Monday, December 6

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A review of the Joffrey Ballet by Hedy Weiss for WTTW.

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Jose Pablo Castro Cuevas is full of life as the Nutcracker who does battle with the rat catcher turned Rat King (winningly portrayed by Temur Suluashvili). And Suluashvili returns later to partner the ever-astonishingly flexible Victoria Jaiani in the seductive Arabian dance pas de deux (one of the several “international divertissements” of the fair) that simply brought the house down.

 

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Ticket sales looking good for Lone Star Ballet's Nutcracker.

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According to Henderson, as of Dec. 5, this year's production has surpassed the 2019 ticket sales record and has limited ticket options available.........

“Last year, when we didn’t get to do 'The Nutcracker', we were afraid that people were going to get used to not going, and not make a big effort to try and come to it again, but it's been the opposite,” Wallace said. “We thought this was something we don’t want to go away, and because everything that we didn’t have last year, people are excited to get back to something traditional like this.”

 

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A review of Georgina Pazcoguin's "Swan Dive" by Claudia Bauer for DanceTabs.

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Along with backstage shenanigans, wild times on tour, all-night benders with company comrades, and some hilariously unfortunate wardrobe malfunctions, she describes several of her swan dives – the onstage trips, falls, and ass-over-teakettle face plants that every dancer dreads. And of course, no ballet book would be complete without a litany of complaints about dancing The Nutcracker (yes, we know it’s tiring and boring, but show me the job that doesn’t entail it’s portion of mind-numbing drudgery and a requirement to generate revenue). Pazcoguin eventually found personal and artistic salvation performing in Broadway musicals, and those passages are among the book’s most compelling.

 

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Marjorie Tallchief has died at age 95.

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Tallchief then became the first American and Native American to be “première danseuse étoile,” the highest rank a dancer can reach in the Paris Opera Ballet.