HOUSTON BALLET ANNOUNCES
2008-2009 SEASON

World Premiere of Stanton Welch's Full-Length Ballet
Marie, Inspired by the Life of Marie Antoinette,
Highlights Season in February 2009

Nine New Works Enter Repertory

Company Premieres Works by Duato, Forsythe, Kylián, Robbins, Tudor,
van Manen, and Wheeldon

Houston, Texas - Houston Ballet Artistic Director Stanton Welch has announced the company's 2008-2009 season.  In the coming season, the company will present nine new works and the return of cherished classical ballets. Mr. Welch continues to enlarge the repertory with some of the most brilliant international choreographers of our time (including Nacho Duato, William Forsythe, Jiří Kylián, Antony Tudor, Hans van Manen, and Christopher Wheeldon), and to create new works for Houston Ballet.

"It will be a season of collecting masterpieces - in much the same way a museum builds its inventory of works by great painters, providing a deeper contemporary perspective and a sense of the journey today's major choreographers have taken. It's really important to show dancers, young choreographers and audiences the build up of what's made a ballet great," said Mr. Welch.

The highlight of the season is Mr. Welch's full-length new production of Marie, inspired by the life of Marie Antoinette, one of the most glamorous and controversial women in history, in February 2009. In September 2008, Mr. Welch will create a new ballet set to the music of Mediæval Bæbes, the popular all-female group of the same name, on a mixed repertory program titled Classically Modern featuring two Houston Ballet premieres -- Hans van Manen's athletic tour-de force Solo and Jerome Robbins's lyrical Afternoon of a Faun -- paired with George Balanchines's dazzling neoclassical ballet Symphony in C. In March 2009, in the mixed repertory program Masters of Movement, the company will introduce three Houston Ballet premieres with Antony Tudor's, The Leaves are Fading; William Forsythe's sexy and energetic work The Vertiginous Thrill of Exactitude; and Jiří Kylián's poignant Soldiers' Mass. In May 2009, the mixed repertory program Of An Era, will present the company premiere of Christopher Wheeldon's romantic ballet Carousel (A Dance), a tribute to Richard Rodgers iconic musical, and the company premiere of one of Spanish choreographer Nacho Duato's finest works, Jardi Tancat, alongside Stanton Welch's popular ballet Nosotros.    Houston Ballet will begin the season in September 2008 with a new production of John Cranko's twentieth century masterpiece Onegin and cap the season with Stanton Welch's critically acclaimed full-length production of Swan Lake in June 2009.