Ballet // Current

A Tragic Ballerina Dances Again, Her Shoes Now Redder Than Ever

MadKeesler
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19 days ago
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All-Male Ballet Performance

Photographs of New York-based all-male ballet company The Trocks performing at the... more

ebindelglass
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1 month ago
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Trolly Dances- SF

Climb aboard the J-Church Muni Metro to discover San Francisco's diverse dance... more

amaness
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1 month ago
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United Kingdom Talk Video Saturday 10th October 2009

Saturday's edition of my three times a week talk show.Watch the show here on CURRENT... more

ChrisReardon
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1 month ago
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Meet The Vampire's Assistant: Chris Massoglia

Get to know the modest star of "Cirque du Freak: A Vampire's Assistant"

chapinyoung
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1 month ago
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One last dance with Patrick Swayze

"Before he was an actor, Patrick Swayze was a ballet dancer. He began at his mother's dance school in Texas, and went on to study at the Joffrey and Harkness ballet schools in New York before performing with the Eliot Feld ballet. He turned to acting because of an old knee injury (from football), but his first film role, in Skatetown USA (1979), was nevertheless a dancing one: gang leader Ace Johnson, king of the roller disco.

In his breakthrough film, Dirty Dancing (1987), he also played a dancer: rough diamond Johnny Castle, a dance teacher at a middle-American holiday camp, in a story about sex – a teenage girl's first experience – and, powerfully, about romance. It was his most iconic role and most successful film, with an enduring cross-generational appeal to its largely female fan base.

Swayze's dance training was central to his heart-throb appeal. In Dirty Dancing, dance is clearly used as a metaphor for sex: young Frances "Baby" Houseman (Jennifer Grey) learns how to dance with Johnny, and as they come together as a dancing couple, they become a sexual one too. For that to work at all it's not enough that Swayze looks really buff (OK, it's a big factor): he has to establish a physical rapport on the dance floor, otherwise we won't believe it's there in the bedroom. Dance training is vital for that. Compare Swayze's slow-burn smoulder with, say, Arnold Schwarzenegger's graceless fumblings in True Lies. Arnie is going through the motions and so his partner has to do the same; Swayze and Grey are coming together.

That's a potent, romantic fantasy, and again I think Swayze's dance background is pivotal, because he has learned how to partner. The male-female duet is a cornerstone of ballet. The man attends to the woman, supports her, facilitates her, lifts her, frames her. Something similar happens in ballroom and Latin dancing, although the nuances are different. Traditionally the man leads and the woman follows, but control isn't the objective: as with a ballet pas de deux, he is the ground against which she shines.

Look at Swayze in Dirty Dancing, and you can see that attentiveness, that focus: his "hungry eyes" fixed on hers, his concentration on her performance. It's both powerfully romantic and deeply sexy, and Swayze clinches it not because of his acting but because he learned dance partnering.

Swayze played the romantic lead in his other best-remembered movie, Ghost (1990), which also has a devoted female fanbase. This isn't a dance film, but its iconic sexy scene (the one with the wet clay) is certainly a musical number. And again I'd say that Swayze brings into play his dance-partnering sensibilities to portray a man so focused on his partner that he remains attentive even after his own death.""Before he was an actor, Patrick Swayze was a ballet dancer. He began at his mother's... more

St_Alia_10191
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2 months ago
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5 comments

British teen lands place in Bolshoi ballet school

16-year-old Natalie Carter is only the fourth British dancer to ever be offered a... more

abbym0308
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3 months ago
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7 comments

Opening In Chicago, Billy Elliot Plans To Stay

"“Billy Elliot,” the smash-hit London and Broadway musical about a young coal miner’s boy who uses ballet as his unlikely escape route from a world of industrial strife and poverty in the Northern England of the Thatcher-ite 1980s, is coming to Chicago’s Oriental Theatre in March.

And it is coming to stay.

At a Wrigley Field press event Tuesday timed with the visit of Elton John, the show’s composer, Broadway in Chicago announced that “Billy Elliot” will open at the Oriental Theatre next spring, and will remain as long as Chicagoans buy enough tickets for Billy to be able to afford to do his dance.

“This is Chicago’s production,” said producer Eric Fellner in an interview. “And it will be here until such time as Chicago says ‘Go away.’”

That will likely be worth tens—if not hundreds—of millions of dollars to the local economy. And it is surely good news for hoteliers and restaurateurs in the Loop, who potentially will have another long-term hit musical to draw traffic from throughout the Midwest and beyond.

Chicago is snagging the very first post-Broadway production of one of the most successful musicals of the decade. Attracting a long run by arguably the only current Broadway show with a box-office pull that could rival “Wicked” is a major coup for Broadway in Chicago, which fought hard for the show against presenters in San Francisco, who also wanted their city to be the first outside New York to stage the show.

Chicago, which could point to the three-and-a-half year run of “Wicked,” won out. Fellner and fellow producer Jon Finn (both of whom are based in the U.K. and also produced the film) said there were a number of factors that contributed to Chicago’s coup, including the city’s strong demand for the movie a decade ago.

More important, they said, was the city’s world-famous theater culture and an audience that is known on both sides of the Atlantic for its appreciation of the arts. “We like Chicago theaters and Chicago actors,” Finn said, pointing to the global fame of Steppenwolf performers.

