Archive for EVAN MCKIE
April 19, 2008 at 11:13 am · Filed under dance, EVAN MCKIE, airplane, airport, evan
Just back from touring in some great places and taking some time off to heal an(other) injury. Because I had such a great time on my recent escapades and also because I would love get to know the newer members of theWINGER dimension better, I thought I’d ask everyone a question…
I have been enjoying David H’s new project detailing his ‘way to work’ in various spots of the globe and would love to know more…
so WINGERS…
WHERE ARE SOME OF THE MOST (INSERT COOL/FUN ADJECTIVE HERE) PLACES YOU HAVE WORKED AND WHY?
Oh yeah, and what about the (nasty crap adjective) instances/places where, for whatever reason, you DID NOT have the best time?….
With the lot Sloan has up in here, responses may prove to be quite sumptuous. 
x
-Ev
((((P.S. Matt Murphy, again, you are exemplary…))))
Recent Posts by Evan McKie
March 2, 2008 at 9:57 am · Filed under dance, choreographers, EVAN MCKIE, stuttgart ballet, choreography, ballerina, marcia haydee
The Oscars turned eighty this past week and so did Georgette Tsiguirides. (above)
Georgette is an incredible woman who was chosen by John Cranko to assist him and notate while he was creating his masterpieces. She has given close to sixty years of her life to the Staatstheater Stuttgart (she was here at the Opera Ballet before Cranko had his breakthrough in the sixties even…) and she is still in the studio with us every day being deliciously bossy. We marvel at her showing the steps pretty close to ‘full-out’ and any male dancer who has worked with her in any of the world’s big ballet companies can attest to her love of being lifted. (It must be said; she is around five feet..give or take an inch and is a perfect candidate for such aerial activities!) Georgette likes to pay particular attention to detail and nuance in the choreography which brings us closer to re-creating the flow of movement that Cranko intended in his work.
I, myself, am indebted to Georgette so when the time came to celebrate her many years, I jumped on it! Along with two other Georgette enthusiasts, Stefan Stewart and Marijn Rademaker, I started to think about how to properly pay tribute to this awesome lady. The timing was hardly accomodating as we only had two days before boarding the plane to Hong Kong for Swan Lake and two days after returning to organize the event. In the end, however, we pulled a last-minute soiree together with various stars giving hommage through numbers or speeches and close to 150 people in attendance. I made a ’short’ film (ended up being 50 minutes…) where a Georgette-double/crank-yanker-style puppet finds that she’s missing a step from her notes and embarks on a quest through the theater…running into Cranko’s characters (from Onegin to Juliet) in various highlights from their respective stories…(all in drag of course…). Stefan Stewart created a big-bang Broadway-like finale with most of the company doing jazzified- versions of some of Cranko’s most signature steps and Marijn Rademaker stage-managed everything from beginning to end. I was a bit of a tyrant in planning the whole thing with friends and colleagues who really just needed sleep after a 13-hour flight back from China but I’m glad that I was (and I think they were too..) just to see the look on Georgette’s face during the whole thing. I remember Marcia Haydee once saying that if you put good energy out into the world, then it invariably finds it’s way back to you. Well, Georgette Tsinguirides is brimming with the stuff so if we were able to give even a tenth of it back to her as a company then I am satisfied.
Happy 80 Georgette!
(Photo: Gundel Killian)
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Note: Georgette was one of the earliest candidates to become a ‘Fellow of The Institute of Choreology’
The FI Chor. is the highest award given by the Royal Academy of Dance (incorporating The Benesh Institute) in recognition of outstanding and exceptional service rendered over a substantial period of time to The Benesh Institute and Benesh Movement Notation.
