Sunday, December 5

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A story on Hong Kong Ballet's Nutcracker by Natasha Rogai in The South China Morning Post.

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As we sit in his cramped office overlooking the company’s Cultural Centre studio in mid-November, Webre says he has achieved one of his main goals – to make Hong Kong Ballet more connected to the city.

“It’s been an important institution for so long, but I didn’t think in everyone’s mind it was a Hong Kong thing … it was a bit isolated, in an ivory tower.”

Soloist Jonathan Spigner says Webre has made the company more accessible, appealing to a new, broader audience and raising its profile with the general public.

 

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An interview with DaYoung Jung of Oklahoma City Ballet.

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"Isn't that crazy that it's my 10th season? I would have never thought it. Ten sounds like it's easy to say, but to be with one company for 10 years ... I just can't believe it," she said. 

"I'm just so honored to be a part of Oklahoma City Ballet's 50th celebration ... and for me as a professional dancer, this 10 years is everything. Who I am, what kind of dancer I am, everything comes from these 10 years." 

 

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Dayton Ballet presents its Nutcracker.

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Accompanied by the Dayton Philharmonic Orchestra under the baton of Neal Gittleman, Tchaikovsky’s iconic music will once again help tell the story of Little Clara, the Nutcracker Prince (or Princess), the Mouse King, Mother Ginger, the beloved holiday party, the beautiful snow forest, the Sugar Plum Fairy and the Land of Sweets.

 

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 A review of Kansas City Ballet by Hilary Stroh for Bachtrack.

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......I love, for instance, the sideshow of the elderly couple in the ballroom scene. Suddenly, we get it – it’s Christmas and there are always embarrassing elderly relatives in attendance, tipsy from start to finish, coughing and spluttering, and wiping off steamed-up spectacles so as to fondly watch the young ones, nodding off on sofas and breathing noisily, full of aches and pains and blithe doddery goodwill... even permitting themselves a bit of dancing. Every detail was beautifully observed and marvelously comic. I took time off from looking at the main scene, to look towards Kelsey Ivana Hellebuyck's grandmother in all her benign aged foolishness. What marvelous acting. That’s great stage-work, when there’s narrative detail everywhere on stage, for anyone who cares to see............