11 replies to this topic

[dirac]

Ballet student Sara Clem heads for the Bolshoi Academy.

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Her dad said he will miss her as well. "It is a burden on our finances, other than that just the fact that she's not going to be here," he said.

One year at Bolshoi will cost the family $22,000.

[dirac]

Alabama Ballet opens its season this weekend.

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Also on the program are an encore of "Paquita" and "The Sleeping Beauty Suite." The program will introduce new company members Kyle Coleman, Trevor Felixbrod, Alexander Forck and Max van der Sterre. Apprentices who have been moved up to become new company members are Kendia Bennett, Alynn Piccirillo and Yelli Shustack. New apprentices are Patricia Bianco, Natalie Cambron, Olivia Marie Powell and Julia Spooner.

[dirac]

An autistic girl commits parts of "Coppelia" to memory. Text and video.

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Even though Clara was diagnosed with these conditions, she has stayed relatively healthy thanks to therapies, supplements and diets.

She started walking at the age of four and talking at the age of six - 'and has blossomed into a lively dancing queen who always loves an audience', her parents added.

[dirac]

The English National Ballet will honor Rudolf Nureyev with a mixed bill of works associated with him.

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This is the first time ENB will be performing Nureyev’s staging of “Raymonda”, which was first performed in 1964 in Italy but Act III was adapted in 1969 as the wedding scene between Raymonda and her knight. Marius Petipa choreographed the original ballet in 1898 for the famed Mariinsky Theatre in St Petersburg and Nureyev performed the role of the knight many times during his career with the Kirov before defecting to the West in 1961. The triple bill will be performed at the London Coliseum from July 25-27, 2013.

[dirac]

A review of Pacific Northwest Ballet's"Cinderella" by Mariko Nagashima for SeattleDances.

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The stepsisters, played on opening night by Jessika Anspach and PNB guest artist Marisa Albee (who originated the role in 1994), were both gaudy and gawky. Unfortunately, their slap-stick humor seemed to fall a bit short; the audience has seen this schtick before and wasn’t as quick to laugh at each goofy antic. It’s difficult to strike the right balance with slap-stick comedy as it requires a willingness to look completely ridiculous, something Anspach hasn’t quite yet developed. Her extension still soared, only with flexed feet, and her smile felt like a cheesy after-effect. Laura Gilbreath, however, gave a convincingly haughty and disdainful turn as the Stepmother.....

[dirac]

A review of the Bolshoi Ballet in "Jewels" by Clement Crisp in The Financial Times.

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It was the American ballerina Merrill Ashley who told me about Olga Smirnova. A superb Balanchine dancer, Ashley had been in Moscow with the Bolshoi Ballet in June, setting Diamonds, the final part of Jewels, Balanchine’s trilogy exploring the ideas of cities, styles, women dancing. “You must see my ballerina in Diamonds. She’s prodigious – 19 years old, just graduated from the Vaganova School in Petersburg, and just recruited for the Bolshoi. She has the most exquisite upper-body, and a magical presence.”

[dirac]

Miami City Ballet hires a new executive director and pulls in $3 million in funds.

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[Michael] Kaiser, who engineered rescues of the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, the American Ballet Theater and England's Royal Opera House. said the moves ensure the company will recover from the most difficult period in its 26-year history.

The new executive director is Daniel Hagerty, 40, who as director of individual campaigns at the Kennedy Center heads a staff of 25 that raised $40 million last year. Kaiser introduced him to leaders of MCB's board a month ago.

[dirac]

A review of San Francisco Ballet by Roslyn Sulcas in The New York Times.

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The Wheeldon pieces danced in London — “Number Nine” (2011), “Ghosts” (2010), “Within the Golden Hour” (2008) — are all dazzling displays of craft and make use of the insouciant elegance that characterizes the San Francisco dancers. “Number Nine,” a 16-minute bonbon of a ballet to Michael Torke’s propulsive score “Ash,” keeps its yellow-clad ensemble and four principal couples wheeling through kaleidoscopic patterns that surprise as they smoothly crystallize and deliquesce, sometimes matching the musical rhythms, sometimes working against them. It’s a nonchalant display of fireworks, in which Sofiane Sylve stood out with particular magnificence.

[dirac]

A report from the New York City Ballet gala by Daniel D'Addario in The New York Observer.

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We’d gotten caught up chatting and had little time to tarry before the ballet began: rushing up the stairs to the first circle, we realized we were behind a group of men gathered around Ms. Parker herself (husband Matthew Broderick was absent, likely performing in his Broadway show, Nice Work If You Can Get It). The group moved as one—to a closed bar station so that Ms. Parker could grab a napkin to spit out her gum—then headed to the center of the first circle, where, all in a row, Iman, Valentino, Ms. Huston and Ms. Parker formed one very glamorous cheering circle. The ballet was preceded by a video in which celebrity friends who couldn’t be present testified to Valentino’s genius. Hugh Jackman, in a maroon henley, talked about how Valentino criticized his wardrobe; Meryl Streep read his name in an exaggerated Italian accent; and Rita Wilson commented on his impressive tan.

[dirac]

Oregon Ballet Theatre makes a new hire in management.

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Oregon Ballet Theatre has hired Joanne Van Ness Menashe for the newly created vice-president position, part of a major restructuring of company management following the departure this summer of executive director Diane Syrcle.

[dirac]

The winners of the  2012 Helpmann Awards are announced.

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The 2012 Helpmann Awards, announced yesterday in a red carpet ceremony at the Sydney Opera House, showcased the highest standards of performance and production Australian arts and entertainment. The star-studded evening featured performances by The Australian Ballet (and, in stark contrast, cabaret star Trevor Ashley as Fat Swan); Lisa McCune, Teddy Tahu Rhodes and their South Pacific castmates; Cirque du Soleil, and a surprise appearance by Hugh Jackman to present the gong for Best Musical, rounding out a year in which underdogs and adventurers got the seal of approval alongside the heavyweights.

[dirac]

A review of Pacific Northwest Balletin "Cinderella" by Alice Kaderlan for seattlepi.com.

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When Kent Stowell, former co-artistic director of PNB, created his Cinderella in 1994, he returned to the ballet’s romantic roots, emphasizing the story’s sweetness. But in doing so, he undermined both Prokofiev’s intent and the emotional depth of the score. Stowell made the stepsisters more merry than mean, the stepmother benign and Cinderella’s plight more an inconvenience than a tragedy. Stowell also fabricated the character of Cinderella’s father, whose presence is gratuitous and unnecessary, especially since he’s given hardly anything to do.

The result of these changes is a light-hearted confection that, like cotton candy, melts almost as soon as it’s consumed.....