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Merry Christmas to all!
This is the first year in a long time that I have not produced a show this time of year! A very strange feeling for me! I have been keeping busy teaching at North Carolina Dance Theatre and have had the pleasure of working with some students at Spirit Square. Isabel Macgill has visited often, taking class with me and at NCDT. She has been a busy girl working with Hilton Head Dance Theatre in South Carolina as well as keeping up with her school work in Savannah.
This past weekend, Alston Macgill, fellow Winger and longtime student, who is currently studying at SAB paid me a visit with Isabel and her Mom. We had a great class and followed that with a performance of NCDT’s Nutcracker. My daughter Sofia could not wait to get out of class and on to the show!
Lots of fun! Here are a few pix.

When I was home over Thanksgiving break, I saw Columbia City Ballet’s The Nutcracker. My little sister, Isabel, was in the performance as a party girl. Here is a photo from the dress rehearsal.

Isabel is in red. Here, the party-goers are preparing for the revealing of the Christmas tree

She also did a Nutcracker with her studio, Hilton Head Dance Theatre. This is a photo after one of the shows.

Isabel (right) and a fellow dancer

I dislocated my patella this summer. I have been going to physical therapy for a while now, and I am getting stronger. My physical therapists have been such a great help!

Me and my physical therapist

I am settling into SAB and it’s going great!

SYREN has begun work on our 18th piece.. We have a campaign running to help underwrite the (huge) costs of studio space here in the city. I hope you’ll check it out by clicking above! Feel free to re-post/tweet/facebook~share anywhere. It would be a big help to us.

We have had small pieces with 2 people and street clothes, we have had big pieces with eight dancers, fancy costumes and lots of “stuff” going on. Everything is different right now. We are starting from a different place altogether. A quintet. A fugue. An approach by me that is more about listening, watching, and crafting.

This approach has been a huge learning process and we’ve just begun. We are having a rich and powerful time in the studio right now. Improvisation. Studies. Assignments. Notes. Trial. Error. Retry. Regroup. Try it slower. Quicker. Upside down. Such a journey! What a gift to share space with these incredible dancers.

We are truly digging in to this new work, and into the music (Bach’s fugue). We look forward to sharing glimpses of our creative process with all of you Wingers! See you soon!

Oh by the way! We are hosting a 1 day Fall Workshop on November 12th at Mark Morris Dance Center. Drop me a line if you’re interested! Or just click here for details: www.syrendance.org

Thanks for listening, Wingers-
Kate

Hello.

This post is for everyone who lives in San Francisco and the greater bay area. Not you? Discontinue reading BUT you cant because your eyes like the pretty pictures.

My company TAGsf is kicking off its fall season 5x4 at Kunst-Stoff Arts on September 23rd and 24th and I am very proud of the program of this program. The program is very intimate with an MTV unplugged type feel. Well…. that’s the feeling that i get but you can be the judge of that. This is the first time that I have invited fellow dancer Alex Jenkins to create a new work titled  Town of Wood which from what I have seen thus far is SICK and Im very proud of her work because she is proving to be a truly uniquely talented dance maker which is hard to find often times. On my end Ive been working like a mad man on  a new dance theater work titled NEMESIS which explores the random life encounters that can lead a person to good or evil and explores the concept of identity/the mask. How you see yourself vs how you are seen. Aside from myself and another dancer I’m using a couple actors with no dance training which is funny because whenever i show my friends rehearsal footage they think that they are dancers which is good. Another exciting feature about the evening is that we will be showing a new motion picture by the same title as my piece shot by the talented Quinn Wharton. The program is an hour, short and sweet because everyone growing up in this high paced society has a short attention span which is another discussion within itself. All of the info is posted below and I’ll see you at the show.

posted below is the NEMESIS teaser trailer that which you can see sooner than later.

and just cause here is rehearsal video.

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A huge aspect of the festival in Vail is collaboration. New partnerships that dive across company and country boundaries,  that emerge between dancers, choreographers, musicians, and movement styles. Most of these new partnerships are tested for the first time in Vail, several weeks or even days in advance of their debuts. For this reason, mornings and afternoons at Vail are often just as thrilling as the spectacular evenings. Rehearsals are spread out among three venues in Vail: the Vail Mountain School, the Vilar Performing Arts Center, and the Gerald R. Ford Amphitheater itself.