Recent Posts by Evan McKie
January 28, 2008 at 2:49 pm · Filed under backstage, ballet, dance, injuries, choreographers, japan, EVAN MCKIE, the stuttgart Ballet, pina bausch, national ballet of canada, wingers, website, dancebloggers, opera house, opera houses, choreographer, issues, dacners, stuttgart ballet, back injury, choreography, bolshoi ballet, suttgart ballet, ballerina, marcia haydee, web, swan lake, injury, stuttgart, paris opera ballet, chirstopher wheeldon, john cranko, reid anderson, marcela goicoechea, luis ortigoza, balet de santiago, patrcio melo, debut, american balet theatre, opening night
( …in the world of Geraldine Georges. more at www.geraldinegeorges.be )
!
It’s been awhile!… I suppose it’s high time that I share a few minutes with the ever-popular Winger family!
Though I have become more of a ‘’distant guest contributor'’ here (not my words) due to an increasingly heavy workload, I still check in from time 2 time to see what has been going down. I have been able to meet a few other contributors in 2007 and especially enjoyed catching up with David H. after a decade, seeing Patricio dance with Luis and Marcela from South America and first meeting and then sharing jet-setting tips with Christopher in a german Christmas market only to realize who it actually was a day later!!!! I also want to congratulate Kristin on being an absolute role-model this past year while making difficult life choices. I wish you, Kristin, happiness in your new position at NYCB and am glad you still manage to make time for this site. There doesn’t seem to be any other cyber-place with such a variety of different artistic voices!
I was asked recently what some of my highs and lows of 2007 were…I thought it might be a good way to discuss what’s been going on with me since I last wrote.
Aside from the little problems that can arise in a world filled with blood, sweat and tears, I found myself confronted with some more threatening issues in 2007. I became sort of plagued by a variety of significant injuries that prevented me from doing things that I REALLY wanted to be a part of; like touring to Korea again with Sue Jin Kang, creating a new role in a Christian Spuck ballet, and just generally working on improving my abilities as a dancer. This is when I was forced to realize that ‘lows’ can turn into ‘highs’ if you come at problems from the right angle. Every dancer goes through a huge injury at some point and having the advice of friends and accomplished dancers like Bridget Breiner and Robert Tewsley to guide me through was invaluable. I launched into therapy that taught me new things about my body and I learned about the power of breathing among other things. I decided to have a GREAT time and so I spent days visiting friends from Berlin to Paris. I was happy to see wonderful art and theatre in both places and meet exciting new people. One night after seeing an ABT(on tour) show at the Theatre du Chatelet I found myself on the Avenue de L’Opera. I stood staring at the beautiful Opera Garnier where I had JUST danced one month before. Now I was an invalid dancer shivering outside in the rain wondering if I’d ever be onstage again. A friend called me and invited me to hear him DJ at Le ParisParis which is also on the Avenue de L’Opera so i turned my back on the Garnier and swore to myself that I would forget the stage if just for that night and have a good time. I did but it was difficult to remove my thoughts from the theatre. During the following months I started to let go a bit and noticed an immense improvement in my condition (two ruptured and herniated discs in my lower back). The time soon came to come back to work and I was ready to take on new challenges and more mentally/spiritually prepared to do so than I was before I left for therapy.
Because things move so quick here (the company has had about 70 shows since I penned my last post even…), I was back onstage within a 2 week time period. Being there this time was like a new experience though. I enjoyed myself more than ever because I could feel that through letting go of the ’silly stresses’ of dancing, I had matured as an artist…if even just a tiny bit. 
I won’t bore with other small details that followed this event but I will mention one thing that happened right around that time that I consider to be a highlight of my year: I was cast as Prince Siegfried in Swan Lake!
