Archive for beach
September 3, 2007 at 12:55 am · Filed under dance, student, beach, MADISON, stiefel and stars, ethan stiefel, marthas vineyard, summer intensive
Hello again! I am sorry that I haven’t been writing as often as I should, now that summer is over I am hoping to get on more of a normal schedule so expect to be seeing more articles in the future!
I finished my second summer program, Stiefel and Stars (S&S) in Martha’s Vineyard. This was my second year at this summer intensive. It is such an amazing program; I don’t even know where to begin. The luxuries that we have while on the vineyard are like no other ballet program I know of. We stay in a beautiful new house equipped with ballet studios on the first floor. Students, staff, and stars live a few steps away from each other which is an amazing experience as well. Johnny Eliasen, Yuri Fateev, John Gardner, Katrina Killian, Amanda McKerrow, Benjamin Millepied, Elizabeth Parkinson, and Scott Wise were all faculty this summer. I got to take class and work with many stars of today as well; Ethan Stiefel, Marcelo Gomes, Benjamin Millepied, Gillian Murphy, Elizabeth Parkinson, Stella Abrera, Sascha Radetsky, Isabella Boylson, Marian Butler, Gray Davis, Thomas Forster, Nicole Graniero, and Melissa Thomas were all there.
Although by going to Stiefel and Stars again this summer it didn’t give me any break I am very glad that I attended. All of the teachers there are so amazing and I feel that they all, in their own way, have helped me grow as a person and dancer. Every year S&S has a performance at the Performing Art Center on the vineyard. This year I performed Konservatoriet, a Fosse piece, and Paquita. Benjamin Millepied also choreographed a world premier called Rebound. It featured Isabella, Nicole, some of the male students, and Benjamin himself. Gillian Murphey and Sasha Redesky were the princple couple in Paquita and they were spectacular, of course. I have to say that personally one of my favorite parts of the performance was Marcelo Gomez. He performed Percussion IV in the Fosse section of our performance and it was wonderful.
I met a ton of amazing people this summer and truly had a great time. Here are some pictures from my summer there, enjoy!
The gorgeous island where we lived…
Here is a picture of some of the students of S&S at the beach…
All of the student S&S
Recent Posts by Madison Keesler
August 23, 2007 at 4:10 am · Filed under dance, injuries, ALEX, miami, beach, elvis costello, apollo
So this photo was taken a while back, but I forgot to post it. Just having some fun on the beach and doing a knock-off “Apollo” pose with an extra leg! 
The dancers are Michael Breeden, Holly Fusco, Maira Barriga, Me and Carolyn Ramsay.
Also wanted to say that I am finally out of my crutches and back to dancing pretty much full out now. Man is it great to be back! We’ve got a jam packed season ahead of us, full length Jewels, Tarantella, Liturgy, Bourree Fantasque, La Valse, Square Dance just to name a few, as well as a newly commissioned piece that we are currently working on by Twyla Tharp with a completely new score written by Elvis Costello!
I’ll keep you all updated!
Recent Posts by alex wong
August 14, 2007 at 2:34 am · Filed under SLOAN, ballet, dance, travel, teaching, savannah, students, VERONICA, beach
Posted by Kristin Sloan
Posted by Veronica Moretti Niebuhr
The plié/releve circle
In case it hasn’t been clear, the place where I have been teaching in Savannah is Winger contributor Veronica Moretti Niebuhr’s studio (called The Studio).
On Saturday Ms. V, four of our students (Caitlin, Kieran, Michelle, and Siena), Ms. V’s kids Enzo and Sophia, Caitlin’s mom Janie, and I went to the beach to do a little dancing! I gave them a bunch of center work, from tendus and grand battements, to single pirouettes and coupe jetes en menege. It was so much fun!
Pliés in fourth
Rhonds de Jambes
Circles in the sand!
Ballerina tracks… Tendus to the side, coming front and going back.
Caitlin gives the girls an adagio combination when we first got to the beach. I think everyone was so excited and giggly to be there that the penchées got a little out of control. Good times.
Sienna and me (with crazy salty hair), pre-”class”
Enzo and Sophie, doing a dance of their own design
Recent Posts by kristin sloan
August 10, 2007 at 1:21 pm · Filed under travel, vacation, vacationing, DAVID, the met, environment, david hallberg, traveling, beach, airplane
| | Posted by David Hallberg
Hello all.
I am writing you from a very tropical airport cafe in Belize City, Belize as I make my departure back to reality… no wait, New York. I have been ‘unwinding’ and ‘decompressing’ after a very busy three months of performances. This is my first time to Belize and what a visit it was. The sole reason being my father’s 60 birthday celebration, it also served as my annual ‘baking in the sun’ ‘relax my body after Met season’ vacation. I spent the whole time with my family, Mom, Dad, brother Brian, and me.
