TRIPLE BILL
Three Ballets Sure to Move You
FSBT presents three World Premieres by choreographers Viktor Plotnikov, Blake Krapels, and Carlos Martinez.
Friday, February 21, 2025 at 7 pm
Saturday, February 22, 2025 at 7 pm
Sunday, February 23, 2025 at 2 pm
The Baby Grand Theater
Tickets: $38 - $58
Meet The Choreographers
BLAKE KRAPELS, a 2011 United States Presidential Scholar in the Arts, trained in New Jersey under the tutelage of Billy Larson and Jamie Salmon. In 2015 Blake graduated with a BFA from The Juilliard School, where he performed repertoire by William Forsythe, Merce Cunningham, Elliot Feld, Jose Limon, and Peter Chu. In addition to his core training, Blake participated in Summer Intensives at Nederlands Dans Theatre and Springboard Danse Montreal. After graduation, Blake spent 4 years with Philadelphia’s BalletX where he performed at The Vail Dance Festival, Joyce Theater, Cleveland Danceworks and The Belgrade Dance Festival. He has performed with The Metropolitan Opera, Keigwin & Company, GroundWorks Dance Theatre, Emery LeCrone Dance, Konverjdans, South Dakota Ballet and most recently DanceAspen. While dancing with DanceAspen he worked with Matthew Neenan, Penny Saunders, Cayetano Soto and Yue Yin.
Blake’s choreography has been presented at The Kennedy Center, Cleveland DanceWorks 2017, The Peter Jay Sharp Theater, First State Ballet Theater, APAP, DanceAspen, South Dakota Ballet and the Joffrey Jazz and Contemporary Trainee Program. He is currently the co-founder of The Sonder Space, a collaborative dance company based in Philadelphia alongside Andie Yorita and Zachary Kapeluck. He is excited to create on the talented artists of FSBT again this upcoming season.
CARLOS MARTINEZ, who delights audiences each season onstage as an FSBT dancer, will take on a new role as choreographer as he creates his first ballet for FSBT. Martinez is originally from Guadalajara, Mexico and began his dance studies at "Escuela de Artes" with Javier Zavala, Michelle Monreal, Diana Garcia, and Nazira Yakuboba. At the age of 13, he was awarded a scholarship at the National Ballet Competition of Mexico to attend Idyllwild Arts in Idyllwild, California. At Idyllwild Arts he worked with choreographers Alexandre Munz and John Pennington and companies including BodyTraffic, California Dance Theater, and Inland Pacific Ballet. Upon graduation, he was offered a full scholarship to attend George Mason University, where he trained with Susan Shields, Roger Jeffrey, Christopher d’Amboise, and Ethan Brown, and others. In 2022, Carlos graduated Magna Cum Laude with a BFA in Dance and a Minor in Arts Management.
VIKTOR PLOTNIKOV was born in Kharkov City, Ukraine. He trained at Kiev Ballet Academy and graduated from Vaganova Ballet Academy under Veniamin Zimin and Inna Zubkovskaya. From 1987 to 1990, he was a soloist at Donetsk Ballet Company in Ukraine, and then performed as guest artist and principal dancer with Mississippi Ballet and Tulsa Ballet from 1990 to 1993. Plotnikov was a principal dancer at Boston Ballet from 1993 to 2006, where he performed major roles in classical and contemporary ballets by many prominent choreographers and toured extensively nationally and abroad. As a choreographer, Plotnikov has created works for companies including Boston Ballet, Cincinnati Ballet, Kansas City Ballet, Pittsburgh Ballet Theatre, Richmond Ballet, New Jersey Ballet, and Bolshoi Theatre’s Choreographic Workshop. He has served as resident choreographer for Festival Ballet Providence for many years. Plotnikov co-directed and co-produced Boston Ballet’s Raw Dance series and has received numerous international choreography awards. He is currently on the faculty of the San Francisco Ballet School. Viktor has created many works for FSBT, including two full-length ballets, Dracula and Romeo and Juliet, and last season’s “Unwound,” as part of our Triple Bill in February 2023.