Over the long weekend I spent in Vail, I got to observe and film rehearsals at all three spaces. At the Amphitheater on Saturday morning, the classics shone: the music of Drigo, Tchaikovsky, Chopin (and occassionally, some mambo) reverberated throughout the mountains. Later in the afternoon, I watched Christopher Wheeldon rehearse Wendy Whelan, Tyler Angle, Craig Hall and Fang-Yi Sheu at the Vail Mountain School; a new work set primarily to the music of Max Richter. I really love getting to film dancers at the Mountain School. The rugged backdrop of the school gym, transformed into a sunlit ballet studio for the festival, actually creates this magical aura of workmanship and creation. It’s the idea that beauty and grace occurs in the most unpredictable of places; that it is intensified when viewed in the simplest of environments, stripped of performance glitz and seen only for what it is at its core.

I got goosebumps watching Wendy and Tyler rehearse Wheeldon’s new pas de deux. It is set to Max Richter and Dinah Washington’s moving “This Bitter Earth”- I heard that Chris had planned to use Shostakovich and changed his mind on the plane to Denver.

Watch Wendy and Tyler rehearse the piece at Vail Mountain School here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IotMSNYbrX0

Wendy Whelan and Tyler Angle perform Christopher Wheeldon's "3 Movements and 4 Repeats," as part of UpClose: Premieres, on August 8, 2011. Photo by Erin Baiano.

Here is some more footage of the Wheeldon rehearsal: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SSgpQ8iu8uk&feature=related. Featured is the unparalleled mondern-dance master Fang-Yi Sheu, who dances a pas de deux with Craig Hall (of New York City Ballet) [the clip also features some more of Wendy and Tyler]. I loved Craig and Fang-Yi together. She has this rare, exquisite quality that is at once feral and extraordinarily feminine, and it goes beautifully with Craig’s strong, powerful movement.

Here are Fang-Yi and Craig in performance at UpClose: Premieres, an evening which saw the debut of Wheeldon’s work, as well as the premiere of an ensemble piece by Emery LeCrone (set on dancers from Colorado Ballet), and new works by Richard Siegal, Trey McIntyre, and Charles “Lil’ Buck” Riley.

Fang-Yi Sheu and Craig Hall perform Christopher Wheeldon's "3 Movements and 4 Repeats", as part of UpClose: Premieres on August 8, 2011. Photo by Erin Baiano.

Clifton Brown performs "I Wanna Be Ready" from Alvin Ailey's "Revelations" as part of International Evenings II, which honored former First Lady Betty Ford. Photo by Erin Baiano.

Always memorable at VIDF is seeing Boston Ballet’s Misa Kuranaga and American Ballet Theatre’s Herman Cornejo dancing together.

Misa Kuranaga (Boston Ballet) and Herman Cornejo (American Ballet Theatre) rehearse Diana and Acteon pas de deux. Photo by Erin Baiano.

Here is a montage of best moments from their appearances at the past two festivals, including excerpts from Diana and Acteon Pas de Deux (2011), Pas de Deux from Le Corsaire (2011), Pas de Deux from Don Quixote (2010) and Pas de Deux from Giselle (2010):  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xRbIDOszddg&feature=channel_video_title

And I could devote an entire entry to VIDF Artist-in-Residence Charles “Lil’ Buck” Riley but in the interest of sharing while I have your attention, you MUST see this clip if you have not already. The clip features Lil’ Buck performing the “The Dying Swan” ala Memphis Jookin’ in an unforgettable partnership with the celebrated cellist Yo-Yo Ma, and it went viral when Spike Jonze published it online (Festival Director Damian Woetzel produced and directed the performance, and introduces the duet in the clip above). Lil’ Buck has arms that rival both Pavlova’s and Plisetskaya’s: they are virtually boneless and ripple ceaselessly and effortlessly they way that only waves should be able to. His feet are unbelievably flexible; he not only bourrees in his sneakers as though en pointe, but also balances on the side of his arch while collapsed in an ecstatic backbend toward the ground. His Dying Swan is whimsical and moving… simultaenously light-hearted and startlingly emotional as he curls up in one last breath and taps Saint-Saens’ last notes on the sole of his shoe. Lil’ Buck’s jookin style is almost entirely self-taught, and though he did study ballet with the New Ballet Ensemble in Memphis, he started relatively late, at age sixteen…which is astounding as he has the plasticity of a dancer who has been at the barre for years.

Here he is in performance:

Charles "Lil' Buck" Riley performs "The Dying Swan" as part of International Evenings of Dance. Photo by Erin Baiano.

