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Mason City Clinic proudly presents the Moscow Festival Ballet performing Swan Lake at the North Iowa Community Auditorium on Saturday, January 16 at 7:30 p.m. as part of the 2009-2010 NIACC Performing Arts and Leadership Series. Tickets are $25 in advance for adults, $15 for children, and $30 at the door. Ask about reservations for the Overture Dinner served before the show in the Muse Norris Conference Center when purchasing your tickets.

The Moscow Festival Ballet was founded in 1989 when legendary principal dancer of the Bolshoi Ballet, Sergei Radchenko, sought to realize his vision of a company which would bring together the highest classical elements of the great Bolshoi and Kirov Ballet companies in an independent new company within the framework of Russian classical ballet. Leading dancers from across Russia have forged under Radchenko’s direction an exciting new company staging new productions of timeless classics.

The famed ballet company is going on the road and has been earning rave reviews with critics all over the country. “This was an afternoon that deserved "bravos" within minutes of the opening steps,” exclaimed the Las Vegas Review-Journal.

“An impressive performance of a classical ballet, energized with dramatic expression and sensational steps,” The Chronicle; Durham, North Carolina.

The 50-member company will perform Tchaikovsky's famous Swan Lake. Tchaikovsky drew from multiple sources to create the story of Swan Lake, including Slavic folklore and the work of Alexander Pushkin. Today, critics consider the ballet to be one of the cornerstones of Russian classical ballet, along with The Nutcracker.

This ballet was originally composed by the legendary Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky, composer for the famed ballets The Nutcracker, Romeo and Juliet and Sleeping Beauty. Swan Lake tells the story of Prince Siegfried and his search for love. He finds it in Odette, the beautiful Swan Queen. Odette is a swan by day, and swan woman by night. The only way for her to break the curse and become fully human again is to find true love. But, a plot by the evil sorcerer Von Rothbart who cursed Odette interferes with their love and so starts the tragedy of Swan Lake.

For tickets to see the Moscow Festival Ballet’s Swan Lake and to the Overture Dinner, call the NIACC Box Office at 1-888-466-4222 ext. 4188. Tickets may also be purchased online at www.niacc.edu.

Platinum Sponsors for the 2009-2010 series include NIACC; Globe Gazette Elizabeth Muse Norris Charitable Fund; the Globe Gazette; Alliant Energy; Henkel Construction; Kraft; Mason City Clinic; Principal Financial Group; and Soener Foundation. Gold sponsors include Community National Bank; Diamond Joe Casino; First Citizens National Bank; First State Bank of Belmond; Mercy Medical Center-North Iowa; Martin, Cooney, MacNider & Cooney Financial Consultants of Raymond James & Associates, Inc.; Sukup Manufacturing; and Dr. Gary W. Swenson and Dean A. Genth. In kind sponsors include Country Inn and Suites and KIMT.

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