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 →
How well do you know The Straz?
We know how much you love The Straz, but how much do you really KNOW about the Straz, other than it’s fabulous, of course? Well, we’re going to find out. Take this quiz, awarding yourself one point for every correct answer to determine if you are a well-informed Straz patron or if you are just... Continue Reading →
Swan Dive
“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 →
Five Questions for Next Generation Ballet Alum Hector Jain
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 →
Pardon My French
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 →
Need Entertainment, Motivation, Fitness, Fun? Then Let’s Dance.
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 →
Guess What? We Made Our Own Custom Fabric Design for Nutcracker
A first for The Straz, the new fabric designs represent a wild collaboration between dance costuming and graphic design. When people think of the graphic design department in a performing arts non-profit, they may imagine program layouts, banners, signage, logos and the like. They may not consider a couture collaboration to produce custom costumes specifically... Continue Reading →
House of Karinska
How a Russian defector built couture fashion from ballet costumes during the rise of New York City Ballet Chanel. Gucci. Givenchy. These famous fashion houses earned notoriety for their signature styles, making their designs easily recognizable – the Chanel suit, the Gucci bag, the Givenchy dress. In the golden age of American ballet, during the... Continue Reading →
Superstar Tiler Peck Shines as Our Sugar Plum Fairy
Huge news for dance fans: the one and only Tiler Peck bourrés into Next Generation Ballet’s Nutcracker this holiday season with partner Tyler Angle as her Cavalier. One of the many benefits of having a retired New York City Ballet principal dancer as the artistic director of our pre-professional ballet company is the talent he... Continue Reading →
Confessions of a Costumer
The performing arts are big business. In this industry, we have a lot of super important jobs for people who love the theater but who may have no interest in performing. This week, we sat down with Straz Center costumer Camille McClellan, who costumes dance and musical theater productions for the Patel Conservatory, to find... Continue Reading →
Pardon My French
On the neck of the foot? The bite of the donkey? 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... Continue Reading →
Onward, Cavaliers
NGB’s Sugar Plum Fairies Get Sweet Partners in NYCB Principal Amar Ramasar and MCB Principal Renan Cerdeiro The word is out about the big ballet stars appearing in Next Generation Ballet’s Nutcracker, which features the George Balanchine grand pas de deux and New York City Ballet star Sara Mearns and former Miami City Ballet principal... Continue Reading →
EXCLUSIVE: Retired Miami City Ballet Principal Ballerina-Turned-Teacher Patricia Delgado Talks Sugar Plum Fairy and Dancing in Nutcracker at The Straz
Lauded principal ballerina Patricia Delgado retired from Miami City Ballet this year after an extraordinary career with the company that began when she was 16 years old. An exquisite technician and breathtaking artist, Delgado gave soul to MCB, and arrived at The Straz last summer as a guest artist (along with Balanchine great Edward Villella)... Continue Reading →
EXCLUSIVE: Ballet Star Sara Mearns Talks Sugar Plum Fairy and Dancing in Nutcracker at The Straz
New York City Ballet principal dancer Sara Mearns recently starred in The Red Shoes on Broadway and in George Balanchine's The Nutcracker® for NYCB. Beloved by young ballerinas and a superstar onstage, Mearns is also a face of Guerlain perfume and Cole Haan. She works with many dance organizations to inspire people to love classical... Continue Reading →
… Five, Six, Seven, Eight …
Understanding the summer dance intensive Dance training often begins as early as three years old with a training year of classes mimicking the school schedule. In June, recitals signal the culmination of study and show off the hard-won skills in a public dance performance. But then what? Cue the summer dance intensive, an integral part... Continue Reading →
Manual Transmission
Dance lineage is a big deal. A very big deal. So, when Next Generation Ballet got a descendant of Jerome Robbins, who was guided by George Balanchine, who was instructed by Marius Petipa, the Straz Center leapt for joy. Philip Neal, the artistic director for Next Generation Ballet, came to us from New York City... Continue Reading →
Practice Makes Perfect
Inside Next Generation Ballet’s Nutcracker rehearsal Dance rehearsal smells like feet and moist leotards. There’s nothing elegant about it. When the dancers work hard, improvising corrections on-the-fly from choreographers and ballet mistresses, there is a locker-room funk suspended in the air from sweat-dampened dance clothes, breath and many bodies moving in one studio classroom. So... Continue Reading →
Okay, Ladies, Now Let’s Get in Formation
Ballet conjures images of tutus, tights, impossible-looking turns on tips of toes and gravity-defying mid-air leaps. If you’ve never taken a ballet class or had a little ballet beginner, then you may not realize those tricky combinations of flicks, kicks, twists, tippy-toe steps, glides, bends and hops emerge from a seriously old set of schematics... Continue Reading →
New NGB Artistic Director and Dance Department Chair Philip Neal Brings Legacy of Jerome Robbins and George Balanchine
In June, Philip Neal officially joined the Patel Conservatory as the artistic director for Next Generation Ballet and chair of the dance department, the position formerly held by Peter Stark. George Balanchine and Jerome Robbins were to American dance what Babe Ruth and Joe DiMaggio were to baseball. Heavy-hitters, game-changers, larger-than-life personalities, Balanchine and Robbins... Continue Reading →
Lights on Tampa: Nick Cave’s HEARD
This isn’t the “of the Bad Seeds” Nick Cave. This is the performance artist Nick Cave who studied at the Ailey School and later joined the faculty at the Art Institute of Chicago. He now serves that institution as the director of the graduate fashion program. If you haven’t heard of him or had a... Continue Reading →