An image from the days of black and white film and wet darkrooms. I took this picture 15 or 20 years ago in the Friends University dance studio.
Tag: Ballet
Grand Pas de Don’t
And now for a bit of culture. You’ve heard of The Red Shoes? Here’s the red pocketbook. There’s a cow, too.
Feeling a little Puckish
I found a complete performance of Balanchine‘s A Midsummer Night’s Dream. If you remember the play, you can follow the story pretty well, though Balanchine made many changes in adapting it. Even if you haven’t read Shakespeare, you can enjoy the spectacle, and there’s always the music.
Frederick Ashton also choreographed the play in The Dream. In his version, the transformed Bottom dances on pointe for added grotesquerie.
Insomnia and czárdás
Early this morning, after I had given up on getting any more sleep, I discovered that there are a number of full-length ballets on YouTube. Coppélia is a favorite of mine. The melodious score is worth listening to even if you are not interested in dance, and the story almost makes sense. There’s even a mad scientist (or magician). The video above is a Bolshoi Ballet performance.
Others I found include La Bayadere, The Sleeping Beauty, Swan Lake and more, often in multiple versions and occasionally in HD. There’s also opera.
*****
And now for something completely different: Japanese Vikings, singing songs of [censored].
Update: And the video is gone. This is what you missed.
Today’s picture
A snapshot from today’s “Ballet in the Park” production of Peter and the Wolf.
Very red
One of the 1,714 pictures I took last night at Friends University.
Memo to designers
You may think that putting dancers in black costumes on a black stage with minimal lighting is very dramatic, but for photographers it is a nightmare.
Panoramas and dolls
Balletic debauchery
I shot over 1500 frames this week during the rehearsals of the Friends University fall ballet concert, and it’s going to take me a while to go through them all. Until then, here’s a selection from Prodigal Son, choreography by Stan Rogers after Balanchine.
Continue reading “Balletic debauchery”
Too many hats
More pictures from the Rogers Ballet dance concert last May can be viewed here.
More dance
I uploaded some more pictures from the March 5 rehearsal. The gallery is below the fold.
The macho swan
The spring dance concert this past weekend at Friends University featured mostly modern ballets, such as an excerpt from Matthew Bourne’s version of Swan Lake, above. The other works were also quite interesting. If they had been any more interesting, I’d have to label this post “NSFW.”
Memo to Madhouse
Another Nutcracker nearer the grave
Annual reminder
If it weren’t for the Second Amendment, the mice would win.
When your guest artist is late …
… you make do with whoever is available.
