Few art forms are as obsessed with lineage as ballet. Want to learn the classic Russian repertoire? Train with one of the last generation’s greatest Russian dancers—because she was in turn coached by the previous generation’s star, who was trained by a ballerina of a yet earlier generation, in a chain going all the way back […]
We all have dance crushes. But I’m a bit of a weirdo: The majority of my dance crushes are, uh, historical. Maybe I was born in the wrong era, because it’s the artists of the ’40s, ’50s and ’60s who really speak to me. At the top of my crush list is Tanaquil Le Clercq, […]
Few places seem more glamorous—at least from the outside—than the ballet costume shop. World-class seamstresses lovingly handcrafting the gorgeous tutus that sparkle on our favorite ballerinas? It sounds like some kind of magical fairyland. In reality, though, a lot of difficult, painstaking work goes into constructing ballet costumes. When the costume shop is recreating well-known […]
Top: Balanchine’s swirling snowstorm at NYCB (Paul Kolnik); bottom: Ratmansky’s menacing snowflakes at ABT (Erin Baiano) Ah, Nutcracker season. Sure, as a dancer it’s pretty much a nightmare. But as an audience member—especially in dance-stuffed NYC—it’s a dream come true. There are umpteen Nuts running in the Big Apple right now, and I can’t get […]
Like many of you, I’m guessing, seeing The Nutcracker every year was a major holiday tradition growing up. My studio never put on our own production, so my BFF Becky and I would go to a different show each winter with our moms. We started small by seeing a Nutcracker at St. Paul’s School in […]
Edward Villella is basically a ballet saint. For years an incredibly charismatic principal dancer with the New York City Ballet, he went on to become the founding director of Miami City Ballet. Villella photographed by Philippe Halsman in 1961 Now Villella is back in his native NYC, and his latest project involves…ice dancers. Not where […]
New York City Ballet in George Balanchine’s Serenade (by Paul Kolnik) It’s a thrilling moment: My fellow corps members and I rise to our toes and begin hopping on pointe in time to a beautiful Bach violin concerto. As we merge into two lines, we start an intricate canon with our arms—the first line opens […]
Heads-up, bunheads: “Breaking Pointe,” the reality show following Utah’s Ballet West, returns to The CW for its second season July 22. And thank goodness, right? It’s one of the few mainstream portrayals of ballet that comes close to getting at the actual reality of the ballet world. That said, because this is The CW we’re […]