The Ballet Royalty Gala, a brand-new event presented by Improvedance, takes place at the Gran Teatro de la Habana Alicia Alonso on August 20. It will be live-streamed from Havana, Cuba, to the world. Fans can watch their favorite dancers from class through the performance itself, starting at 4:00 pm EST. Look out for international […]
Do you have a favorite Sugar Plum Fairy costume? It’s kind of like trying to choose a favorite child—but each company decks out the show-stopping tutu in such unique and gorgeous ways that picking one isn’t really slighting the others. And anyway, we’d rather just enjoy the beauty of costume craftsmanship brought to life by […]
Patricia Zhou remembers hearing her coach’s encouraging voice in her head as she competed at the Beijing International Ballet Invitational in 2010. Now in the corps of Staatsballett Berlin, Zhou says the days Viktor Kabaniaev spent coaching her ranked among the most productive of her training. “He made me practice my entrelacé diagonal over and […]
When a dancer fell flat on the floor during her Esmeralda solo at Youth America Grand Prix finals one year, it cost her a few points, recalls judge Phillip Broomhead. But she compounded it by how she handled the mishap. Tears welled up. She fell again in the next section of pirouettes and began visibly […]
As a student, it’s easy to see signing your first apprenticeship contract as the happy ending of the story. After all, you’ve made it: You have become a professional dancer. But not everyone proceeds smoothly upwards through the ranks. The truth is that many dancers derail before they even secure a place in the corps. […]
Misa Kuranaga felt completely in control when she performed the Black Swan pas de deux four years ago in the first round of the USA International Ballet Competition in Jackson, Mississippi. “It was as if there was a bubble around me and nothing could go wrong,” she says. Although the Boston Ballet dancer won a […]
“Our next generation is coming in very strong,” says Boston Ballet Artistic Director Mikko Nissinen, who recently promoted five company dancers to the rank of principal—Kathleen Breen Combes, Pavel Gurevich, Melissa Hough, Misa Kuranaga and James Whiteside. Significantly, four of the five members of the new crop of stars worked their way up from either […]
Each year the Vail International Dance Festival, helmed by former New York City Ballet principal Damian Woetzel, presents a festival of dance stars in Vail, CO, from July 27 through August 10. Vail’s programming regularly features top ballet dancers from around the country, and this year’s artist in residence will be none other than soon-to-retire […]