Returning to Davenport's Galvin Fine Arts Center with their first full St. Ambrose University presentation in more than six years, the gifted professional dancers of Ballet Quad Cities stage their latest, Valentine's-themed iteration of Love Stories on February 22 and 23.
Choreographer Courtney Lyon outdid herself for Ballet Quad Cities' Love Stories featuring Romeo & Juliet. This piece, presented in two acts, enraptured me during Friday's performance, and it was beautifully bizarre - and I mean "bizarre" as a positive, as the moves, lines, and compositions Lyon created for each scene were often stunning and always interesting, eliciting from me multiple gasps of appreciation.
There were several moments during the evening performance of Spring Is in the Air - presented April 12 at the Adler Theatre - in which I sat slack-jawed in awe of the choreography executed by Ballet Quad Cities.
After two years of Love Stories for its Valentine's Day production, Ballet Quad Cities changed things up this year by presenting Carmen, the story of a commanding woman who does what she pleases with men she fleetingly fancies. As with Love Stories, though, there was more than one piece performed this past weekend, with choreographer Margaret Huling's "Black Coffee" - a jaunty, jazzy number also featured in last year's Love Stories: Love on the Run - making up the first portion of the evening's entertainment. 
Domingo Rubio left no doubt that his Count Dracula was in charge during Friday's performance of Ballet Quad Cities' Dracula at Moline's Scottish Rite Cathedral. (The production ended its two-night run on Saturday.) From his bat-like entrance - with the dancer slowly flapping his black cape from front to back as he made his way through the darkened auditorium - to his death, Rubio's Dracula never seemed controlled by anyone, and that included choreographer Deanna Carter. Rubio gave the impression that his Dracula wasn't moving because Carter gave him predetermined choreography, but because it was the way he wanted to move.
There were two particular elements that made Ballet Quad Cities' Cinderella (which ran for two Adler Theatre performances on April 20) especially watchable beyond Courtney Lyon's exquisite choreography: clear storytelling, and humor. Not at one moment during Saturday evening's performance did I find it hard to figure out which part of the fairytale was being depicted in dance, even down to the details of what specific characters were doing and feeling at all times.
While bearing the same title as 2012's Valentine's Day-themed performance, Ballet Quad Cities' 2013 Love Stories: Love on the Run - held on February 16 - offered several new short pieces along with "Newsflash," one of my favorites from last year's presentation. And Saturday night's entertainment delivered a mixture of sensuality, flirtatiousness, and exquisite beauty, culminating in a romantic experience that left me doe-eyed with emotions linked to love.
What struck me most about Ballet Quad Cities' Saturday-night performance of The Sleeping Beauty was how easy it was to follow the storyline even though it was told entirely in dance (set to Peter Ilich Tchaikovsky's score), and featured absolutely no dialogue.
What first struck me during February 18's performance of Ballet Quad Cities' Love Stories: Love on the Run was the venue, as Augustana College's Wallenberg Hall provided exactly the spatial experience I wanted for this series of balletic vignettes. There's a grandness to the architecture, particularly the Tuscan pillars, that lends itself to the high-art air of ballet, but there's also an intimacy there that allowed the audience to be close to the dancers, who performed on a raised platform. I often lost myself in the beauty, passion, and emotion of the choreographed works because I was so near to the action, and not separated by a sea of seats in a formal theatrical setting.
On December 12 and 13, area audiences will have the opportunity to attend two separate productions of composer Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky's The Nutcracker: one performed by the professional dancers of Ballet Quad Cities (plus a few local performers), one performed by the student performers of RiverPointBallet (plus a professional dancer). And Ballet Quad Cities' Executive Director Joedy Cook is up-front about a large part of the holiday favorite's appeal: "For all ballet companies, Nutcracker is what really helps pay their bills. Nutcracker is the one ballet that you can count on to get an audience."
