Search results for: ROyal Danish Ballet

Seeing Improvement

If you want to improve everything from performance to the time it takes to recover from an injury, look no further than your own head. The secret is a simple thing called imagery, or imaging, and it is something that you already use all the time. “Everyone uses imagery, just not systematically,” says Eric Franklin, […]

Intimate Stories

John Neumeier sits backstage at the Brooklyn Academy of Music in New York City. His company, Hamburg Ballet, has just arrived from Germany for a four-night run of his 2003 ballet Death in Venice, and everyone has a case of nerves—including the choreographer. “It was about 24 years ago that I came here for the […]

Summer Stories

Summer intensive study has become an integral part of training for most preprofessional dancers. Usually, it’s the chance to focus on and improve technique and even make new friends. Though unfamiliar styles of instruction and technique may be frustrating and intimidating at first, and younger students may get homesick, many use the summer to explore […]

Young, Talented And Hopeful

Sixteen-year-old Daisy Long takes the stage during the quarter-finals at Switzerland’s Prix de Lausanne, dancing the contemporary variation she’s selected—Jirí Kylián’s One of a Kind, a somber solo, set to a melancholy cello, in which she wears all black. Although Long is number 15, she’s the eighth girl to dance this piece in front of […]

Rite of Passage—Rite of Spring

Batkhurel Bold, one of Pacific Northwest Ballet’s principal dancers, doubles over, his face twisted in pain.   “This is the hardest thing I’ve ever had to do,” he says, gasping for breath.  “I think I’m going to faint.” “Ah!—that’s what Baryshnikov told me,” replies legendary choreographer Glen Tetley. “He was able to perform the role of […]

Bournonville At 200

“I have accomplished something and enjoyed my artistic career,” wrote the great Danish choreographer August Bournonville in the introduction to his memoir, My Theatre Life. The year was 1846, and he had been choreographing and directing the Royal Danish Ballet since 1829, but was retiring from dancing at age 41. “Now, since I have passed […]

Finishing Strong at SAB

As a red-headed guy, you’re going to stand out on stage anyway; it might as well be for the right reasons. Nineteen-year-old Alexander Peters had that covered at the School of American Ballet’s annual workshop performances in June. Peters showed off his immaculate technique in Wheeldon’s Scènes de Ballet and then turned in a remarkable, […]

Just Announced: Erik Bruhn Competitors

The Erik Bruhn Prize may be a quirky competition (participating dancers must come from one of the companies that Bruhn was associated with during his lifetime), but it has showcased many top dancers when they were just starting their careers. ABT principals Julie Kent and Michele Wiles, San Francisco Ballet principals Vanessa Zahorian and Gennadi […]