• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 

Thu 17 Aug 2006

Christopher Harrison, a young dancer with the Scottish Ballet, will make his debut in a lead role at this year’s Edinburgh International Festival. Harrison stars as the nymph-chasing faun in Afternoon of a Faun, one of the programmed pieces to be performed by the Scottish Ballet at the Edinburgh Playhouse this weekend. Afternoon of a Faun (choreographed by Jerome Robbins) is a ballet inspired by Stephane Mallarme’s poem of the same name, with a music score composed by Claude Debussy.

In a happy coincidence, Ashley Page, artistic director of the Scottish Ballet since 2003, a former Royal Ballet principal dancer and acclaimed post-modern choreographer, once danced this role himself with the Royal Ballet in the early eighties.

Hailing from near Stirling, young home-grown talent Christopher Harrison trained at the Dance School of Scotland in Glasgow and The Royal Ballet Upper School in Covent Garden, London before joining the Scottish Ballet in 2005. He has performed in several Royal Ballet productions, including Swan Lake, and has toured to Hong Kong and New York with the Birmingham Royal Ballet’s production of Edward II. We are very excited to be hosting the lead role debut of this promising, young dancer.

Other pieces to be performed by the Scottish Ballet at the International Festival 2006 include Balanchine’s Agon and Van Manen’s Two Pieces for HET. The evening ends with In Light and Shadow, a piece for the entire company; a ballet inspired by Jan Vermeer’s paintings and Johann Sebastian Bach’s glorious music.