Check out my latest YouTube video on Mikhail Baryshnikov and Gregory Hines in White Nights. Seeking artistic freedom, Baryshnikov defected from the Soviet Union while the Bolshoi Ballet was on tour in Toronto in 1974 when he was 26. Baryshnikov’s …
ABT Bad News: Shorter Met Season and Ratmansky Departs
Photo: Alexei Ratmansky and Amar Ramasar in Amar’s Final NYCB Performance, May 29, 2022 Recent American Ballet Theatre news of Alexei Ratmansky’s departure and the shortened Metropolitan Opera House Summer Season is depressing. Before Christmas, Ratmansky announced that he would …
New YouTube Video: Double Assemblé
Check out my latest YouTube video focusing on the grand assemblé en tournant. It is my favorite ballet step, more informally known as a double assemble, a notable step found in numerous male variations. The step can be a …
New YouTube Video on Fouettés
Check out my latest YouTube video on Fouettés. A fouetté is a ballet term referencing a whipping movement. Grant (Technical Manual and Dictionary of Classical Ballet) lists 19 fouetté variants, but the most popular and attention grabbing is called a …
François Alu YouTube Video:
Bluebird Variation
Check out my latest YouTube video on the Bluebird variation performed by François Alu of the Paris Opera Ballet. The Bluebird pas de deux from The Sleeping Beauty is one ballet’s most famous and iconic dances. Although most dance fans …
New YouTube Video on Directional Turning Preference
Twisting and turning skills are vital in many athletic and artistic endeavors. Figure skaters, gymnasts, and ballet dancers typically have a preferred side of turning (or directional turning preference) on the ground and jumps. Some prefer to turn clockwise (CW) …
New York Debut of Ratmansky’s Of Love and Rage
In an American Ballet Theatre Spring Season filled with old iconic warhorses that ballet fans have committed to memory, Alexei Ratmansky’s Of Love and Rage is a refreshing contrast. The work, which debuted at Segerstrom Center in March 2020 and …