“Chicago,” said Fellner, “is a theater city. That is the main reason we are here.”""“Billy Elliot,” the smash-hit London and Broadway musical about a young coal... more

St_Alia_10191
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4 months ago
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Sergei Diaghilev's back in Paris

A century on, ballets that led to fistfights in the aisles return to spiritual home... more

slagface
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5 months ago
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OCPAC gala seeks to raise reputation

With its "Tour de Force: A Gala Dance Spectacular" on Thursday night at Segerstrom... more

slagface
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6 months ago
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Photos at pbase

aww i just about melted when i first saw that adorable little kid! I'm a dancer and... more

747nomad
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7 months ago
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infoMania 5.7.09: iJustine and Judge Judy

This week on infoMania, Kathie Lee celebrates Cinco de Mayo by beating the hell out of... more

infoMania
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7 months ago
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19 comments

Top 5 Rock Songs That Really Blow

Sergio looks at flaccid rock bands like Kevin Rudolf, The Fray, Matt Nathanson,... more

Sergio_Cilli
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7 months ago
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40 comments

Nevada Ballet wants 'em "new" and "young"

A roomful of slender women in leotards and flowing skirts rehearses the moves of a... more

LasVegasWeekly
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8 months ago
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Ballerina moves smoothly into dancing images

"Former ballerinas can dance in many ways. Angela Sterling, for example, does it with... more

St_Alia_10191
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8 months ago
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Dancing with Down Syndrome

Madrid dance troop Danza Down enchants audiences with classical ballet, traditional... more

podtarts
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9 months ago
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22 comments

Binoche: No more dance shows after 'In-I' tour

"Oscar-winning French actress Juliette Binoche says touring for her dance... more

St_Alia_10191
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9 months ago
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The Swan Gala night

A drag ballet dancer performs The Swan and Africans want flushing loos in this glimpse... more

worldwrite
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9 months ago
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Phila. Fine Arts Scene Goes Where Youth Are

On Valentine's Day, Pennsylvania Ballet staff members stood in the Merriam Theater's lobby handing out coasters that bore what might have seemed a strange suggestion coming from an arts organization: Go to our YouTube channel.
What the mostly graying matinee audience made of the invitation to an online video-sharing site is unclear. What is clear is that the Pennsylvania Ballet is not alone in lusting after online social-network users.

The Kimmel Center has a Flickr photostream. The Curtis Institute of Music is on LinkedIn. The Arden Theatre and the Franklin Institute use Twitter. The Philadelphia Orchestra has a MySpace page.

The Theatre Alliance of Greater Philadelphia, the Opera Company of Philadelphia, and just about every other arts organization in the city has a Facebook page. The Philadelphia Museum of Art has an RSS feed of its exhibitions on its Web site, and the Academy of Natural Sciences shares exhibit-construction videos.

The Philadelphia fine-arts scene has gone viral, and no one is hiding the reason.

"It starts with young people. . . . We want to create more of a dialogue with this age group, and guess what - they're on YouTube and MySpace and Facebook," said Shawn Stone, the Pennsylvania Ballet's market director. "It's an active part of their lives, so it needs to be an active part of ours."

The ballet plans to post new videos, produced by Rittenhouse Square's Parlay Films, on its YouTube channel at least once a month. Future episodes will vary in content - from choreographer interviews to day-in-the-life dancer features to chronicling stage construction and more - but the intent won't waver.

"We're hoping this is a way to introduce younger people to the ballet," Stone said. "Most of our dancers are in this age group. That's different than other fine-arts institutions."

Among other initiatives to entice young listeners, the Philadelphia Orchestra promotes its EZSeatU, which offers open season tickets to college students for a one-time $25 fee.

"Social media is the backbone," said J. Edward Cambron, the orchestra's vice president for marketing. The orchestra hosts Facebook nights - $10 rush tickets to those who visit its Facebook page - that draw 50, 60 or more youthful takers. It is tinkering with its podcast - the Podchestra - and has invested in Facebook ads focusing on young Philadelphia college students, Cambron said.

"Big cultural institutions might have been behind the curve," Cambron said. "But they're largely ahead of their older audiences . . . and have come on strong of late."

The push is generally directed at those in their 30s or younger, if only to develop habits, he said: "When young people are exploring what they will do socially on their own, encouraging them to visit the orchestra is an incredibly valuable seed for the future."

Social networking, with its profiles, personal details, and constant updates, offers more information about an audience than ever before - which means it's easier than ever to target the vital youth demographic."On Valentine's Day, Pennsylvania Ballet staff members stood in the Merriam Theater's... more

St_Alia_10191
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9 months ago
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A second act for James Kudelka

"Meeting James Kudelka is a fraught affair. The man hailed by the New York Times in... more

St_Alia_10191
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9 months ago
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tagged w/ Ballet

A Tragic Ballerina Dances Again, Her Shoes Now Redder Than Ever

All-Male Ballet Performance

Trolly Dances- SF

United Kingdom Talk Video Saturday 10th October 2009

Meet The Vampire's Assistant: Chris Massoglia

One last dance with Patrick Swayze

British teen lands place in Bolshoi ballet school

Opening In Chicago, Billy Elliot Plans To Stay

Sergei Diaghilev's back in Paris

OCPAC gala seeks to raise reputation

Photos at pbase

infoMania 5.7.09: iJustine and Judge Judy

Top 5 Rock Songs That Really Blow

Nevada Ballet wants 'em "new" and "young"

Ballerina moves smoothly into dancing images

Dancing with Down Syndrome

Binoche: No more dance shows after 'In-I' tour

The Swan Gala night

Phila. Fine Arts Scene Goes Where Youth Are

A second act for James Kudelka

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