News
"The Devil Ties My Tongue" SKETCH Series 2013 | photo: David DeSilva
"The Devil Ties My Tongue" SKETCH Series 2013 | photo: David DeSilva
Up to date announcements of company seasons, featured artists and special programming as well as grant of awards such as Princess Grace, or artistic appointments
By Joshua Kosman
6 January 2020
Helgi Tomasson will step down as artistic director and principal choreographer of the San Francisco Ballet by June 2022, the company announced Wednesday, Jan. 6. The move will put the seal on nearly four decades of artistic leadership that has helped propel the ballet company to the forefront of the dance world.
Since being named to the position in 1985, Tomasson, 78, has been hailed for his success at combining excellence in the classical ballet repertoire with a spirit of artistic innovation and the development of new work. Tomasson alone has created more than 50 dances for the company, as well as commissioning work from a wide range of contemporary masters and developing artists. Meanwhile, the technical level of execution on display at the War Memorial Opera House has made S.F. Ballet a beacon both nationally and internationally.
Six years ago, in an interview with The Chronicle, Tomasson waved away the prospect of retirement, saying he was too busy to even think about the possibility. But now, he says, the Ballet is well-positioned to forge ahead with a new chapter in its 88-year history — and he and his wife, Marlene, are eager to spend more time with family, including their two grandchildren in Germany.
“This had been on my mind for a while, even before the pandemic,” he said in a video interview over Zoom. “And as I assess where we are now, I feel the company has come through this very well.
“We’ve been rehearsing since September. We were able to create three new ballets and film them for streaming. That’s quite an accomplishment.”
Read the full article here.
Children of all abilities glide from page to stage with the likes of American Ballet Theater and New York City Ballet pros.
Written by Nancy Bo Flood
Illustrated by Julianna Swaney
“I want to dance, but I can hardly move.”
In “I Will Dance,” Nancy Bo Flood parts the curtain on the life of a girl who was born with cerebral palsy and expected to live “one minute, maybe two, not 10 years of minutes.” Our young narrator — succinct, soulful and sitting in a wheelchair — cannot blow out the candles on her birthday cake. “Not enough strength.” But she has a wish: She wants to dance.
Any book that opens a child’s imagination to the art of movement is something I can get behind, but “I Will Dance” does more: It puts us in this child’s chair, in her tiny yearning body and in her mind, which is mobile and alive. When she speaks, what strikes you is her brevity. It’s as if she has no time to waste on unnecessary words. She is so soft-spoken, yet so firm. It’s not that she wants to dance, it’s that she will.
Of five new children’s dance books, “I Will Dance” is the only one to move away from ballet (once the unrequited birthday wish is divulged). That’s brave; as anyone with a child knows, tutus sell. But this approach is not the only thing that sets it apart: It’s also the details. Our heroine is so smitten with dance that a poster of Martha Graham in “Appalachian Spring” hangs next to her bed. This kills me. Still, when she learns of an audition for Young Dance (a real organization devoted to dancers of all abilities), she is racked by self-doubt: “I am safe in my steel chair, stationary wheels, a motor, me.” At the studio, dancers are arranged in a circle and told to “pass the touch.” The teacher, after kicking a leg behind her in a graceful arc, bends toward the girl and touches her fingers. “Something inside me changes.” As the chain continues, we see the power and harmony that builds from dancing bodies in Julianna Swaney’s illustrations, which glide across the page lending innocence to lightness, effervescence to urgency. “I Will Dance” rides on the sensation of movement; it’s simple yet sophisticated.
B IS FOR BALLET
A Dance Alphabet
Written by John Robert Allman
Illustrated by Rachael Dean
But can a more conventional book on the world of ballet lead a child to do more than, say, wear a tutu to school? Two collaborations with American Ballet Theater try, though neither sparkles. “B Is for Ballet,” by John Robert Allman, with illustrations by Rachael Dean, takes young readers through the alphabet, starting with A for arabesque. It is full of images of Ballet Theater dancers past and present, but they look like their aspirational Bitmojis rather than the actual people. And in a career as ageist as ballet, it’s disheartening to see Alessandra Ferri, one of the greatest dramatic ballerinas of all time, relegated to the letter I, as in “ice bath” for “soothing tired, tattered feet. After promenades in pointe shoes, relaxation can’t be beat.”
