It is no secret that dancers and the people behind the curtain put in long hours to bring ballet to life. For us it’s always fascinating to hear what happens behind the scenes, from the historical development of the art form, to the economics behind the most successful ballets out there, to dancers’s personal stories as [...]
From the category archives:
Interview
Here’s a holiday special from our fab US-based guest blogger Brian Mengini: Christmas is a time for families to get together and celebrate; to enjoy each other and share in the love. But for most in ballet, it’s slightly different. Christmas means seemingly unending Nutcracker runs, accompanied by seemingly unending rehearsals and shows, maybe 30 [...]
We have been busy guest blogging again this month: we interviewed Royal Ballet First Artist Claire Calvert for the Royal Opera House blog. The 23-year-old has recently landed such plum roles as Lescaut’s mistress in Manon and Winter Fairy in Ashton’s Cinderella. Claire also told us about playing the Lilac Fairy in the current revival [...]
Steven McRae and Edward Watson are the two principal dancers who have been chosen to “dance to their deaths” in the current revival of MacMillan’s Rite of Spring. Read below an extract of our interview with the pair, as originally posted on the Royal Opera House blog. When Kenneth MacMillan choreographed the first British Rite of [...]
Last month we were lucky to catch The Royal Danish Ballet’s new production of A Folk Tale, one of Bournonville’s masterpieces. On that occasion, we were particularly taken with soloist Kizzy Matiakis’s performance as Miss Birthe. We thought Kizzy stole the show with her comic timing and strong characterisation of “a volatile maiden who struggles [...]
