It would be easy to assume that every dance ensemble in the Western Hemisphere is presenting The Nutcracker this time of year. For quite a while, one of the few that didn’t was St. Louis’ Center of Creative Arts, to the annual dismay of then-head of its dance department, Antonio Douthit-Boyd. Next Generation Ballet’s Nutcracker... Continue Reading →
Next Generation Ballet’s Summer Intensive is a perennial event for Gabriella Yudenich. Since 2018, the former soloist with the Pennsylvania (now Philadelphia) Ballet has shared her talent and experience with the young dancers in Next Generation Ballet’s Summer Intensive. Gabriella Yudenich performing Myrta in Giselle. The culmination of the Summer Intensive is its showcase, Friday,... Continue Reading →
When the works of renowned choreographers are staged, someone will be there to ensure they are staged to the choreographer’s specifications. That someone is a repetiteur, and Philip Neal is one. For our purposes, he’s two. Philip, chair of Patel Conservatory’s Dance Department and artistic director of Next Generation Ballet, is a repetiteur for the... Continue Reading →
Next Generation Ballet®’s annual production of Nutcracker always adds an extra sparkle to the holidays. This year’s presentation will shine even brighter when, for the first time, an NGB alum from a major American ballet company returns to perform in Nutcracker. Jarod Curley, a soloist with American Ballet Theatre, spent “the two most intense years... Continue Reading →
Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned. If a scorned woman dies of heartbreak, you better hope you aren’t the one who broke it. Your ex might be teaming up with the malevolent spirits of other jilted women and, brother, hell WILL be raised. That’s a very skeletal reading of Giselle, one of classical... Continue Reading →
Arthur (the Man, the Myth, the Legend) Mitchell In 1969, Arthur Mitchell, along with Karel Shook, created Dance Theatre of Harlem (DTH) in New York City, after making history in 1955 as the first black principal dancer at New York City Ballet. He also was the famed protégé of George Balanchine—the Russian-born dancer, choreographer and... Continue Reading →
One year ago in this very blog, we nominated “Nut Rocker” as a candidate to join the batch of holiday songs with which we’re currently being bombarded. We contended that this lively, rock and rolling interpretation of The Nutcracker would give all of us a two-minute respite from Mariah and George and Elvis and Bing... Continue Reading →
Houston Ballet Academy graduates and current Corps de Ballet dancers Neal Burks as Basilio and Magnoly Batista as Kitri in Houston Ballet Academy's Ben Stevenson's Don Quixote. Photo by Amitava Sarkar (2019). Courtesy of Houston Ballet. Neal Burks was a promising young dancer in 2013. Ten years on, that promise is being fulfilled. But for... Continue Reading →
A performance at our Arts Legacy Remix: Hispanic Heritage Celebration in 2022. The impact and influence of Hispanic culture in Tampa is undeniable. Actually, make that Hispanic cultures, since the term Hispanic covers a lot of acreage, physically and socially. The description is applied to people from Mexico, Central and South America, the Caribbean and... Continue Reading →
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ddarrb8u7p8 Ballet is an art form, even if some ballet critics treat it more like a sport. A video from a few years back of Misty Copeland dancing in Swan Lake generated world-class pearl-clutching among some commentators. The video showed Misty performing a series of fouettés, a series of turns made on one foot with... Continue Reading →
National Tap Dance Day is May 25. The date commemorates the birth of Bill “Bojangles” Robinson, one of tap’s greatest practitioners. He may be best known for his stair dance routine with Shirley Temple in 1935’s The Little Colonel. But his career stretched back to vaudeville and minstrel shows and continued through Broadway, movies, radio... Continue Reading →
Ballet. Balanchine. The names are practically synonymous. In fact, it’s hard to imagine the former, in the U.S especially, without the prolific efforts of the latter. It’s also nearly impossible to overstate the importance of Lincoln Kirstein, a wealthy New Englander with a love of the arts. Kirstein provided the framework in which George Balanchine... Continue Reading →
Complexions Contemporary Ballet’s Tampa appearance also will serve as a homecoming for one of the company’s dancers, Tatiana Melendez. Melendez is a genuine sensation in the dance world. She was racking up dance competition awards for both contemporary and ballet before she entered her teens. She’s in her third season with the company, and its... Continue Reading →
Nutcracker Facts To Chew On Everyone has their touchstone that truly marks the holiday season. It could be Black Friday shopping, or when the first tree lot opens, making grandmother’s latkes or gathering around the television for Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer or A Charlie Brown Christmas. In this writer’s home, it was when dad spotted... Continue Reading →
“It might be a good idea to call all ballets Swan Lake. That way, people will come!” - George Balanchine For a good portion of the mid to late 20th century, the neoclassical and plotless ballets, typified by the works of George Balanchine, were the favor of choreographers. Music and technique-driven ballets such as Serenade... Continue Reading →
A teenager in a foreign land during a global pandemic, Hector Jain is well beyond his years. The Next Generation Ballet (NGB) alum and Lakeland, Fla., resident has been studying at Les Ballet de Monte Carlo’s Princess Grace Academy since early in 2020 and soaking up all the experience has to offer. Caught in the... Continue Reading →
Ahoy, me hearties! As you might have come to recognize, we love celebrating national days here at The Straz, and September 19 is International Talk Like a Pirate Day. And being in Tampa, this is one holiday we cannot pass up, since no one knows and loves pirates quite like those from the home of the legendary Jose Gaspar. Oh, and those Buccaneers. The... Continue Reading →
With performing art centers, such as The Straz, temporarily shuttered due to the COVID-19 pandemic, cable networks and streaming services are tapping into a large bank of available documentaries centered on the performing arts so we can satisfy our appetite for theater, dance, opera and more. And though documentaries generally don’t bring in Marvel box... Continue Reading →
The French codified ballet under King Louis XIV by defining the five basic positions of the feet and setting a catalog of positions related to the “turn-out” of the legs in the hip sockets (i.e., the legs rotate out of the hips instead of facing forward). Placement, a.k.a. alignment, and lift, a.k.a. pull-up, became fundamentals... Continue Reading →
Faster than a speeding pirouette, the dance world turned around a traditionally studio-based, person-to-person practice into an online smorgasbord of virtual classes, tutorials and programs for anyone, anywhere, anytime. Ever wanted to train with the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater? Principal dancers from American Ballet Theatre or New York City Ballet? Now you can. Even... Continue Reading →