Asian American Ballet Challenge (AABP) returns to the Calderwood Pavilion on the Boston Middle for the Arts on June 27–28, 2026, with As soon as Upon Our Time, its fourth annual live performance that includes 4 authentic ballets rooted in Asian folktales.
Created and carried out by Asian American dancers, choreographers, and composers, this system provides tales not often seen in ballet. For audiences searching for to see themselves mirrored onstage, As soon as Upon Our Time brings long-overlooked cultural narratives ahead with magnificence, excellence, and intention.
AABP’s choreographers drew inspiration from these ancestral tales – some acquainted from childhood, others newly found in maturity. “A part of the Asian American expertise is the lack of ancestral tales,” mentioned Beth Mochizuki, Founder and Creative Director of AABP. “When our choreographers got here throughout these narratives for the primary time, they discovered that they resonated deeply, and selected to create ballets rooted in them. With As soon as Upon Our Time, we’re increasing what ballet can maintain.”
The 2026 program options three returning AABP works and one world premiere, introduced alongside stay musical collaborations with Asian American composers for a distinctly Asian American inventive expertise.
Choreographed by Michael Lowe for AABP in 2023, Suho and the White Horse attracts from the Mongolian origin story of the morin khuur, or horsehead fiddle. Following a shepherd boy and his beloved white horse, the ballet explores sacrifice, loss, and the best way music carries the soul throughout generations. For the 2026 manufacturing, the work expands to incorporate seven native kids in newly added roles and choreography.
Alexa Capareda’s Gabi sa Gubat / Evening Jungle, created in 2025 and expanded for 2026, is ready in a forest alive with Philippine folkloric figures together with the White Woman, duendes, tikbalang, aswang, and manananggal. The ballet displays on the magnetism of shared mythologies and the methods they illuminate the human psyche.
Adrienne Chan’s Lon Po Po, choreographed in 2024 and up to date for 2026, attracts from the Chinese language folktale broadly thought-about the unique Little Purple Using Hood. With new choreography, costumes, and surroundings, and accompanied by stay quartet music composed by Julian Gau, the ballet examines accountability, sisterhood, and survival.
The 2026 world premiere of Tấm Cám, choreographed by firm dancer Lauren Huynh in her AABP debut, provides a Vietnamese reinterpretation of the Cinderella story. Set on 4 firm dancers, one visitor performer, and eight native kids, and that includes authentic stay piano music by composer Christopher Vu, the ballet facilities on morality, nature, and resilience.
Collectively, these 4 ballets illuminate the breadth and vitality of Asian storytelling – its histories, its imaginings, and the methods its narratives proceed to encourage new inventive voices.
Tickets are actually on sale for As soon as Upon Our Time at asianamericanballetproject.org.
