Hello there ladies and gentleman.
Last Saturday night i attended an limited run at a new downtown art gallery called NIETO FINE ART who was hosting the works of San Francisco Ballet principal Ruben Martin. Everyone came out to the event that night to show Ruben some love and it was great to see a lot of the local dance scene all in one place because the rarely happens with everyone schedules. Interestingly come to find out a couple days before i had learned that we had a works in progress showing for the new show INK that im choreographing for. I thought we were showing in October but already we have gotten offers for spaces to host us so i put on my thinking cap real fast!
We have been in the space all week hacking away at new material which is nerve racking because i get kinda worried about one of us(me) knocking a painting off the wall which i could not afford but the director of the space is a really cool dude and likes what i have come up with thus far which is good because if that happens ill be like “Well…..its part of the work!”. Lets see how well that would fly with him:) The showing on the 19th is gonna be really neat for the viewers to watch because not only is there gonna be some great dancing that never stops but there will also be live music and painting all working under the theme of “INK” and how it flows. Such a simple idea with infinite possibilities and not one show will ever be the same with a rotating cast of dancers and musicians from all over. Ohhhhhh, Alex is gonna be dancing a 10 min solo with 4 live percussionist so please wish her well because she was dead after the run yesterday.
Man of the hour Ruben Martin thumbs up at his showing.
view from the top
dancers working in the space trying not to hit anything.
Click here for some rehearsal footage of Chris Stuart from the Nashville Ballet and I working out some new movement.
Click here to “like” on FaceBook. Only if you “like” it though!
lator gators.
b
Gearing up for premiere next week!
Hi Wingers!!
It’s been a long time now! I promise it’s not because I have been lazy!! We have been SOOOOOOOOO busy making this new work that I became totally saturated! It is just about finished now after nearly a year (WOW!). The title of the piece is “Toward Home” and it involves the 8 dancers of SYREN, and 7 musicians of Steeplechase Arts & Productions who are playing a completely original score composed by Damon Ferrante. It’s been a wild journey to say the least, but I am thrilled, and a bit in awe, of how it’s all coming together!
Here is a little video about the process: click here!
The show goes up for it’s premiere on Wednesday August 18th at the beautiful Guild Hall in East Hampton, NY. It’s interesting to be performing in the Hamptons! We will be back to NYC very soon, but we are enjoying getting ready to share the work with the great, enthusiastic crowd out there!
Below are some pictures from an open rehearsal we did at Ballet Tech a couple months back when we were still in the thick of creating this baby. It was a fun day where we shared a bunch of the piece and had a Q&A after with the students and faculty.
Hope to see you all soon!
If you are near the Hamptons, come join us for the premiere!
“Toward Home”
Wednesday August 18th at 8pm
www.smarttix.com
And all about SYREN news and events here:
www.syrendance.org
Thanks so much! Hope you are all doing great during this busy summer season!
insight into ink
Hey Ya’ll. (I just got back from the south so pardon my language)
Heres a quick time lapse that I made with visual artist and collaborator Daniel Diaz-Tai using ink and water plus a digital camera.We are starting a new collabo together for a concert dance piece. The challenge for me is to use the movement of the Inks as a guide to movement vocabulary. As you watch this clip think about all of the numerous possibilities. With that said…. Not sucking would be the hugest concern for me because it would be too easy to go off the deep end on a project like this. Currently we are in the first phase of the project and I’m work shopping material with a couple dancers as a sort of “Blue Print” because this project will have me using the largest cast that i have ever worked with before. Im looking forward to rising up to the occasion and soooo stoked on this!
b
24: A Year of New Beginnings
Hi readers! Please forgive me for not posting as frequently has I had promised. I have been very busy out here on the road but am determined to do more blogging!