I was going to dance my first principal dancer role with a great big company AND my partner would be doing it for the fist time aswell! What happened next was a combination of greatness and misfortune…
My Odette/Odile, Linda and I rehearsed and rehearsed. The company and staff were so behind us and I felt incredible chemistry with my partner. We were finally ready to dance our first show! We stepped onstage together and with adrenaline flowing heavily, we delivered to a hungry audience that was eager to witness our virgin attempt of the Tchaikovsky classic. Things went well and the excitement increased as we completed the 3rd act where the sorcerer’s evil swan daughter deceives the Prince and tricks him into marriage. It was time to ‘fall into’ the beauty of the 4th and final act that has a tragic love pas de deux that is exclusive to the Cranko version. We danced together for what was to be the Swan and the Prince’s final dance before she is turned back into a swan creature indefinitely and the Prince drowns trying to save her. I could feel her breath on my neck and the moment was magic when suddenly there was a funny sounding click and I realized that my partner’s shoulder had come dislocated in one of those backwards port de bras movements that distinguished the swan from all other classical roles. We exited the stage and she courageously held-in screams as the orchestra played on. Her shoulder wouldn’t pop back in and it was a devastating sight. I ran back onto stage and somehow managed to improvise with the corps de ballet of swan girls as if I was looking for the swan queen who I had lost somehow. 5 whole minutes played out as I performed the ballet til the end while wishing I could somehow help my beautiful partner who was by now being taken to the hospital.
Thankfully no lasting damage was done to Linda’s body but mentally it was difficult for everybody invloved to have been a part of such a beautiful process that was abrubtly cut short. The newspapers carried the story in their headlines and there was an influx of well-wishing notes. Linda still needed time to recover so I was scheduled to dance with Anna, another of my frequent partners. I was sad to see Linda watch as I rehearsed with another soloist just a day later but the show HAD to go on. Luckily Anna and I have chemistry that matches the intensity of Linda and mine together. This is rare (the two ladies share the same birthday too) but I was happy to be dancing with her and glad to not have to try and manufacture any feelings that should come naturally. Our show went over well and I felt the confidence that only a second show can bring. My ballerina told me she had never had so much fun and I believed her.
Since that time the direction was kind enough to give Linda a chance to redeem herself in the role and we danced the ballet, in it’s entirety, on a Christmas tour of Spain. Due to the incedible emotional journey that the ballet inspired for me, I’d definitely put Swan Lake at the top of my personal 2007 ‘crucial moments’ list.
4th Act embrace with Anna Osadcenko in ‘Swan Lake’ with the Stuttgart Ballet. Galina Mezentseva as Odette.
As Stuttgart’s autumn season brought scattered flurries to the Schlossgarten outside the theatre, indoors there was a blizzard of different ballets being performed. ‘The CRANKO festival’ was underway. Infact it was all planned far in advance to celebrate the company’s founder. We all danced a long list of roles that Cranko had created for his star-personalities of the time and many of them came back to help us get into each individual role. I danced Lenski in Onegin and special parts in ‘Brouillards’, ‘Jeu de Cartes’ , ‘Holberg Pas de Deux’ and ‘Initials’. Infact, I just debuted over this past weekend for the final two shows of ‘Initials’ in the hauntingly beautiful pas de deux created for Marcia Haydee and Heinz Claus from the 3rd movement. ‘Initials’ is one of those rare ballet’s that demands a large company fueled by a sense of camaraderie. Four principals represent four seasons and the music by Brahms is so powerful and melodic that it is hard for me to imagine it without steps attached. The choreography is difficult and there are alot of leading roles so that everyone has their own personal responsability to the ballet. We were all in it together and every single person felt like an important ingredient that was required to bring this ballet to fruition. The Cranko festival was a ‘high’ for me because it afforded me with the chance to dance roles that I loved while being a part of a 3 month long seminar-like expereince where I was able to focus solely on what made Cranko, the choreographer tick. I saw footage that I had never seen before, saw roles that had been lost in ballet history and celebrated (night after night) the ballets and steps that made the choreographer so famous. There were gala events where guests were invited to come dance all of the most popular Cranko roles. How lucky for them to be able to dance such roles on the stage where they were first received and how lucky for us, here, to be able to see how other artists interpret the roles that we know so well. (Alina Cojucaru as ‘Tatiana’ from ‘’Onegin'’ was one of my favourites.) I also thouroghly enjoyed getting to know Polina Semionova while dancing ‘Lenski’ with her ‘Tatiana’ in a special gala performance of ‘’Onegin'’.
