pherank Posted June 5, 2019 Share Posted June 5, 2019 (edited) San Francisco Ballet Names Kelly Tweeddale As Executive Director Tweeddale has held previous executive positions at Seattle Opera and currently serves as President of Vancouver Symphony and VSO School of Music. Kelly Tweeddale assumes her new role at San Francisco Ballet on September 3, 2019. https://www.sfballet.org/about/media-center/press-releases/2019_Executive_Director_Tweeddale "...Tweeddale studied with Ruthanna Boris, a former Balanchine protégé as she pursued her degree in Communications and Advertising at the University of Washington. Her first administrative arts role was with an improvisational dance company in the early 1980s that produced impromptu performances long before pop-up performances and flash mobs were a trend." Welcome, and best of luck to Ms. Tweeddale. Edited June 5, 2019 by pherank Link to comment
pherank Posted September 1, 2019 Author Share Posted September 1, 2019 The SF Ballet Blog has an interview with the new Executive Director, Kelly Tweeddale: https://sfballet.blog/2019/in-conversation-with-kelly-tweeddale/ "You have led symphony orchestras and an opera company throughout North America. What is your impression of the ballet world? Even though I’ve spent most of my career in the fields of orchestra and opera, I actually discovered the world of performing arts through dance. I studied ballet in college and worked for an improvisational dance company through a work-study program. The way that ballet seems to defy physics, by being controlled and exuberant at the same time, and how movement connects music with emotion, is something that we all need in an era where our world has become as small as the devices that we hold in our hands. I think dance gives us peripheral vision; it is three-dimensional and almost forces us to look up, take notice, and see what happens beyond our screens and ourselves..." Link to comment
Jack Reed Posted September 6, 2019 Share Posted September 6, 2019 (edited) On 8/31/2019 at 8:47 PM, pherank said: The SF Ballet Blog has an interview with the new Executive Director, Kelly Tweeddale: "... movement connects music with emotion ... look up, take notice, and see what happens beyond our screens and ourselves..." I'm encouraged to see music mentioned by someone who intends to market dance, when I've too often noticed its omission from that context - we're commonly supposed to relate to the dancers' physical effort, although they're normally so good that effort is invisible, or to the ordinariness of their personal lives, or to their choreographer's biography. No, it's important to listen as you watch, to see how the movement connects with the music, as she says. And what's it all for? Watching dance, liking the experience of other art, takes us out of ourselves, it takes us up, to somewhere beyond, at least for a time, but sometimes, to change us permanently. I'd say Tweeddale is on the right track, and I wish her good luck too - especially with finding staff who embrace her enlightened view and do not talk down to the people they bring in. Edited September 6, 2019 by Jack Reed Link to comment
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