I’ve recently celebrated my birthday! Two weeks ago I turned 24 years ‘mature’, as I like to say. Birthdays and New Years Eve are two very sentimental days for me, filled with lots of reflection, prayer of thanksgiving for life and all of its obstacles, moments to rejoice and blessings while also praying with thanksgiving for the future. I had the wonderful opportunity of being able to celebrate my “Year of New Beginnings” (as I’ve been calling this year as a 24 year old) with close friends in New York City in-between tour stops. Thinking about all of the wonderful and also challenging obstacles I’ve had to overcome in the past year, I can’t help but think of where I was just one year prior. On my 23rd Birthday I was still having issues overcoming an ankle injury I had sustained earlier that year, was unemployed and broke. Emotionally, I was in a rough place, especially because on that very day, only one year prior (my 22nd Birthday), I had just graduated from college and was headed to start my professional life, performing in Susan Stroman’s Contact with North Shore Musical Theater in MA. At the time, it was hard to reflect on how different the two Birthdays had been experienced.
McQueen as a child
Within my first year out of college I had basically jumped from job to job, back to back. I was truly living the life as what we call in theater, a Gypsy! I performed in Contact, took a mini vacation at home in California and went straight into working with a ballet company in Texas as a guest artist. While finishing up my job in Texas, I found out I was offered another job traveling to Germany dancing for Panasonic Electronics, which started literally weeks after the Texas gig. Then, while in rehearsals for the job I was just about to do in Germany, the day before I departed for Germany, I received a phone call informing me that I had been hired to dance on tour with the Radio City Christmas Spectacular. Rehearsals began literally weeks after I returned from Germany. It doesn’t end there! Once I was back from the Christmas season on tour, I went to one audition and booked it! In about a month of my returning from being on tour I was back out on the road again performing in a regional production of Disney’s High School Musical. Looking at it on paper, I worked consistently for 10 months with very few breaks. I was thrilled that my hard work and perseverance was paying off but I knew it wouldn’t last always. In any event, I proceeded to “hustle” my way through auditions (as I like to call it) while on short breaks or just before leaving to start the jobs. I was looking everywhere for potential opportunities for work and build my career not only as a performer but also as a choreographer and keep myself busy. I must say, I auditioned like no other to get my face out there, going to as many auditions I could a week, but in the end, I truly felt like things were all falling into place. In a sense, the hard work and lack of rest was paying off. I was “on a roll” so to speak and the more I rolled…the more I kept trying to keep that ball rolling and the harder I pushed and worked, often not getting enough sleep at night.
On my 23rd Birthday I had not been onstage in what felt like forever (which was actually only a couple months) and was itching for something to do. I was having the hardest time getting a job. I would go into tons of auditions and come out feeling great, but none of them resorted in a job offer. I had fully been a part of what I like to call the “Roller Coaster Complex”. This is where you have stints of just doing really well, getting job offers after job offers in a row and always being busy, and then all of the sudden are left anxiously wondering what’s going to happen next and having difficulty even getting a callback. You know that feeling when your stomach drops from beneath you as you are coming down from a roller coaster really fast? The one where you’re left feeling uneasy, apprehensive, scared and vulnerable as if the ride is going to break? This Roller Coaster Complex, which hit me hard on my birthday last year and left me with much anxiety as I felt I was coming down the hill really fast. I knew in my heart that I just needed to remain faithful and focused that my situation wouldn’t be like the way it was, forever. I was off to a bumpy start of my 23rd year of life but I knew that I had to just continue keeping myself disciplined and continue “hustling” at auditions and the right opportunities that were meant for me would at some point appear. For the first three months of my year as a 23 year-old, I had a lot of time to really think and reflect on life and what it meant to me and what I hoped to obtain out of it. Through this unemployment slump, I was able to really reflect on my mission in life and focused a lot of my attention on volunteer work and giving back. In my heart, as much as I didn’t want to accept it at the time, I knew this was a time in my life that I knew I needed to have to a one-on-one conversation with myself about my life and my goals. Not to mention, I really needed the rest and time to rejuvenate my spirit. Through this period of reflection, I was able to discover whom Jeremy McQueen is and how he wants to leave his mark on the world.
McQueen (second from right) as a Flying Monkey in Wicked!
