The Houston Ballet opens it's 41st season with a mixed repertory program including two ballets from artistic director Stanton Welch's — Tu Tu and The Core: Gershwin, the Heart of the Big Apple — and Jiří Kylián’s Forgotten Land.

Tu Tu examines different aspects of ballet technique. In the words of its Welch, "The ballet moves through an adagio focusing on the dancers’ balance and line, to powerful and energetic soubrette, to pas de deuxs highlighting each couple. It is a playful, humorous look at classical ballet."

Welch's second piece is set to George Gershwin's Piano Concerto in F. It incorporates the flash and dazzle of Broadway with archetypal New Yorkers producing an energy-packed performance.

Kylián was inspired to create Forgotten Land through a painting by Norwegian expressionist artist Edvard Much and English composer Benjamin Britten's Sinfonia da Requiem. The work is somber and soulful expressing the ebb and flow of the sea and also life.