The vacation started on a 49 foot Catamarian, which is a sail boat complete with captain and first mate attending to our every whim. We sailed all around the waters of Belize, for five days, snorkeling, sunning, eating and drinking. It was bliss. The dolphins, stars, fish, barrier reef, and islands were stunning as we made our way through its Cayes.
If that wasn’t enough for us, we then spent the rest of the time in an amazing resort on the island of San Pedro, called the Victoria House. Sea side, we spent more time in the sun napping, with no televisions, no radios, no internet-e mail. Its amazing what you get caught up in while ‘in the mode’, especially in NYC. I find a love/hate relationship with New York more and more. Its the beating heart of my profession, which I wouldn’t change, but the need to get away for pure sanity is ever present.
Nevertheless, 10 days came and went, and here I am sipping my last beer as I board my flight. I do feel rejuvinated though, ready to take on my new tasks at hand. One of them being my up coming trip to Argentina to dance with Paloma Herrera and the Teatro Colon. I will dance Paquita and Raymonda, heavy work if I might say so, but a trip down there with that company will be fascinating. More to come on that.
So here are a few pics of my trip, me in vacation mode. My once a year unwinding….
A dive into the aqua colors of Belize
The tame kind of shark… if there is one.
Introducing my brother Brian, enjoying the wind
A total sucker for sunsets
The view from our puddle jumper
Point taken…
The grounds at the Victoria House. One of those was my little hut.
Just me and my Mojito
Recent Posts by david hallberg
April 19, 2007 at 5:49 am · Filed under friends, audition, MEGAN, beach, california, andrea flores, odc/dance
| | Posted by Megan Kurashige
Here are some random pictures. My friend Heather and I took a road trip down to Southern California and stopped in Carmel. This is the sort of thing that makes me happy that I live in California.
I haven’t been doing much of anything lately.
Let me clarify: I haven’t been doing anything out the ordinary lately. All of our rehearsals and classes day to day are terribly interesting and important to me, but don’t make for very compelling writing. I could say that we’ve been working with Andrea Flores, who is a dancer with ODC/Dance, and making movement phrases based on lists of words, which are then morphed into something which could be a very interesting piece… but it’s not much fun without being able to show you the process. Hmmm… It might be time to break out my video camera.
It is really interesting to get ten words (crave, opposition, control, fluid, elongate, balance, sway, float, gesture, air) and go off to a corner and explore (in my case, struggle over) how you can make those words into a phrase, and then—this is the best part—to come back and see how different everyone’s work comes out. It’s like a bunch of people looking at some of those Rorschach inkblots and painting whatever they see.
I saw Symphony in C for the first time last Wednesday. I am in love with the second movement pas de deux.
I know when I first joined the Winger I was all gung ho about auditions (small detour: did you know that “gung-ho” is an adaptation of a Chinese phrase adopted by U.S. marines during World War II? Honest). I had a whole list of companies that I was going to research and plans to put together an audition video. I was excited about meeting new people and doing a bit of traveling. My, rather embarrassing, admission is that, as of today, I have done exactly one audition. The truth: I hate auditions. They’re completely bizarre experiences. It’s normally just ballet class, maybe some choreography, with a bunch of strangers so it’s nothing especially torturous or unusual or scary, but I always find this weird compulsion taking over me. I suddenly want to be someone else, whoever it is that Important Person Who Makes Decisions has in their mind, so badly that my dancing goes flat. I try so hard to be correct and to fit into a set of imagined expectations that I even start to bore myself. It’s this weird combination of being revved up and constricted.
So I’ve been putting off auditions and now it’s rather late in the season (most American companies audition January-March or so). But, just so I can feel a little proactive, I’m going to be sending out a video to a few places within the next week, so I’ll let you know how that goes. Actually, I’m telling you this so that I don’t keep “forgetting” to do something about the situation. No more procrastination!
Time to close some tabs. In honor of Kurt Vonnegut, who wrote what was my favourite short story for a very long time (there’s a ballerina in it!), a link to “Harrison Bergeron”. And has anyone in NYC played the Canal Street Station murder mystery game? It looks amazing.
Recent Posts by megan kurashige
March 20, 2007 at 3:51 am · Filed under backstage, kennedy center, washington dc, new york city ballet, vacation, SOPHIE, abt, florida, beach, polaroid
| | Posted by Sophie
I apologize for my long absence! I have lots to catch you up on…
We successfully completed our winter season at the NY State Theater in late February, and we performed ‘A Midsummer Night’s Dream’ for a week during a Shakespeare festival in Washington, DC.
I then vacationed in Palm Beach, Florida for our week long lay off (I bumped into the ABT crowd while in Miami on a day trip!), and we are now rehearsing for our upcoming spring season.
Recent Posts by sophie