…
WELCOME TO BALLET SCHOOL
Written by Ashley Bouder
Illustrated by Julia Bereciartu
In “Welcome to Ballet School,” Bouder, a principal dancer at New York City Ballet, pays homage to her former teacher, the celebrated Marcia Dale Weary. Julia Bereciartu’s illustrations capture her charmingly, from her trademark blond bangs to her sensible skirt and cardigan. The scene is the first day of class for a diverse group of young people, including Violet, Bouder’s daughter in the book and in life. During the second half of the class, Bouder shows up to teach them sections of “Sleeping Beauty.” As they work their way through ballet positions, the children are given playful facial expressions by Bereciartu: Tongues stick out when steps become complicated; hilarious frozen smiles appear when they try to balance. Through it all, “Welcome” takes ballet seriously. Bouder explains ballet terminology with diagrams that resemble those in a training manual. (My younger self would have eaten it up.) She also moves beyond steps to the heart of dancing. When Violet topples over while stretching her leg high in a grand battement, Weary tells her, “It is better to try our hardest and fall down than to not try at all.” It’s something of an inside joke. Bouder, a dancer known for her virtuosity and daring, has delivered splendid crashes at City Ballet. And the message is correct: A fall is a sign that a dancer is going for it.
Read the full list from the New York Times here.
By Melissa R. Klapper
21 December 2020
But the story of “The Nutcracker” in America is a story of innovation. And the same creative spirit that will help Americans re-create at least a little of this treasured ritual can help revitalize the ballet for generations to come. “The Nutcracker” was not always beloved, nor was it always associated with the holiday season. When it premiered in Russia in 1892, hopes were high for a ballet created by the same team — composer Peter Tchaikovsky and choreographer Marius Petipa, this time with the aid of his assistant Lev Ivanov — that had so successfully ushered “Sleeping Beauty” to the stage two years earlier. But Tchaikovsky himself thought the new ballet was “infinitely worse” than “Sleeping Beauty,” and the critical and audience reception was lukewarm. “The Nutcracker” was only sporadically revived over the next few decades. Some Americans had a chance to see a condensed version staged by the Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo in the 1940s on the company’s many cross-country tours, and Disney’s “Fantasia” helped popularize the music. But it wasn’t until 1944 that the San Francisco Ballet performed the first full-length “Nutcracker” in the United States.
Read the full article here.
3 December 2020
The Virginia B. Toulmin Foundation has created a new program between the Center for Ballet and the Arts at NYU and National Sawdust to foster collaboration between women composers and choreographers with the aim of creating new works in the virtual medium.
The Virginia B. Toulmin Foundation today announced the creation of a new program to foster collaboration between women composers and choreographers with the aim of creating new works in the virtual medium. The $300,000 gift supports a one-year partnership between National Sawdust and The Center for Ballet and the Arts at NYU (CBA). Beginning in November 2020, the program supports 45 appointed women choreographers and composers to help develop their skills, create and present new work, and build a community of like-minded artists that will enhance their careers. At least half of the participating women represent BIWOC (Black, Indigenous, and Women of Color) communities.
Alexander Sanger, a Trustee of the Toulmin Foundation, on behalf of his fellow trustees, William Villafranco and Walter Montaign, said: “In this time when live stage performance is not possible, composers and choreographers need to explore new ways to create, collaborate and present their work. Creating for the virtual world is fundamentally different than creating for the stage and involves skills and partnering in the fields of film, sound, set design, lighting and computer technology that are in many cases new for the choreographer or composer. This program aims to fill that need. Further, the program will continue the Foundation’s efforts to bring increased diversity and support a wide range of talents in the performing arts. Mrs. Toulmin, a passionate supporter of the performing arts, believed in fairness and equity for all women, and we are proud to carry on her legacy.”