1st time Siegfried in ‘’Swan Lake'’. Flirting with Katja Wünsche’s ‘Olga’ in ‘’Onegin'’
I’ll leave it at that for now as the new year is well underway now and I want to go out and accomplish brand-new things to reflect on at a later date. Altogether, I feel good about celebrating the ups and downs that my career as a ballet dancer brought me in 2007 and I want to make sure to thank the people who have celebrated WITH me! Whether it’s european balletomanes, my family and colleagues, or original Stuttgart Ballet members (antiques) who encouraged me to keep writing here at the WINGER (.. ..) I have recently been getting alot of attention in Japan aswell and am frankly quite baffled by it as I have only ever done ONE show there!..BUT I am always thrilled to receive the notes and extremely creative gifts from my friends in and around Tokyo. I don’t know what I did to deserve you but I am thankful and proud to have such a dance-educated group be interested in me! Thank you.
Let’s see what’s in store for ‘08. I promise to do my ballet-best !………
-Ev
Photos: The Stuttgart Ballet. (I am sorry I only have the few from recent while. The truth is I don’t have that many at my disposal!)
Artwork: a gift from the amazing Geraldine Georges
www.geraldinegeorges.be
Recent Posts by Evan McKie
December 24, 2007 at 4:00 pm · Filed under SLOAN, dance, recommendations, TONY, EVAN MCKIE, MEGAN, wingers, life, MIKI, MAIA, iphone, TAYLOR, MATTHEW, BRIAN, holiday, gifts
As a holiday gift to all of you, (I apologize for it’s lateness)…
A sampling of Winger contributors gave our thoughts on what we (or other people involved in dance) might be excited about for the holidays.
We’ve suggested some things that are useful, inspiring, or just plain cool.
Popular among many contributors were spa treatments (and related goodies), magazine subscriptions, books, music, performance tickets, and the iPhone.
Enjoy!
Also,
LOLAstretch Gift Certificates, which enables the receiver to design their own leotard.
“Give the gift of creative control!”
Another thing I would recommend is season tickets to BAM. - CANDICE
“Look before you leap: an advice guide for choreographers” by Ann Whitley
The description on the back says:
“This is not a book about how to choreograph. It is a practical guide to the negotation, preparation, organization and continuing care of choreographic work. It is intended as a useful source of reference for choreographers, assistant choreographers, dance teachers, managers, administrators, amateurs, movements specialists, composers, designers, technicians and all those who collaborate with choreographers.”
Also,
There is an annual publication in South Africa called “Contacts” - this book contains all contact information for people working in the industry.
A grant to make a work … finding out that my funding applications were successful …. or even just finding a sponsor to support my work;
The completion of my MA thesis.
Spa Treatments for those sore bodies.
Alternative health remedies / tonics to keep us healthy during the intense seasons
Calender with beautiful pics
Funky bag to keep all the rehearsal stuff in
Beautiful journal - to write new ideas in
A subscription to a magazine is always a great gift idea that keeps on giving through-out the year. - MAIA
Also,
Touchstone by Laurie R. King
This book doesn’t come out till Boxing Day, so I guess it doesn’t technically qualify for holiday gift giving status (though I suppose you can always give New Year’s presents… why not?), but Laurie R. King is one of my favorite mystery writers. Her stories are always deliciously smart and satisfyingly precise.
