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[email protected] For Immediate Release Miami City Ballet Opens Its 2008-2009 Season at Arsht Center with the Company Premiere of George Balanchine’s Swan Lake Act II Balanchine’s The Four Temperaments and Twyla Tharp’s In The Upper Room also featured on the Bill Miami City Ballet’s Program I featuring Swan Lake Act. II, The Four Temperaments, and In the Upper Room will show at Adrienne Arsht Center for the Performing of Miami-Dade (1300 Biscayne Blvd.) on Friday, October 17 at 8p.m.; Saturday, October 18 at 8p.m.; and Sunday, October 19 at 2p.m.. The Company Premiere of George Balanchine’s version of Swan Lake Act II opens Miami City Ballet’s season. In 1951, Balanchine choreographed his own version of the classical dance for the New York City Ballet, at that time only three years old. The Company needed a hit, and this Swan Lake Act II filled the bill, giving Maria Tallchief one of her most triumphant roles and remaining a staple of the repertory for many decades. Balanchine stripped it of its conventional mime sequences in order to emphasize and expand the role of the corps de ballet, incorporating the highly dramatic music Tchaikovsky had written for the end of the final act to create a thrilling finale. Over the succeeding years, he added, subtracted, modified – at one point, for instance, removing the famous four Cygnets and adding the Valse Bluette for twelve swan maidens – but his overall conception remained the same.