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Val Caniparoli
Val Caniparoli has been called a choreographer
of uncommon ability and rare dramatic vision. A member of
San Francisco Ballet since 1973, he has had a multi-faceted
career which includes choreography, dance, music, and theatre.
Caniparoli has staged and created numerous ballets for San
Francisco Ballet since 1982, contributing dynamic works to
the repertory of America’s first professional ballet
company.
Val has been praised for the inventiveness
of his eclectic and unusual selection of music and for the
implicit theatricality in his movement. Over the years, his
ballets have earned him national and international praise
from critics and audiences alike. His works are performed
by several companies including Ballet West, Pacific Northwest
Ballet, Pennsylvania Ballet, Ballet Florida, Singapore Dance
Theatre, Atlanta Ballet, Oakland Ballet, Pittsburgh Ballet
Theatre, Richmond Ballet, Hong Kong Ballet and Israel Ballet,
among others. In 1994 he had a major success with his full-length
ballet, Lady of the Camellias, a co-production of Ballet West
and Ballet Florida. In 2001 he choreographed The Nutcracker
for Cincinnati Ballet will all new sets and costume designs
by noted children’s book illustrator and author Alain
Vaës.
Since 1981 Val Caniparoli has been
the recipient of 10 grants for choreography from the National
Endowment for the Arts. In 1991 he was awarded his first artist
fellowship from the California Arts Council. In 1994, he received
the Choo-San Goh Award from the Choo-San Goh and H. Robert
Magee Foundation for his ballet Lambarena created for San
Francisco Ballet, and in 1997 he received the same award for
his ballet Open Veins, which he created for Atlanta Ballet.
That same year, Lambarena was nominated for the Benois de
la Danse Award from the International Dance Association at
a gala at the National Theatre of Warsaw, Poland, where dancers
from Pacific Northwest Ballet performed excerpts from the
ballet. Dance Bay Area has acknowledged his contributions
to the local dance community by honouring him with an award
for Sustained Achievement and an award for Outstanding Choreography
for his ballet Aubade, and most recently, the 2001 Isadora
Duncan Dance Award for Choreography for Death of a Moth. Over
the years he has been resident choreographer for San Francisco
Ballet, Ballet West, and presently for Tulsa Ballet.
Val has choreographed two very successful
dances for the San Francisco Symphony Pops series, both performed
by San Francisco Ballet principal dancers Evelyn Cisneros
and Stephen Legate. In 1995 he created the pas de deux Embraceable
You to music by George Gershwin, and in 1996 he choreographed
an amusing dance set to Bernard Herman’s music from
the movie “Psycho.” He choreographed Capriccio,
for San Francisco Opera’s 1990 season, which he later
reproduced for New York’s Metropolitan Opera and Chicago
Lyric Opera. He also choreographed Andrea Chenier for the
Chicago company.
Born in Renton, Washington, Caniparoli
opted for a professional dance career after studying music
and theatre at Washington State University. In 1972, at the
age of nineteen, he received a Ford Foundation Scholarship
to attend San Francisco Ballet School. He performed with San
Francisco Opera Ballet before joining San Francisco Ballet
in 1973.
His theatrical training gives him
a particular flair for character roles, such as Lord Capulet
in Tomasson’s Romeo & Juliet, Jacob Schmidt in Tomasson’s
Nanna’s Lied, Drosselmeyer in Christensen/Tomasson's
Nutcracker, the Rich Boy in Christensen’s Filling Station,
Widow Simone in Sir Frederick Ashton's La Fille mal gardée
and Madge in Bournonville/Tomasson's La Sylphide.
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