Chocolate
One of those gifts that can very rarely go wrong (though my sister has a friend who likes neither chocolate nor peanut butter! Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups must be like a bad nightmare to him). My recent obsessions are Green and Black’s dark chocolate (really flavorful, but not too bitter) and Theo Chocolate’s “Bread and Chocolate” bar, which is dark chocolate pocked with the tiniest crumbs of salty baugette. This sounds like a really bizarre and unpleasant combination, but it’s addictive and delicious. Plus, the wrapper is a cheerful yellow and has adorable, cartoonish cats on it. - MEGAN
Also,
Tickets to The Nutcracker, Christmas Carol or Passion. - MIKI
Also,
I like all cotton sweats. hate cotton/poly blend. Yuck!
Something like these.
And of course the essential stocking stuffer, We B Girlz. - TONY
Also,
I’d love to be able to design my own ballet-wear somehow… but, like, with a few drags and a click.
…and a puppy. - EVAN
Also,
A subscription to Answers4dancers.com - good website that lists auditions.
And what tops my Xmas wish list this year:
*an iphone or blackberry so I can organize my rehearsal schedule and check emails between running from class to work to where ever! - TAYLOR
Also,
A membership to a museum.
An iTunes gift certificate to purchase some good warm-up music. - MATTHEW
Also,
Always useful - iTunes gift certificates and Starbucks gift cards. (There are four of these within a sic block radius of Lincoln Center).
And warm fuzzy things. - SLOAN
(From Ian, a dancer with Les Ballets Grandiva, who will be joining our family very soon…)
The top on my list are gift certificates for 90 minute massages at the Equinox Spa and 60 minute session gift cards for True Pilates and True Pilates East - anything that soothes aching 35 year old muscles!
Truth be told, I am also a sucker for anything from Hermes in the Hermes orange along with any little Louis Vuitton accessory like the I-Pod case. I guess that’s my two or four cents. - IAN
Recent Posts by kristin sloan
July 13, 2007 at 7:02 am · Filed under dance, EVAN MCKIE, the stuttgart Ballet, hamburg ballet, stuttgart ballet, alessandra ferri
Went up to Hamburg for a night this week to see a ballet we, in Stuttgart, are very familiar with It was sort of a special ocassion as I believe it was meant to be Alessandra Ferri’s last full lenghth ballet ever. The cast of this gala performance of Neumeier’s ‘’The Lady of the Camellias'’ comprised of dancers from the Paris Opera, Hamburg Ballet and of course Alessandra and Roberto. (Bolle)
Ferri totally knocked me out with her incredible portrayal and Roberto was an inspiration to any tall guy who might dream of playing Armand Duval
I’m envious of those who get to see or perform in her Gala programs coming up in Italy and Japan. It’s hard to say goodbye to such an amazing artist…
Recent Posts by Evan McKie
June 30, 2007 at 6:56 am · Filed under dance, EVAN MCKIE, the stuttgart Ballet, stuttgart ballet, performances, swan lake
Here are a few more images of what a Swan Lake reharsal looked like last week as I was waiting to learn my entrance with Odette called the ‘’waterfall.'’ This is where the prince rushes in and lifts the white swan in an arabesque pressage while walking backwards in a diagonal downstage. As the prince walks by each swan, she must immediately fall to the floor and assume ’swan position’…(see the 2nd picture here) This creates a look similar to what might be called a ‘wave’ from a sports-viewing crowd. The prince cannot see where he is going though which means that if even one unlucky swan is out of line then she must face the unfortunate consequence of having foot briefly stepped on. There was a show I can rememeber where, due to a combination of an ill-footed prince and a few swans that may need contact lenses to acheive a more precise diagonal, all one could hear from the wings during this ‘’waterfall’ was ‘’ow-ouch-ow-ouch-ouch-ouch…'’ as the swans’ toes were trampled. The audience hopefully wasn’t aware of it, but I am sure the girls have paid closer attention to this part ever since….:)
I’ll try to put up a video of this part because it is so beautiful when done well….and sadly but secretly sort of entertaining when not.
Here are the pretty ladies through the course of an afternoon reharsal….
Recent Posts by Evan McKie
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