Barbara Bears

[AmaG520]

I have had Mrs. Bears as a teacher when I was in Houston last year, and I was seeing if anyoen has seen her dance.....I have wanted to, but seeing as I live in Arizona, its hard to see any HB performance! Anyone a fan?

[Old Fashioned]

Barbara Bears is one of my favorite dancers. Unfortunately, you won't get many replies since there aren't too many HB fans here, but for those who do watch the company on a regular basis can attest to her talents. I believe she used to be a student of Victoria Leigh's. Bears may not be the flashiest dancer, but her understated elegance and classicism are what make her such a standout. She left the company for awhile to raise a child and most of us thought it was a permanent retirement until Stanton Welch asked her to dance again. IMO, that's one of the best things that has happened to this company in recent years, bringing back such a gifted and much missed ballerina. After her comeback, she was even better than what I remembered of her; there seemed to be an added dimension, more maturity, to her dancing. Perhaps it has something to do with one's changes in real life, and it makes me wonder why more dancers don't have children.

[Victoria Leigh]

Thank you, Old Fashioned! It's always very special for me to read such lovely things about "my child"! Both Barbara Bears and Dawn Scannell were like my own children, and now they both have babies of their own, so, that makes me a Grandmother! And I love it! They were both trained during the 6 years that I had my own school, with my partner, Jim Franklin, in Florida. We had Barbara from age 11 and Dawn from age 12. They both went into Houston Ballet at 16, Dawn as an apprentice and then into the company in three months, and Barbara with one year in the school and then directly to company, skipping apprentice. They did their corps years, then soloist, and both became principal dancers. Barbara is back full time as a dancer, and Dawn, who now lives in Florida and teaches for Ballet Florida, travels to Houston frequently to help stage works that she danced.

We had an amazing amount of talent during the brief 6 years in our Academy down there, and we had a number of students who danced professionally. Some are also teaching, and one has become a well known choreographer in Florida. We are still very close to many of them, and very proud of all of them, including the ones who are now lawyers, engineers and doctors!

[AmaG520]

I'm so glad to find two people who appreciate her as much as I do. Ms. Leigh, I didn't know she trained with you! I wish I could have seen her dance while I was at HB, but I have seen pictures.

[sierra]

Hi,

I hope its okay for me to be posting this.

This message board is pretty amazing; the people here especially the Moderators are so knowledgeable.

I was hoping that some of you here would be willing to drop in on another message board -- periodically, to share some of your amazing insights and expertise about ballet?

It's just a tiny board, but the people there are really nice and ambitious and serious about dance, and it would be so wonderful if the experts here, including the Moderators, could pop in every now and then.

Why not just come here? We do. But this board is like a grand Opera House. It's huge and some of us were simply trying to establish a teeny tiny "island" to share thouhts on a less daunting scale.

So, if it's okay with any of you. I hope you will drop in?

Thanks so much for your time!

Love,

Sierra

Oh, the address is:

www.dancerslounge.blogspot.com

you just need to remember

dancerslounge.blogspot

Type that into your browser's address box and press Control EnterKey and your browser will fill in the rest of the address. That makes it easy to remeber.

[Victoria Leigh]

Hello Sierra, welcome to Ballet Talk, and thank you for your lovely words about our site. I'm not sure about the moderators on Ballet Talk, but I know that Ballet Talk for Dancers consumes every bit of time that I have available online. I also don't think that we want to be sending our moderators and posters to another board, as of course we would prefer to have you all come here. Have you been to Ballet Talk for Dancers, which is the "sister board" to Ballet Talk? I really don't think that it is that big or confusing, and we have forums for Young Dancers in two different age groups, plus a Pointe Shoe forum, and, after you have been on the board a couple of weeks and have enough posts, you can be admitted to the Buddy Board, where you can talk to other dancers. Check it out http://www.dancers.invisionzone.com

[boydancer05]

She's one of the most beautiful dancers I have ever seen

[sierra]

Hello Sierra, welcome to Ballet Talk.....

Dear Victoria Leigh,

Thank you soooo much for your very very kind welcome! :blush:

Actually, you were one of the people I was thinking of when I said that people here at "Ballet Alert" are so knowledgeable, and have so much expertise about ballet and about dance.

I wanted to PM you to say Thanks, and originally I wanted to PM people about "my message", but I could not because the system won't permit me for some reason.

Thanks again, Victoria!

P.S. I'm not sure what "wub" means, for that pink smiley thingy but it's the only one that isn't yellow and its sort of cute and I like it --- so.

Love,

sierra

[Ari]

I wanted to PM you to say Thanks, and originally I wanted to PM people about "my message", but I could not because the system won't permit me for some reason.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Sierra, you need to be a full member before you can PM other members. It takes 30 substantive posts to be considered a full member.

[Old Fashioned]

Although it's not much, here's a link to a lovely picture of her as Giselle:

http://www.houstonballet.org/Ticketing_Sch...lendar/Giselle/

It's disappointing how few online images there are of HB dancers. I can't find a single decent one- at least one large enough to see details- of the legendary Janie Parker. Someone want to do a mass e-mail to Ballerina Gallery and ask the site owner to add Houston ballerinas?

[AmaG520]

I thought Houston Ballet's web site would at least have a photo gallery, I was surprised when they didn't. I wish they would...thank you !

[Marenetha]

Oh, I do like Barbara Bears. She has such lovely line .... She's so nice, too!

It really would be nice if ballerinagallery could get some Houston photos - of Janie Parker, Barbara Bears, Lauren Anderson, and perhaps Mireille Hassenboehler. They seem to be trying to diversify lately - maybe?