Fast forward to the preset day, only a year later, I cannot believe how much my life has changed. I have had so many wonderful blessings in such a short period of time! I finally got my “Equity” card touring with the 1st National Tour of The Color Purple, performed onstage at Radio City Music Hall, continued to make progress as a choreographer and now I am employed (On my Birthday!), performing in another Broadway national tour in a show that I’ve longed to do for so long, I am forever grateful for all of the challenges and moments of reflection I have had and will continue to have at points in my life. I truly believe that those moments help not only enhance your character but also prepare you for the challenges and blessings that lie ahead.
As I look forward to embracing whatever the universe has in store for me this “Year of New Beginnings” I have promised myself to be more faithful. I’ve devoted myself to really embracing my favorite quote that “Everything happens for a reason”. Even though we may not know how things will transform in our lives, I’ve dedicated myself to be more relaxed this year knowing that what is meant to be for me will be for me, when the timing is right. Until then, I will continue to be diligent in honing my craft and enjoying every little bump, fall, twist, curve, dip and climb that the roller coaster of life has to offer.
Introducing Jeremy McQueen
One warm summer day in San Diego, my Mom took me to the San Diego Civic Theater to see a touring production of the Broadway hit, The Phantom of the Opera. At the young age of 8, I knew nothing about musical theater besides the Disney movie musicals I had seen on television and the few acting classes I had taken with a local children’s theater group. As we entered the grand theater with thousands of plush red seats, I was enthralled with the beauty and festiveness of this new experience. Everyone was dressed eloquently in semi-formal attire, including me in my Sunday suit. My Mom and I made our way to our seats on the last row of the balcony in the 3,000-seat theater, with my binoculars in hand. I had no idea what was in store for me that evening, but was very excited. As the curtain rose revealing a very large candle lit chandelier, with the sounds of blood curdling organ music and elaborate costumes filling the stage, I quickly found myself caught in a trace. Over the course of the next 3 hours, I sat on the edge of my seat, staring through my binoculars, never bli-
Photograph from the Broadway production of The Phantom of the Opera.
nking once so not to risk missing a single moment of the action. From that single experience, I decided that I wanted to be a performer. I wanted to be in a production of that caliber and perform on regal stages across the globe. From that moment on, my Mom nurtured my passionate desire as I disciplined and immersed myself in everything related to theater.
The Phantom of the Opera left a lasting impression in my life. Being exposed to the arts at such a young age introduced me to the magnificent world of live theater and helped provide me with focus for the rest of my childhood. The moment the curtain fell at the closing of the performance, I begged my parents to put me in acting, singing and dance classes and I worked my hardest each day to become the strongest ‘triple threat’ I could become. I would often save up my allowance during high school just so that I could afford to buy a ticket to see whatever national touring show was coming to town that month.
16 years later, I’m still out here working hard and achieving my goals, one step at a time. I am currently a featured dancer in the 1st Broadway National Tour of Wicked! Over the next couple of months, I will introduce you to my evolution as an artist, the life of a touring Broadway performer and all that comes with it. Join me every couple of days as I take you on a behind the scenes journey of my life as a performer, choreographer and teacher.
-Jeremy McQueen
GISELLE- BALLET DE SANTIAGO SEASON 2010
We just finished Giselle performances. It was really nice to us work with Ivan Nagy and his wife Marylin Burr again. I took some pictures and also made a giselle video, so I hope to post the video very soon and you can see this beautiful production. Well I hope you enjoy these pictures, and I will post some new ones very soon.
