Dracula performances: Friday, October 19, and Saturday, October 20, 8 p.m.
Dinner with Dracula: Saturday, October 20, 5 p.m.
The Spotlight Theatre, 1800 Seventh Avenue, Moline IL
Arriving at Moline's Spotlight Theatre just in time for Halloween, the professional dancers of Ballet Quad Cities will stage choreographer Deanna Carter's adaptation of Bram Stoker's classic horror novel Dracula on October 19 and 20, with the notorious count portrayed by international dance star Domingo Rubio and performances preceded by the debuting vignettes of Frankenstein's Follies.
A veteran of the esteemed Joffrey Ballet who has appeared on-screen in Save the Last Dance and Robert Altman's The Company, Rubio returns to the role of Stoker's bloodthirsty count in a production filled with seductive vampires, frightening mental patients, and spine-tingling visuals. Reviewing Ballet Quad Cities' 2013 presentation of Dracula, the River Cities' Reader's Thom White wrote, “The sexuality of the piece is intoxicating, with enough horrific elements to both shock and please.” Regarding the ballet's lead dancer, White added that Rubio's “always-graceful arcs and sweeps seemed to emanate from his commanding tone.”
Joining Rubio in Dracula are Malachi Squires as vampire hunter Van Helsing, Andrew Erickson as the lunatic Renfield, and Aubrey Clayton as the doomed ingénue Lucy, with the rest of the cast filled out by fellow company members Marie Buser, Lauren Carmen, Ashley Coffin, Sage Feldges, Meghan Phillips, and Mica Ward.
And preceding the ballet's nightly performances will be the 30-minute Frankenstein's Follies, a stylistically varied collection of nine short, Halloween-themed dance vignettes with choreography by Ballet Quad Cities' Artistic Director Courtney Lyon and Emily Kate Long, a former company member who serves as Ballet Quad Cities' Atistic Associate for the 2018-19 season.
“It's going to be so much fun,” says Long. “We tried to get a really wide range of eras represented, and a lot of different styles of dance. So we have everything ranging from a Shostakovich jazz waltz, one that I think audiences will probably be pretty familiar with, all the way up to a techno remix of 'Puttin' on the Ritz' as sort of a nod to that number in Young Frankenstein. There are spooky numbers and Broadway-chorus-line types of numbers, so some of it sounds a little bit old school and some of it sounds really, really modern.
“There's also a number in the piece,” Long continues, “that sounds like someone is playing the xylophone on skeleton bones. So it's a lot of different styles of dance, but there are some numbers that are a bit more on the silly side, so there's an element of comedy in there, too.”
In addition to Dracula's 8 p.m. Spotlight Theatre performances on October 19 and 20, Ballet Quad Cities will host “Dinner with Dracula” at the venue on Saturday at 5 p.m., a fundraising event featuring cocktails, live music, a silent auction, and dinner prior to the ballet. Tickets to Dracula are $15-25, with “Dinner with Dracula” tickets available for $60 or $440 for a table of eight, and more information and reservations are available by calling (309)786-3779 or visiting BalletQuadCities.com.
