A journey to ballet geekdom
Last weekend I zipped down to L.A. to watch two (of three) programs of BalletNow, a mini-festival headed by star dancers Herman Cornejo and Roberto Bolle. Below are my collected tweets! Continue reading “BalletNow”
Great work is going on at Ballet in Cleveland! One of many sentiments that I appreciate from the video is that guys are “our partners.” How true on so many levels… we all work and dance together!
Guys Dance Too educates, supports, and empowers males in the art of dance. It frees the minds and potential of male dancers and all who aspire to be one. It breaks down gender barriers and stereotypes and creates opportunities for self-expression for all through dance.
Read more on the Guys Dance Too initiative at Ballet in Cleveland’s website.
I only just recently heard about Mananayaw (Tagalog for dancer), a Filipino documentary that focuses on four male ballet dancers associated with Ballet Philippines. I hope to get to see it someday! (And I’m especially interested as my ethnic heritage is Filipino, and I’m fascinated to see ballet in the homeland.)
Four danseurs, one passion: Zooming in on the narratives of four male dancers, who were produced by Ballet Philippines, one of the country’s top professional ballet companies, Mananayaw teases out the dance careers of four generations of Filipino male ballet dancers: Nonoy Froilan, JM Cordero, Biag Gaongen, and Victor Maguad.
Read more and watch a clip at GMA News.
Dapper dancers for sure! Check out this fashion shoot featuring New York City Ballet’s Zachary Catazaro and Joshua Thew, directed by Bon Duke with choreography by Troy Schumacher, leading off the new men’s style section of the New York Times.
See also the behind-the-scenes video.
Ballet San Jose’s Joshua Seibel has some strong advice for young dancers: never let anyone tell you what you can’t do. Seibel should know. Years of ear trouble—and multiple surgeries—have left Seibel mostly deaf. ‘People probably don’t realize I should technically be wearing hearing aids,’ he says. But Seibel’s partial deafness hasn’t stopped him from dancing. This season, he was even promoted to soloist at Ballet San Jose.
Read more at Ballet San Jose’s blog.
I picked up the March 2015 issue of Details a while back for the ballet fashion spread including some of my favorite danseurs, and am remiss in sharing it only just now. Enjoy!
“This season, it wasn’t a stretch for designers to find inspiration in the dance world. The result is a fresh take on tees, tanks, and crisp white button-downs—layered or worn separately, with ultralight trousers—that truly raises the barre.”
Interesting: according to my site stats, someone came to my blog via the search string “length of sf ballet program 1.” Good question!
The running time including intermission(s) for San Francisco Ballet programs can be found on their website on each program page. For example, Program 1’s total running time is 2 hours 25 minutes with two intermissions, shown here. If you want a further time breakdown of each program, check out their press kits as they become available.
When I go out to watch ballet, my first question of course is… which bow tie to wear? As Serenade was on the program, the clear answer is:
Which bow tie to wear to @sfballet Program 1? Blue for #Serenade. #balanchine #dapper
— Jeff Tabaco (@jefftabaco) January 31, 2015
Tweetup at the San Francisco Ballet with @jefftabaco and @dancingfoodie 🙂 pic.twitter.com/43TG2kwF3K
— Lorry Trujillo Perez (@Bead_109) January 31, 2015
Continue reading “Serenade, RAkU, Lambarena: SF Ballet Program 1”
Just a quick recap: last week Thom and I went to San Francisco Ballet’s opening gala, which celebrates Helgi Tomasson’s 30th year as artistic director. It was a finely tuned program with something for everyone (see below), ranging from classic pas de deux to abstract new work, and even a Paris Opera Ballet-like défilé that showed off the entire company and school in one family portrait.
Continue reading “Infinite Romance: San Francisco Ballet gala 2015”
Here are my collected tweets from last Sunday’s performance of San Francisco Ballet Program 7, which included Criss-Cross (Helgi Tomasson), Francesca da Rimini (Yuri Possokhov), and Symphony in Three Movements (George Balanchine).
It was principal dancer Pierre-François Vilanoba’s retirement performance; my San Francisco Ballet season subscription is regularly on Fridays, but for Program 7 I changed to this performance especially to see him dance and bid him farewell. Before the performance he did the Meet the Artist interview with Cheryl Ossola:
Continue reading “Light and dark: San Francisco Ballet Program 7”