by Avichai Scher | Jan 25, 2023 | News, Onstage, The Latest
The classic story of Giselle, with its haunting tale of love’s merciful power, has graced the stage of the Kennedy Center in Washington, DC, countless times over the years. On February 1, the theater’s curtain will rise on a historic moment: a new production of...
by Candice Thompson | Jun 8, 2022 | Onstage, The Latest
For Stina Quagebeur, dancing the role of Myrtha in Akram Khan’s Giselle requires a special kind of stamina. “We are on pointe for the majority of Act II,” she says. “It’s demanding, especially on my feet. But it’s also the emotional intensity of the...
by Marina Harss | Oct 15, 2021 | Onstage, Profiles
“Wafting,” “demure” and “ethereal” are not the first adjectives that come to mind when attempting to describe Cassandra Trenary’s dancing. Trenary, one of six American Ballet Theatre dancers promoted to principal in the middle of the pandemic, is something of a...
by Julia Guiheen | Mar 31, 2021 | TBT
There is something special about watching a prima ballerina dance her signature role; her sense of ease and pleasure makes ballet’s complex vocabulary look completely natural. Natalia Makarova, one of the world’s leading dancers in the latter half of the...
by Julia Guiheen | Nov 11, 2020 | TBT
Polina Semionova, principal guest artist with the Staatsballett Berlin, is serene and luminous. Mariinsky Ballet principal Vladimir Shklyarov is stylish and refined. Together, unsurprisingly, they make a sublime partnership, as seen here in their wistful and...
by Lucy Van Cleef | Oct 28, 2020 | Company Life, Instagram, News, Onstage
It’s 8:24 am on a Tuesday. Even though morning class isn’t for another hour and a half, Daniil Simkin is already at Staatsballett Berlin’s studios; tests for the coronavirus, a biweekly requirement to dance with his partner, Iana Salenko, need to be...
by Julia Guiheen | Apr 29, 2020 | TBT
In this 2006 clip of Myrtha’s entrance in Giselle, former Paris Opéra Ballet étoile Marie-Agnès Gillot gives an other-worldly performance that is chilling, ethereal and technically sublime. Her footwork throughout the solo is mesmerizing, and it receives full...
by Amy Brandt | Jan 9, 2020 | News
Bolshoi fans, listen up: On Sunday, January 26, the company will broadcast Alexei Ratmansky’s new production of Giselle—captured from a live performance in Moscow earlier that day—to over 450 North American movie theaters as part of its Bolshoi Ballet in Cinema...