PRINCIPAL STAR DANCER LUIS ORTIGOZA
PRINCIPAL STAR DANCER LUIS ORTIGOZA AND PRINCIPAL NATALIA BERRIOS
PRINCIPAL STAR DANCER LUIS ORTIGOZA
PRINCIPAL NATALIA BERRIOS
PRINCIPAL STAR DANCER LUIS ORTIGOZA AND PRINCIPAL NATALIA BERRIOS
PRINCIPAL STAR DANCER LUIS ORTIGOZA
PRINCIPAL NATALIA BERRIOS
PRINCIPAL STAR DANCER LUIS ORTIGOZA AND PRINCIPAL NATALIA BERRIOS
BALLET DE SANTIAGO
BALLET DE SANTIAGO
PRINCIPAL STAR DANCER LUIS ORTIGOZA AND PRINCIPAL NATALIA BERRIOS
BALLET DE SANTIAGO
PRINCIPAL STAR DANCER LUIS ORTIGOZA
BALLET DE SANTIAGO
PRINCIPAL STAR DANCER LUIS ORTIGOZA AND SOLIST DOLORES SALAZAR
PRINCIPAL NATALIA BERRIOS
BALLET DE SANTIAGO
PRINCIPAL STAR DANCER LUIS ORTIGOZA, PRINCIPAL NATALIA BERRIOS AND SOLIST DOLORES SALAZAR
PRINCIPAL STAR DANCER LUIS ORTIGOZA
PRINCIPAL STAR DANCER LUIS ORTIGOZA AND PRINCIPAL NATALIA BERRIOS
PRINCIPAL STAR DANCER LUIS ORTIGOZA
PRINCIPAL STAR DANCER LUIS ORTIGOZA AND PRINCIPAL NATALIA BERRIOS
PRINCIPAL STAR DANCER LUIS ORTIGOZA
PRINCIPAL STAR DANCER LUIS ORTIGOZA AND PRINCIPAL NATALIA BERRIOS
PRINCIPAL STAR DANCER LUIS ORTIGOZA
PRINCIPAL STAR DANCER LUIS ORTIGOZA AND PRINCIPAL NATALIA BERRIOS
PRINCIPAL STAR DANCER LUIS ORTIGOZA
Ballet Zaida
My good friend, Oliver Endahl, started his photography business a few years ago under the name of Revilo Valentine Photography. We danced together at the San Francisco Ballet School and he left to pursue his love for photography. He has started a collection of his photography called Ballet Zaida and has really captured some beautiful photos. When i took a trip to SF on a layoff week, I worked with him and my friends Myles Thatcher and Kristina Lind who are with San Francisco Ballet and Nicole Voris who dances for San Francisco Ballet School. Here are some photos of our shoot and some of his other photos that are my favorites.
Please visit his website balletzaida.com and become a fan on facebook and of course follow him on twitter. He’s very talented and updates with new photos pretty often.
Dylan Ward (© Oliver Endahl)
Dylan Ward and Myles Thatcher (© Oliver Endahl)
Elizabeth Powell (© Oliver Endahl)
Kristina Lind (© Oliver Endahl)
My fellow "Winger" Madison Keesler (©Oliver Endahl)
Eva Burton (© Oliver Endahl)
Nicole Voris (© Oliver Endahl)
Kimberly Braylock and Robert Goodman (© Oliver Endahl)
Elizabeth Powell and Evan Hewer (© Oliver Endahl)
GISELLE REHERSAL
Hi, well we’re about to start the 2010 season with Ballet de Santiago. Next week we have Giselle premiere, so all these photos are from the same rehearsal and very soon I will post from performances, I hope you enjoy. Here in Chile all the people are trying to go back to normal life after the earthquake, and I want to give thanks for all the messages I received from people wanting to know if I was ok, thanks so much.
GISELLE (ADAM - NAGY)
PRINCIPAL STAR LUIS ORTIGOZA
PRINCIPAL STAR LUIS ORTIGOZA
PRINCIPAL STAR LUIS ORTIGOZA
PRINCIPAL STAR LUIS ORTIGOZA
PRINCIPAL STAR LUIS ORTIGOZA
PRINCIPAL STAR LUIS ORTIGOZA
PRINCIPAL STAR LUIS ORTIGOZA AND PRINCIPAL NATALIA BERRIOS
MARILYN BURR AND PRINCIPAL STAR LUIS ORTIGOZA
PRINCIPAL STAR LUIS ORTIGOZA AND PRINCIPAL NATALIA BERRIOS
PRINCIPAL STAR LUIS ORTIGOZA AND PRINCIPAL NATALIA BERRIOS
New Works in New York this April!
Hello everyone!
I hope that everyone is doing well and that the New Years is working out for you.
This month im gonna be back in NYC with a couple different projects that i would love for you to come out to. I can promise you a fun filled evening with some new innovative work.
