Northwest Florida Ballet Premieres Beauty & the Beast

The Northwest Florida Ballet (NFB) returns to the Mattie Kelly Arts Center with their second production of the season, Beauty & the Beast.

Performances will be held on Sat., March 12, at 7:30 p.m., and Sun., March 13, at 2:30 p.m., and is choreographed by NFB international guest choreographer and Mobile Ballet artistic director Katia Garza. This original production celebrates the 18th-century story with music by Alexander Glazunov, exquisite costumes by Brisa Dinorah Gomez Cruz of Mexico City and enchanting set designs from Mobile Ballet. 
 
This tale, as old as time, features a cast of 55, including international guest artist Raul Peinado as The Beast and NFB soloist Luciana Ato as Belle. Originally from Madrid, Spain, Peinado began his dance training at the Victor Ullate Ballet School and Catedra Alicia Alonso. While in Spain, he danced as a soloist with Ballet Clasico de Madrid and performed as a guest dancer with the National Ballet of Cuba. He was also featured on national television as an ensemble dancer.
 
In 2000, Peinado moved to the United States and was offered a full scholarship at the Joffrey Ballet School. He then went on to dance with several major ballet companies, including the Joffrey Ballet Ensemble, the Connecticut Ballet and The Georgia Ballet, just to name a few. He also participated in the Buffalo Dance Festival with partner and renowned ballerina Misty Copeland in a duet choreographed by American Ballet Theatre’s Susan Jaffe. Since 2001, Peinado has and currently continues to perform as a guest artist for many regional ballet companies while teaching, coaching and choreographing in the metro-Atlanta area.
 
NFB’s production of Beauty & the Beast also features international guest artists José Soares dancing the role of the brutish villain Gaston, and Israel Rodriguez returns to the Emerald Coast to dance the role of Belle’s father, Maurice. Soares began his training at 11 years old in Joinville, Santa Catarina, Brazil and was one of only ten children selected to study ballet at Bolshoi School. Upon graduating from the Bolshoi School at age 18, he was accepted into the Trainee Program at the Joffrey Ballet in Chicago. Following his traineeship, he danced with the Milwaukee Ballet’s second company and danced principal roles in Lake Erie Ballet’s The Nutcracker and Dracula. Soares has also danced with the Missouri Contemporary Ballet and Concept Zero in Kansas City. By the invitation of Alexei Kremnev, he has also danced in the opera Aleko and Everest with the Chicago Opera Theater. 
 
Born in Camaguey, Cuba, Rodriguez began his classical ballet training at the age of eight at the famed Vocational Art School, where he won the school’s Best Performer Award. He started his professional career with the Ballet de Camaguey as a Soloist and toured extensively abroad. In 1994, Israel became a Principal dancer with Ballet de Monterrey in Mexico under Fernando Bujones. Rodriguez came to the United States in 1998, where he performed with the Ballet Theatre of Lexington, the Louisville Ballet and the Orlando Ballet, where he performed as a Principal dancer until 2006.
 
As a Principal dancer and guest artist with more than 26 years of experience, he has performed Solo roles and as a Principal dancer in virtually all of the ballet classics, including Coppelia, Don Quixote, Giselle, La Bayadere, La Fille Mal Gardee, Les Sylphides, Le Corsaire, Serenade, Napoli, Tarantella (Balanchine), Paquita, Swan Lake, Sleeping Beauty, Polovitzians Dances and The Nutcracker. Rodriguez was the first male dancer in the U.S. to perform the full-length ballet Spartacus. In 2019, he was recognized with the Outstanding Teacher award at the Youth America Grand Prix Semifinals. 
 
NFB soloists Wyatt Mier and Timothy Knoll will dance the roles of Lumiere and Tic Toc, respectively. NFB company dancers Ava Elpedes will perform as Plumette while C’Jae Ransom and Angel Mier delight audiences as the vivacious Mrs. Pots and her daughter turned teacup, Chip.
 
“Our goal with this production of Beauty & the Beast is to transport the audience through every single scene of the story and feel completely immersed in it. We’ve had the pleasure of working with Katia Garza, the choreographer, for many years, and she, along with our creative team, did a superb job pulling all of the elements together,” said NFB Artistic Director/CEO Todd Eric Allen. 
 
Box office-priced tickets for Beauty & the Beast are $35 for adults and $17.50 for children 12 and under. Tickets are available at NFBallet.org or through the Mattie Kelly Arts Center Box Office. The Signature Season sponsor for Beauty & the Beast is Emerald Coast Magazine, and the Performance level co-sponsor is Fort Walton Beach Medical Center. NFB is sponsored in part by the State of Florida, Department of State, Division of Arts and Culture and the Florida Council on Arts and Culture.