungry for entertainment.”

Theater in this era was not merely diversion—it was fashion, politics, and social life combined. While Germany dominated large-scale symphonic music, France’s musical identity was rooted in the stage, shaping a style that prized tunefulness, elegance, and immediacy. Composers like Jacques Offenbach and Charles Gounod were central figures, while Georges Bizet’s Carmen would arrive just after the fall of the Empire in 1875. Delibes emerged within this ecosystem. “He works within the aesthetic,” says Thew, “but elevates it through imagination—especially in ballet.”

Learning the Craft of the Stage

Delibes’ musical instincts were shaped as much by professional experience as by formal training. Before establishing himself as a composer, he worked as a theater pianist and later as chorus master at both the Théâtre Lyrique and the Paris Opera. “He was hearing new works all the time,” Thew notes. “Not just revivals, but premieres—big, complex pieces that had to be learned quickly. That exposure absolutely informs how he writes.”

Delibes also studied with Adolphe Adam, the prolific composer of Giselle. While Adam’s harmonic language was straightforward, his gift lay in theatrical pacing. “He had an uncanny sense of how long the audience’s attention would last before something needed to change,” Thew explains. “For him, be it in opera or ballet, the stage always came first.”

Another key influence was Ludwig Minkus—one of Imperial Russia’s most revered ballet composers, responsible for scores such as Don Quixote and La Bayadère—who collaborated with Delibes on the ballet La Source. Minkus, like Adam, wrote music that served movement above all else. “It’s functional,” says Thew. “Clear accents, predictable phrases, stable tempos—so the dance can sit comfortably on top of it.”

Here Comes Sylvia

The origins of Sylvia trace back to Torquato Tasso’s 16th-century pastoral play Aminta, later adapted for the Paris Opera by Jules Barbier and Baron de Reinach. Delibes completed the score in 1876—around the same time Tchaikovsky was writing Swan Lake— with the orchestral suite following in 1880. Yet what made Sylvia revolutionary had less to do with its story than with its musical ambition.

“Delibes wasn’t the first good ballet composer,” says Thew, “but he was the first to make ballet music artistically self-sufficient without breaking its function.” Earlier ballet scores worked beautifully in the theater but rarely held interest without the stage. With Sylvia, Delibes created music that could stand on its own while still serving dance with precision.

Just as important was his instinct for balance. Like Tchaikovsky after him, Delibes knew when to let the orchestra lead and when to step back, allowing the dancers to command the moment. “It’s a fine line,” Thew explains. “Many try to skate it and don’t quite make it.” It is no coincidence that orchestral suites from ballet scores became common only after Delibes and Tchaikovsky.

Lightness, Flow, Restraint

So what gives Sylvia its particular charm and elegance? For Thew, the answer begins with restraint. “Even in the most boisterous moments, it’s never thick,” he says.

In music like the scenes for Artemis and her huntresses in Stanton Welch’s production, the orchestra moves at full speed but with relatively few instrumental voices, favoring color and rhythmic sparkle over weight. “Its operatic equivalent would be the ‘Ride of the Valkyries,’” Thew observes, “but that’s heavy. This is light and moving.”

Another hallmark of Delibes’ style is what Thew calls “local predictability with global flow.” Individual dance numbers follow clear structures essential for choreography, while themes subtly evolve and return across longer stretches, creating continuity and narrative momentum. “Your ear recognizes the sound world,” he says. “That grounding is important for the audience.”

Charm, too, is carefully crafted. The famous Act III pizzicato movement is playful and buoyant, yet exquisitely refined. “That charm isn’t cute,” Thew notes. “It’s manufactured. He knew exactly how to make that sound happen.”

Why Tchaikovsky Took Notice

For Tchaikovsky, encountering Sylvia may have revealed what ballet music could become: a symphonic canvas capable of developing themes and shaping character alongside the choreography. That balance—rich but never heavy, expressive yet always danceable—marked an evolution when ballet music stepped forward as an equal partner in storytelling. It is little wonder that Tchaikovsky listened, admired, and carried those lessons forward—transforming the future of ballet, one note at a time.