This appointed program will feature five “Toulmin Fellows” and forty “Toulmin Creators”. Each will receive a package of financial, intellectual, and creative resources to support development of new work.
The five Toulmin Fellows will spend the winter in residence at The Center for Ballet and the Arts and the spring at National Sawdust, building toward participation in National Sawdust’s Digital Discovery Festival (DDF). They will receive financial support, office and studio space, and access to videographers, sound engineers, AV equipment and marketing support. Each fellow will be paired with a carefully selected mentor who will support their creative processes throughout the year.
Read the full announcement here.
By Erica Gonzalez
17 December 2020
Ballerina Melanie Hamrick wanted to do something to help the dance community months into a pandemic that put many of them out of work. “I hate seeing my friends and colleagues not getting to dance,” she tells BAZAAR.com. After lockdowns and social distancing measures were introduced this year, live performances went on hiatus. Prestigious companies like the New York City Ballet and the American Ballet Theatre had to close for the season. But Hamrick also thought about the audience members who wouldn’t be able to watch their favorite performances in person, especially during the holidays. “How can we also help them?” she thought.
The former ABT ballerina teamed up with ABT principal dancer Christine Shevchenko and choreographer Joanna DeFelice to produce a unique performance during the COVID-19 pandemic that gave dancers a chance to work while adhering to health and safety guidelines. Through their new production company, Live Arts Global, they created A Night at the Ballet, which features dancers from a variety of troupes: ABT, New York City Ballet, San Francisco Ballet, Alvin Ailey, Dance Theater of Harlem, and even Mariinsky Theatre of St. Petersburg, Russia.
The one-hour streaming event goes live on YouTube on Live Arts Global’s channel starting at 7 p.m. ET on December 17, and lasts through December 20. The set will include pieces from The Nutcracker, Romeo & Juliet, Don Quixote, and more. And it’s completely free to watch; though, they’re asking for donations to benefit the performers and crew of the production.
While many dance companies are already showing virtual online performances to make up for their closed seasons, A Night at the Ballet was produced entirely during the coronavirus era rather than using footage from older performances. But that’s where the challenge came in: How does one do that safely?
Read the full article here.
By Nicole Duffy Robertson
10 December 2020
What makes a ballet a classic? Is it earning a permanent place in the history books, or is it being worthy of the Herculean investment of hours in the studio, the tireless work of the dancers and coaches, the resources, media and marketing machine required to bring it to life, or both? Who decides, and more importantly, what goes into that calculus? Today the re-evaluation of the Western theatrical dance canon continues as ballet and modern dance are challenged in the academy.[1] In concert dance, these questions are a matter of survival: the performed repertory consists mostly of “classics” and “new work,” and everything else tends to disappear. So, the question of what makes a dance a classic, i.e., a dance worth remembering, either by restaging or through written discourse, takes on a bigger significance.[2]
Two works by the founders of the Joffrey Ballet, Robert Joffrey’s Astarte (1967) and Gerald Arpino’s Light Rain (1981), provide a lens for exploring the question of what qualifies as a “classic,” while also addressing ideas about shifting cultural definitions of violence, taste, and timelessness. A closer look at these works may complicate our ideas of what dances should survive, be studied, and/or be performed. These ballets exist outside of conventional ballet’s classic/canonic paradigm, in part because of their sexually explicit, “anti-balletic” underpinnings.[3] First as a dancer, and now in my work as a répétiteur for the Gerald Arpino Foundation, and as a co-founder and director of New York Dance Project, I continually wrestle with these questions. Which dances to teach, pass on, and present to the public is not a trivial matter for our art form.
Each of these ballets has a different sort of existence today: Astarte is in the dance history books, and Light Rain lives onstage. One is for the most part critically respected, while the other tends to be dismissed. But there is another reason I propose that these ballets have significance beyond their roles in ballet history and performance: they provide an essential bridge from foundational “classical ballet” training (the particular methodology or school is irrelevant) to understanding and mastering key elements of the current, multi-genre contemporary dance world. In other words, these ballets persist, whether as classics or “in the canon” or not, based on their unique pedagogical value, for both dancers and audiences.