April 16th will be the world premiere of a new dance film titled “Burrowed Brow” otherwise known as the “Squirrel Dance” at Dance Theater Workshop. The process of the film is pretty awesome if i would say so myself. And here we go:
Alex before getting into costume
The film was a Twitter collaboration with myself Dance Theater Workshop and @common_squirrel. A little background info for you is that Dance Theater does something called “community choreography” on twitter where they ask they’re followers to tweet them any dance move like “right elbow up” and then they have a dancer make sense of all of the replies and film it. Super cool concept, I always thought as it being very inclusive for the followers to be part of the creative process. I was too busy during the time with Sketch comedy shows ghost choreographing and other projects but always kept a close tab on Twitter. One day Dance Theater posted another challenge where they wanted someone to take the tweets of @common_squirrel and make a dance out of that. My scheduled had freed so I decided to take on the task. After looking at the tweets of “run run scratch scratch sniff sniff TREE acorn”, I had to ask myself what did I get myself into? I contacted my dancer Alex Jenkins whom was born for the part and we started to work on the movement in Studio G. I knew that it would be tres easy to make it cheesy ( ahh that rhymes) so I added some meat to the bones and gave the movement a back story or a reason to exist. However working in my studio I was constantly laughing at what we were coming up with because C’mon, how seriously can you make a squirrel dance? After finishing the choreography I contacted my new fantabolous costume designer to get involved. I sketched her out a drawing that was inspired by Where The Wild Things Are meets Japanime and slapped with punk. From that point I contacted my videographer and long time collaborator Dr.Bacon about shooting the dance on location in DC. He was telling me about some new ideas that he had and all of the new tech equipment that he wanted to shoot it on so this dance was ago! Through the generosity of David Benaym co-founder of Movmnt Magazine (along with Danny Tidwell) we had our tickets to DC to film the thing! The shoot was crazy because my dancer and I both were not feeling well and we both had an 11 hour day of shooting other dances before Burrowed Brow. Needless to say after dancing in a super hot Squirrel costume being sick will make a person vomit off the side of the road like Alex did after the shoot. Now that pre-production was completed we flew back to San Francisco where I had my new award winning music producer David Molina score the film with my sound instructions. Dance Theater Workshop will be premiering the film at they’re space on the 16 along with other community choreographies and older dance films by us with artist such as Jacoby & Pronk dancers from SFB and others. Here is the NYT article on dancers using Twitter with Ashley Bouder on the cover. The Winger and Kristin Sloan got a shout out too:) More info about tickets which are limited click here. I will also be posting the film up somewhere on the web that day for one day only so id check my blog for more details.
April 22-24th will be my 1st ever 20min work titled “A Study Of Things Gone Wrong” being presented in New York as part of the Chronos Project with fellow Winger and show producer Benny Royce Royon. Costumes provided by the San Francisco based clothing brand HUF. Other choreographers include Nilas Martins and Monique Meunier. I’m very excited to be part of this project because its also marks the 1st time my work has been presented in NYC ever since I was a student so I have to be sure not to suck!!!! I was in NY last month setting the piece on the dancers whom were all great to work with and could handle my sound effects. In the evenings after my work day I would watch Bennys rehearsal. His work was soo inspiring. His movement vocab is exciting to watch along along with the choices that he makes its easy to see that this is something that he is meant for. His dancers are something to talk about as well. Not too mention him being one hell of a mover. I told him every time I watched his work I would go home and think to myself “damn! what am I doing? I need to step my game up”. Anywho, we will be having performance at the University Settlement and i would like to invite everyone whom is in town to come out and support some great work. more info here.
I posted this video years ago on the site. I finally got around to using the movement in one of the sections of my new dance. Try and see if you are able to recognize it:)
B
“King of all Nutcrackers”?
I’m running errands about town and happened to chance upon this.
According to its inscription:
“This Nutcracker is believed to be the King of all Nutcrackers. Found in Saragosa during the 17th century, it is the oldest Nutcracker ever discovered.”
(Marquis Lorenzo Leonard)
So functional, non?
