8 replies to this topic

[dirac]

The board president of Ballet Kelowna explains the decision to shut down the company. (Scroll down.)

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“The really disappointing thing the mayor pointed out at council is that we can’t get the bums in the seats at Kelowna Community Theatre,” explained Maw, who estimates they only sell between 20-25 per cent of the seats at the Kelowna Community Theatre on a given night.

During their fall performance of Double Variations, Ballet Kelowna only sold 343 full price tickets when there were 1,600 potential seats available. This was a slight increase over the preceding fall schedule, but still discouraging when the company sold over 460 seats to Affairs of the Heart five years before.

[dirac]

A story on the return of Tamara Rojo and Sergei Polunin to perform with the Royal Ballet by Roslyn Sulcas in The New York Times.

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Just as the shock of Mr. Polunin’s departure was fading, Ms. Rojo announced that she too was leaving. Her reason was rather more considered—she had been appointed the new director of the English National Ballet—although there had been rumors that she, too, was dissatisfied at the Royal Ballet. “It was clear her wings had been officially clipped,” wrote Luke Jennings of the ballerina’s last few months with the company, in last weekend’s “Observer.”

[dirac]

Q&A with W. Earle Smith, the artistic director of Madison Ballet, about the company's "Dracula."

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And how about costumes?
The story takes place in the late 1800s. That genre is all about corsets and high necks and long skirts—now, that’s not very conducive to ballet!

I started pulling imagery, looks from the internet that were appealing—looks from Van Helsing, imagery from avant garde fashion, just really bizarre stuff. My costume designer said, “What about steampunk?” I said, What is that?” That was three years ago, and now the whole production design is steampunk.

[dirac]

Vienna State Opera Ballet photo gallery.

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The state ballet performed during a dress rehearsal for the premiere of the ballet "Windspiele" (wind chimes) by choreographer Patrick de Bana at the state opera in Vienna.

[dirac]

A review of Les Ballets Trockadero de Monte Carlo by Sarah Scott for The Advertiser.

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The show is playful with the genre of classical dance, while clearly being in love with the medium. The company are all highly talented ballet dancers.

However, I don’t know if the staid lighting and a filthy stage floor were satirical, or just laziness.

[dirac]

Further on the closing of Ballet Kelowna.

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Contrary to what many think, the decision was a long time coming, Maw said in an interview Thursday. Laying off eight dancers who tour the province on behalf of the city is "dreadful, horrible," he said.

"We did have a death in the family and it's absolutely heart-rending for the entire board. This is a Sophie's Choice decision and it went over Christmas right through to today . . . What we really regret is some of the bullying tactics taking place." Critics have written scathing letters to the editor and complained bitterly about the company's termination.

[dirac]

Colorado Ballet performs Glen Tetley's "The Rite of Spring."

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The 2013 "Ballet MasterWorks" program also includes George Balanchine's "Theme and Variations," performed to the final movement of Tchaikovsky's Suite No. 3 for Orchestra. The piece is no small matter, calling for 26 dancers and giving the company a rare chance to show it can meet the challenge of ballet's premier neo-classical choreographer.

[dirac]

A memoir of and a new book about dancer Miriam Golden by Ellen Ziegler. Photos and video.

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My mother took the stage name Miriam Golden when she began dancing with Philadelphia’s Littlefield Ballet as a teenager. She moved to New York to join Balanchine’s Ballet Caravan; when Ballet Theatre (now ABT) was founded in 1940, Miriam joined as a principal dancer. At 20 years old, she’d become a prima ballerina in what was to be American Ballet Theatre, America’s national ballet company.

In 1941, the new company was invited to be in residence for a year at the Palace of Fine Arts in Mexico City. There, Miriam met the comedian, actor and bullfighter Mario Moreno Reyes, also known as Cantinflas.

[dirac]

An interview with Alexei Ratmansky.

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Ratmansky is in the perfect position to pin down such fine details. Though he trained at the Bolshoi school, he was not taken into the company as a dancer, instead forging a performing career that took him to Ukraine (where he met his wife), Canada and Denmark.

Now 42, he danced until he was 34 – vital, he says, for learning stagecraft. But he knew early in life that he wanted to choreograph. ‘It was when I realised I wasn’t the best dancer in the class,’ he laughs. ‘Then I found something I could be best at.’ When Alexei Ratmansky says it, it doesn’t sound like boasting.