From 17 to 20 June 2015, Birmingham Royal Ballet will present a new David Bintley ballet, The King Dances, in a double bill with his first ballet for BRB from 1995, Carmina burana.
The King Dances reimagines the origins of ballet from the perspective of the young Louis XIV of France, also known as the Sun King. In 1653, the 14-year-old Louis XIV danced the role of Apollo the sun god in Le Ballet de la nuit, earning himself the soubriquet the Sun King.
David Bintley explores the events surrounding the King’s passion for the art form and the very beginnings of ballet, when men were quite literally, the kings of dance.
Tony Award winning designer Katrina Lindsay has spent months creating a world full of kings, werewolves, witches and demons with a mix of period costume, striking designs and stylised masks.
Taking inspiration from the Sun King, light plays a crucial part in David Bintley's vision for the piece created alongside Olivier Award winning lighting designer Peter Mumford. The pair recently collaborated on E=mc², Faster, which was created to celebrate the 2012 Olympics, and Carmina burana, which will form the second part of the double bill presented in Birmingham this June.
Backstage teams at Birmingham Royal Ballet’s headquarters based within the Birmingham Hippodrome complex have been working alongside some of the world’s leading costume makers to prepare the specially produced design elements including fitting and creating twenty-three wigs, nearly fifty brand-new costumes and sculpting and shaping ten specially designed masks.
The production will also be the focus of a BBC Four documentary due to air early September where David Bintley will retrace the steps of Louis XIV in locations around France as well as go backstage during the creation of The King Dances. The programme will also feature a full screening of the production.