The entire crew of the Trey McIntyre Project in "Old Man Mos", part of "The Sweeter End" piece in Dance for $20.11. Photo by Erin Baiano.

 - Erica Sheftman

Yesterday afternoon, my mother, sister, and I had a visit with Una Kai. Una was one of the very first Balanchine ballerinas. She told us about how she got started in dance, and how she ended up with Balanchine. After dancing as principal with Balanchine for a while, she became the ballet mistress. Una brought us a photo album filled with old pictures of  herself, Balanchine, and the company. It was amazing to see the performance and rehearsal shots, and the casual pictures too. I loved talking with her and hearing her stories. It was exciting to talk to her because I will be going to the School of American Ballet this winter term.

My sister and I with Una

The book Una co-wrote

But for the second year in a row that I have been so lucky to be at these performances, the International Evenings galas at Vail have been anything but predictable. Musical selections for the works performed ranged from Chopin to Ingrid Michaelson; Duke Ellington to Philip Glass; mambo to Drigo. Styles of dance ranged from contemporary ballet to modern dance, and from ballroom dance to purely classical ballet and then some memphis jookin’. The result was a delicious sampler of every kind of movement. There was something for everyone, and for this reason I feel like it’d be the ideal evening to introduce someone to the art of dance. When you see a gala run smoothly between an excerpt from the romantic Lady of the Camellias, a sexy, flashy mambo number, a Graham ode set to traditional spiritual music and the crowd-pleasing thirty-two fouettes from Black Swan pas de deux - and around you you see an incredibly diverse and happily rapt audience - you wonder if the standard gala formula could be rewritten to become this varied and inclusive.

There was not one free seat in the entire amphitheater and the lawn was packed with families, couples and friends huddled together on blankets. It’s truly a magical environment and it’s fascinating to observe the shift in energy as the night goes on. At the beginning, you’ll hear some rustling here and there, the pop of a champagne bottle and the clashing of cubes in its companion ice bucket, a child squealing with delight. By intermission the sun has set and the audience has settled into a blissful, moonlit quiet. Unsurprisingly the second act on Friday was punctuated by Bach, Camille Saint-Saens, Phillip Glass and Gyogi Ligeti: the strains of the cello, played by the great Mike Block, and the piano, played by the brilliant Cristina Pato (who earlier in the night led the Celebrate the Beat! kids on the Galician Bagpipe!), provide the most perfect accompaniment to this evening idyll.

Misty Copeland and Matthew Prescott perform "Falling," choreographed by Prescott to the music of Ingrid Michaelson. Photo by Erin Baiano.

Helene Bouchet and Thiago Bordin of Hamburg Ballet rehearse a pas de deux from Lady of the Camellias, at the Gerald R. Ford Amphitheater. Photo by Erin Baiano.

Also beautiful was The Orchard, choreographed by Festival Director Damian Woetzel to the music of Philip Glass. Carla Korbes and Tyler Angle danced. The piece reminded me a bit of Robbins’s Afternoon of a Faun. Set onstage, practically amidst the Rockies, is a spare ballet barre, and a piano stands at the side. The two dancers come together slowly, moved by a mutual fascination and curiosity, and the ballerina floats as though through water in her partner’s arms for much of the piece. It ends with both seated at the piano, picking out a few of Glass’s notes. As the lights dim, she rests her head on his shoulders.

Tyler Angle and Carla Korbes perform Damian Woetzel's The Orchard. Photo by Erin Baiano.

I got to film Carla and Cory Stearns of American Ballet Theatre rehearsing the Act II Pas de deux from Swan Lake on Friday: watch the video montage here- Carla Korbes and Cory Stearns rehearse White Swan Pas de Deux. Carla and Cory are so visually stunning together and have wonderful chemistry, particularly for dancing together for the first time. I hope that they’ll get a chance to dance again together soon.

It’s easy to see that dancers love coming to Vail - it’s such a beautiful and unique experience to perform outdoors. And added perks: Misa Kuranaga and Herman Cornejo spent a few hours during the afternoon relaxing in the woods behind the theater and icing their feet in the cold creek water!

The beautiful Ford Park: a creek behind the Gerald R. Ford Amphitheater. Photo by Erica Sheftman.

Gillian Murphy and Cory Stearns watch other dancers onstage from the lawn at the Gerald R. Ford Amphitheater, on a break during rehearsal for International Evenings of Dance. Photo by Erin Baiano.