For dancers who dream of perfect feet, Pacific Northwest Ballet’s Lesley Rausch may be the ultimate poster girl. But it’s not just those daggers that set this principal dancer apart. Rausch’s pristine technique (carried by mile-long legs) and luxurious port de bras take her from classical roles, like Princess Aurora in The Sleeping Beauty, to […]
New York City Ballet’s Janie Taylor and Craig Hall in Robbins’ Afternoon of a Faun (photo by Paul Kolnik) I’ve just made my entrance in Jerome Robbins’ Afternoon of a Faun, stepping onstage into a set designed to look like a ballet studio—with the audience where the mirror would be. I don’t acknowledge my hundreds […]
Pacific Northwest Ballet is performing in NYC this week, and I could. not. be. happier. Though I’ve loved this company (especially the amazingly amazing Carla Körbes) for ages, it’s so rare that I actually get a chance to see them dance live. But not this week. This week I get to see them twice. The […]
Rachel Foster in Paul Gibson’s The Piano Dance. By Angela Sterling Rachel Foster is the image of power and athleticism. The Pacific Northwest Ballet principal excels at both the intricacy of contemporary works and the precision of George Balanchine’s neoclassical choreography. She trained at Pittsburgh Ballet Theatre School and attended summer courses at the School […]
Sometimes Facebook is a magical place. Just this morning, I found a real gem in my newsfeed: an image from a November 2001 Vogue profile of two up-and-coming New York City Ballet dancers, Ashley Bouder and Carla Körbes. Vogue did a good job talent-scouting, because today, of course, Bouder’s a principal at NYCB and Körbes […]
I don’t understand why, but there’s something so satisfying about identifying really uncanny lookalikes. Right? For your procrastination pleasure this Friday, here are a few of my favorite dancers with their celebrity doppelgängers. Enjoy—and let us know your dancer lookalike picks in the comments! And finally, a triple-take:
As a serious dancer, it’s easy to let your favorite genre become your identity, whether you’re a contemporary queen, tapper, comp kid or ballerina. Yet it’s no coincidence that shows like “So You Think You Can Dance” reward well-rounded dancers; after all, breaking out of the mold often enables you to reach your full potential. […]