Ballet canonicity has been largely determined by success in institutional promotion and financing, coupled with plentiful support from the critical establishment. For example, Royal Ballet founder Ninette de Valois’s astute creation of a “ballet tradition” in the 1930s (with the help of Arnold Haskell’s writing)[4] and George Balanchine’s unassailable status (protected by Lincoln Kirstein, the Balanchine Trust, and the New York City Ballet) continue to survive and thrive through uninterrupted institutional support and critical writing. These two main drivers of ballet survival (the institution and critical attention) create a somewhat narrow discourse that keeps a firm grip on what gets performed, and therefore have an outsized influence on the creative direction of ballet today.
Read the full article here.
From Hacks the Newsletter
By Alyssa Rapp
I have the fondest of lifelong memories of a ritual of going to see the Joffrey’s Nutcracker ballet or The Goodman Theater’s A Christmas Carol (streaming on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day here!)as a child growing up in Chicago, and later, as a parent with children of her own.
It was shared love of dance, shared battle wounds as MBA women and moms managing organizations, and more, my deep admiration for her charisma and capacity as a leader that sparked my friendship with Kara Medoff Barnett, the indomitable executive director of American Ballet Theatre. It is because of Kara that I agreed to join ABT’s Global Council. While the memories of taking Audrey and Henriette to see ABT kids performances at the Harris Theater or Whipped Cream ballet’s premiere cannot be relived in person in 2020, the nostalgia, beauty, and flawlessness that characterize ABT’s virtual Nutcracker performance is a close second. (Find an excerpt here on YouTube!)
For this week’s Hacks Newsletter, we gain ABT Executive Superstar Kara Medoff Barnett’s leadership hacks, about what’s it’s been like to lead America’s national ballet company through this pandemic – and to what she looks forward to in 2021.
AJR: Our family tradition has included going to the Nutcracker, and in more recent years, also traveling to see ABT’s “Whipped Cream” full-length fairytale. How are you bringing these seasonal greats to audiences virtually amidst Covid-19?
KMB: ABT’s Nutcracker production includes over 100 performers on the stage and close to 100 people behind the scenes, even before you add thousands of children and families in the audience. Clearly, live performances at epic scale are not happening this holiday season.
Instead, we are exploring the most powerful ways to share the magic of ballet on digital platforms. For The Nutcracker, we created a short film of the pas de deux between Clara and the Prince. With the help of our partners at Matador Content and LG Signature, we shot ABT principal dancers Isabella Boylston and James Whiteside in 8K, and we premiered the film on a billboard in Times Square as a gift to New Yorkers this holiday season.
In more normal years, ABT performs The Nutcracker—created by MacArthur Genius and ABT Artist in Residence Alexei Ratmanksy, with costumes and sets by Lion King designer Richard Hudson—for audiences in Orange County, California. This year, we’ve shared a climactic highlight of the production – for free—with millions of fans on a variety of digital platforms (billboards, YouTube, etc.). I think that screen fatigue is real, and ten minutes of extraordinary artistry is the perfect dose of holiday joy.
During the pandemic, we’ve focused on commissioning and creating new work in Covid-safe, NBA-style “ballet bubbles” for dancers and choreographers. In 2021, we’ll continue to build on this experience with additional bubbles and collaborations for digital capture and distribution. We’ll also rehearse and film excerpts from several of our beloved classics, deploying cutting edge technology to vivify these performances in ways that will dazzle audiences. We’ll explore and share the behind-the-scenes narratives and human stories of ABT’s extraordinary artist-athletes in docuseries and podcasts. And we’ll present live performances to safely distanced outdoor audiences in communities nationwide, sharing ballet with families who might not have access to digital devices and high-speed internet, as well as individuals across America who have been staring at screens for far too long.
