Charlotte Ballet – Mixed Repertory
Mimi Ohio Theatre at Playhouse Square
Cleveland, OH
November 5, 2026

By Steve Sucato

A ballet by one of the greatest choreographers in history, another by a choreographer well on her way to that distinction, and another by one of today’s “it” dancemakers highlighted Charlotte Ballet’s Cleveland debut Saturday night at Playhouse Square’s Mimi Ohio Theatre.

Presented by DANCECleveland to open its 70th Anniversary season, the North Carolina-based company—led by former Hubbard Street Dance Chicago dancer and top-flight choreographer Alejandro Cerrudo—has transformed in recent years into one of America’s fastest-rising contemporary ballet troupes.

The program began with famed choreographer Jiří Kylián’s 1991 masterwork “Petite Mort” (little death). A poetic euphemism for an orgasm and the sensation of weakening of consciousness that immediately follows, the ballet, set to music by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, has been described as a battle of the sexes.

Costumed in designer Joke Visser’s nude leotards, shorts with corset linings, and dancing barefoot, the dancers’ attire leaned into the ballet’s sexual undertones, as did the male dancers wielding fencing foils representative of their manhood that they slashed at the air with.

While the men displayed their machismo, the women gave us the illusion of floating across the stage. Standing behind large, rigid black period-style rococo dresses mounted on wheeled platforms, the dancers glided about the stage as if by magic.

Another of Kylián’s visual illusions was a stage-filling black cloth that the male dancers rapidly pulled from the front of the stage up and over to the back (and later vice versa), billowing in the air to conceal dancer entrances and exits. An audience wow moment 35 years ago, the illusion has since become commonplace.

Charlotte Ballet’s dancers delivered a respectable performance of Kylián’s expertly crafted, bendy, weight-sharing choreography. Striking performances by Serafina Wagenveld and partner Oliver Oguma were among the highlights, and the ballet remains a favorite example of Kylián’s genius.

Next, the company performed an excerpt from Cerrudo’s 2025 sock ballet “Dos Y Dos Y Dos” (Spanish for two and two and two), set to music by Jean-Michel Blais. Presenting just the Dos Y Dos, the excerpt featured two pas de deux by couples Remi Okamoto and Isaac Aoki, along with Anna Mains and Luke Csordas.

Known for his elongated, outstretched contemporary movement—which shares similarities with Kylián’s preferred style—Cerrudo’s choreography fit the dancers perfectly, especially Mains and Csordas, who were riveting in their interpretations.

The marvelous excerpts left the audience wanting more.

The evening’s marquee ballet— and its finest, Crystal Pite’s “Solo Echo”—followed. Originally created for Nederlands Dans Theater in 2012 and set to music by Johannes Brahms, the ballet for seven dancers drew inspiration from Mark Strand’s introspective poem “Lines For Winter.”

Notoriously choosy about who she allows to perform her works, the Ohio Theatre audience benefited from Charlotte Ballet being counted among the likes of Paris Opera Ballet, The Royal Ballet, and The National Ballet of Canada in performing Pite’s works.

On a dimly lit stage, with specks of fake snow slowly and steadily falling—made visible by a shaft of light from a side wing—a solo dancer began stepping, kicking, and spinning as if under the control of Brahms’ stirring cello and piano music.

The ballet’s cast of dancers then flowed on and offstage in small groupings, appearing to revel in Pite’s quirky, musical, and immensely beautiful choreography. Matching changes in the music’s intensity and drama, the dancers executed Pite’s masterfully fashioned moment phrases filled with turns, bends, slides, and sculptural tableau with pace and purpose. Pite’s choreography felt like the embodiment of emotion: silent, powerful, and unyielding.

Capping the remarkable program was Charlotte Ballet’s resident choreographer Mthuthuzeli November’s “As I Am” (2025). In recent years, the South African choreographer has burst onto the world stage with commissions for Dutch National Ballet, English National Ballet and Paris Opera Ballet. Like chum in shark-infested waters, a feeding frenzy for his award-winning works shows no signs of slowing.

His first creation for Charlotte Ballet, “As I Am,” represents a departure from many of his other works, turning to more personal subject matter: family and his African heritage.

Using traditional African dance movement blended with other styles, and costuming influenced along those lines, November’s work for the entire touring company had a tribal vibe.

November described it in the program note as “a work about love, loss, and truly arriving as you are…” It centered on a solo character (perhaps representing November), portrayed by dancer Remi Okamoto, on her life’s journey as she embraces guidance from a caring, nurturing ancestral mother figure, danced by Raven Barkley.

Reminiscent of Vaslav Nijinsky’s Rite of Spring, rousing, ritualistic unison group dances set to original music by the multi-talented November energized the audience. Those were balanced with quiet, reflective moments of acceptance and grace, including the ballet’s closing scene of Okamoto, as if at the bottom of an hourglass, standing under a stream of sand that fell from the rafters and washed over her, cleansing her with divine absolution.