L acey Escabar danced with an authority beyond her 16 years last spring at San Francisco Ballet School’s Student Showcase. With her Grace Kelly features and delicate arms and hands, she had an elegant stage presence. But what made Escabar stand out was her calm, unhurried musicality. Her movement seemed to breathe within the music. […]
Last week, I was previewing a behind-the-scenes video I shot featuring San Francisco Ballet principal Maria Kochetkova. Maria is all the things you would expect from a principal dancer at one of the nation’s top ballet companies—elegant, expressive, sophisticated, and thanks to her Bolshoi Ballet School training, technically uber-refined. However, there’s one thing about her […]
Ever wish there was a social network just for ballet? Check out deballet.com! The newly-launched site has pages for professional dancers, choreographers, companies and schools. You can include a picture and bio, show your Twitter feed, link to your own site and Facebook and there’s even a wall for other ballet lovers to leave […]
Prix de Lausanne is one of ballet’s most powerful professional springboards. Think you might have what it takes to go up against some of the top students in the world? Take class with a Prix de Lausanne winner and learn what the prestigious competition is all about. Special master classes are being offered in the […]
The one thing better than performing? When your dancing helps raise money for an important cause. San Francisco Ballet soloists Garen Scribner and James Sofranko have gathered a group of the Bay Area’s top dancers to do just that. Yuan Yuan Tan, Maria Kochetkova, Sarah Van Patten, Frances Chung, Joan Boada and Pierre-Francois Vilanoba […]
Heads up Californian bunheads: the Anaheim International Dance Festival is coming back this summer. From August 10-12, dancers ages 10-22 are invited take workshops with renowned master teachers such as Miami City Ballet founder Edward Villella, former New York City Ballet principal Darci Kistler and Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater rehearsal director Matthew Rushing. The […]
We’ve all heard the expression “putting pen to paper,” but what about “putting foot to paper?” Well, the “Body In-Sight: Action Drawings from the Dance Studio” exhibition at the Museum of Performance and Design in San Francisco will be doing just that, with ballet dancers! On Saturday from 2 to 3:30, watch several dancers, including […]
Each December, Pointe chooses the top 10 standout ballet performances of the year. We poll our contributors from around the globe about every dancer they’ve seen, then a team of editors dukes it out to decide the final list. This year’s group was a pretty incredible bunch, ranging from the inimitable Sylvie Guillem to up-and-comer […]