AJR: What has been the biggest “silver lining” and learning opportunity for you personally as the Executive Director of American’s National Ballet company throughout the pandemic?
KMB: The biggest silver lining in my family life has been daily dinner with my parents, husband, and children (and sometimes my siblings). As the leader of an arts organization, I’m usually out in the evenings attending performances and events. It’s nice to spend more time barefoot and less time in high heels, more time reading bedtime stories and less time sitting in traffic on my way to Times Square or Lincoln Center.
Subscribe to the newsletter here.
Learn more about ABT here.
Instead of streaming the same old Nutcrackers this year, we’d recommend exploring something outside the usual male-choreographed, big city productions…
By Chandra Thomas Whitfield, For the AJC
Karla Tyson, 32, remembers well the early days of her ballet training when she and fellow young dance students performed in the ensemble cast of Atlanta-based Ballethnic Dance Company’s “The Urban Nutcracker.”
Her favorite part of each performance of the African American-inspired and Atlanta-focused adaptation of the classic Tchaikovsky ballet was when prima ballerina Nena Gilreath would take to the stage as Brown Sugar, with her husband and fellow lead, Waverly Lucas, as the handsome Chocolatier at her side.
The sight of Gilreath twirling gracefully across the stage in a rust, marigold and chocolate-colored tutu ensemble, her mahogany-colored skin glistening under the stage lights, would literally take her breath away. The standing ovations and encores audience members gifted Gilreath afterward, Tyson remembers, were “definitely inspiring.” She says it was validating and made her believe as an African American, I can be a ballerina too.
“Watching her, I definitely knew I wanted to do ballet,” recalls Tyson, a Henry County resident. “I wanted to be just like Ms. Nena.”
This month in her fifth reprisal in the lead role, Tyson, a Ballethnic graduate, hopes to recapture some of that same “Black ballerina magic” that Gilreath so effortlessly commanded during her 13-year tenure. For the first time, the signature production was recorded at the Legacy Theatre in Alpharetta without a live audience and streamed virtuallySaturday, Dec. 19 at 7:30 p.m. It’s yet another COVID-19 casualty that forced the cancellation of all previously planned festivities in celebration of Ballethnic, metro Atlanta’s first and only African American-founded “classically trained, culturally diverse” school. It’s the professional dance company’s 30th anniversary year, which officially wraps up Jan. 15.
Read the full story here.
By Laura Cappelle
12 November 2020
Not many 23-year-olds get commissioned by the Paris Opéra Ballet. For Tess Voelker, who grew up between Chicago and New Jersey before moving to Europe to start her dance career, 2020 has turned into an unexpectedly charmed year: In addition to getting a contract as a dancer with Nederlands Dans Theater, she created a pas de deux, Clouds Inside, for POB corps members Marion Gautier de Charnacé and Antonin Monié, as part of a contemporary-choreographers’ evening.
While a second national lockdown in France means the November performances have been canceled, Clouds Inside will still get an audience. On November 13, the Paris Opéra Ballet will stream a closed performance of Voelker’s work, along with creations by Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui and Mehdi Kerkouche, on Facebook Live at 8 pm Paris time for €4,49. (Tickets are not available in the U.S.)
Pointe recently spoke with Voelker to learn more about how she landed this remarkable opportunity.
How did this collaboration with POB come about?
It all started with the social media world during quarantine. I rented a yoga studio down the street and I kept publishing lots of improv videos on Instagram. And one day, a dancer said he’d found my account thanks to Aurélie Dupont [Paris Opera Ballet’s artistic director]. I sent her a message to say it was an honor. She asked me if I ever choreographed, and I said no.
Then a few months later, I get a call from her. Due to coronavirus reasons, they were having a smaller show and she thought to use this time to reach out to more risky artists. I certainly am a risk, and I’m a cheap risk, too [laughs].
Read the full story here.
Reach out to us to learn more about our mission.
"The Devil Ties My Tongue" SKETCH Series 2013 | photo: David DeSilva