Archive for MADISON
February 26, 2008 at 5:38 pm · Filed under dance, student, john neumeier, performance, san francisco ballet, MADISON
Photo Credits:
San Francisco Ballet School Students in Neumeier’s “Yondering” © Chris Hardy
Being the infamous procrastinator that I am I am finally going to write about the amazing experience I had in San Francisco during January. As many of you may know this is a huge year for San Francisco Ballet, it marks the 75th Anniversary of both the company and the school. So, it should be no surprise that the Gala, the kick-off of SFB’s 2008 season, was quite the event.
This Gala was especially different for the school because many of the dancers in the top levels got to perform. Not only did the school have this amazing opportunity and exposure at such a major event, but we all got the chance to work with John Neumeier for a couple of days before the gala. We performed his ballet, Yondering, which was created in 1996 for the Hamburg Ballet School and since has been performed by such schools as The National Ballet School and The Paris Opera Ballet School. This was the first time that any American school was privileged enough to perform this ballet, and I felt honored to be in the premier. I felt even more fortunate because I performed one of the lead parts for the girls.
I have always been a huge fan of Neumeier’s choreography, but somehow I learned to love it even more after working with him. Everything was so meaningful and every single movement had a very specific reason behind it. John Neumeier is a true artist. He understands everything that I believe ballet should represent. I could go on for days about all of this but I am going to talk about one incident that will always stick in my mind. At the end of the ballet there is a section that revolves around the death of a child. In order for us to get the correct feeling of what John wanted he started explaining what was going on. That sounds very logical and simple I guess, but it was so much more than that. While he was explaining these intense emotions and feelings to us he was speaking in a very matter of fact way. During this he paused for a second and while a single tear streamed down his face he continued. There was not one ounce of shame or embarrassment as he began to get so emotional and I admire that so much. Human emotion is a beautiful thing and I feel that too many people are constantly trying to hide those emotions. I respect this man so much and I hope to be able to work with him again one day soon.
From what I got to see in dress rehearsal the rest of Gala was mind-blowing, but there is no surprise there. If you want to read more about it here is just one review from the night… http://danceinsf.blogspot.com/2008/01/sf-ballet-gala-1232008.html
Here are some more pictures.
This one is my roommate and myself in the dressing room after the show.
Here is a picture of the cast of Yondering. Sorry the quality of the picture is so bad.
In the middle from left to right is Lola De Avila (associate director of the school), John Neumeier, and Jean-Yves Esquerre (assistant to the artistic director, as well as the trainee program supervisor)
Recent Posts by Madison Keesler
November 12, 2007 at 9:08 pm · Filed under dance, abt, MADISON
This week was a marvelous week of astounding performances. American Ballet Theater came to Berkeley this past week and I was lucky enough to be able to see both programs that they brought while on this tour. Program A consisted of the following: Ballo della Regina, The Sleeping Beauty Rose Adagio, Le Corsaire, and closed with Fancy Free. I saw the Wednesday night cast for this program. In my opinion, Fancy Free was by far the best thing in this show. Not only is the choreography wonderful, but also all the dancers in it were superb.
While I must say that there were some ups and downs in program A, program B was flawless and it was one of the best shows I have seen in a long time. Opening that Saturday night show with the wonderful and light Baker’s Dozen was an excellent choice. It was my first time to see this Twyla Tharp work and I enjoyed it very much. Following Baker’s Dozen was Sinatra Suite, another Tharp masterpiece. The only other time I had seen Sinatra Suite was with the videos of Baryshnikov and Elain Kudo, and I must say Marcelo Gomes was easily up to par with Baryshnikov in this part. Gomes, as usual, captured the audiences the second he stepped onstage with Luciana Paris. He is such an incredible performer and actor that he effortlessly made the thoughts of the character he was portraying extremely evident. The changes in the relationship were understood and he somehow made every person in the audience understand and relate to what was happening on stage. After the four pas were finished he ended with the “One for My Baby (and One More for the Road)” solo, which was just as brilliant as all of the previous.
Thinking that not much could top Sinatra Suite I was extremely shocked when I saw C. to C. which I must say was my favorite ballet in the show. With a cast of Julie Kent, Marcelo Gomes, Misty Copeland, Herman Cornejo, Stella Abrera (who stepped into Sat night cast for Kristi Boone), and Jared Matthews it isn’t hard to believe I fell in love with this piece. Those amazing dancers weren’t the only things that made this piece so magical though. Jorma Elo is a genius, and everything from the background to the costumes to the steps themselves was out of this world. When Julie Kent dances my heart just melts. She is so beautiful in everyway and this performance was no different. I have to say that she was my favorite dancer when I started ballet at the age of six, and still at seventeen (just turned 17 this past Saturday) my love for her dancing has never wavered. Hopefully someday I will be privileged enough to meet this amazingly talented artist.
The ballet closed with a new work by Benjamin Millepied called From Here On Out. I, as I expected to, thoroughly enjoyed this work as well. I have to say certain parts reminded me a bit of what he did this summer at Stiefel and Stars, which is by no means a bad thing. The dancers executed the difficult movement extremely well and Gillian Murphy and David Hallberg were simply beautiful as the leads in this ballet.
I am so glad that I had a chance to see ABT do such an amazing rep. It was most definitely an inspiration, which is something every dancer needs every once and a while. The other great thing was being able to see and say hello to the people I spent the past two summers with at Stiefel and Stars. Overall it was an incredible week and I am so glad that I got the chance to experience all of it.
Recent Posts by Madison Keesler
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 5, 2007 at 3:31 pm · Filed under dance, student, san francisco, MADISON, summer school, san francisco ballet school
Posted by Madison Keesler
San Francisco ended July 27. I can’t believe how quickly the summer went by. I have exciting news though; starting in the fall I am going to attend the San Francisco Ballet School! I was accepted into level 8 with full-tuition scholarship and a spot at the Jackson House. The Jackson House is located in Pacific Heights and it is where they house 26 dancers. I am ecstatic to start the year there!
This was my third summer in SF and some things about this summer were a little different then previous. I got the opportunity to work with Amy Raymond who taught a William Forsythe workshop to the top two levels at SFBS. It was an amazing experience. I have always loved the work of Forsythe, but now I have a completely different respect for it. We learned the concepts that Billy uses in all of his choreography, such as the laban cube, and inversion. We also got to learn part of Artifact Suite.
Another thing that was different about SFBS this summer were the teachers. I was in level 8 this summer, as well as last summer, and it was a very different schedule. We got teachers who normally only teach the Men and Partnering. For the list of excellent teachers there you could go http://sfballet.org/school/abouttheschool/faculty.asp
Over all I had an awesome summer and it being my third summer would obviously recommend it.
another view of the golden gate…
A sign on the way to the famous Haight Street
Recent Posts by Madison Keesler
July 23, 2007 at 7:56 am · Filed under dance, student, school, MADISON, san francsico, sanf francisco ballet
Posted by Madison Keesler
Hello Everyone!
Everything in San Francisco is going really well. We are approaching our final week here and I still can’t believe how quickly the summer program has gone by. I am having a ton of fun inside and outside of the studios which is always great.
In a couple of days I will write more about the Summer program this summer and what has been going on. In the mean time here are some pictures of the Golden Gate Bridge and myself with some of my friends. The pictures were taken from a bay cruise we went on during the second weekend in San Francisco.
Recent Posts by Madison Keesler
July 5, 2007 at 5:51 am · Filed under backstage, ballet, dance, students, MADISON, cpyb, laszlo berdo
Posted by Madison Keesler
Hello everyone!
I am in San Francisco at the moment having an awesome time! Not too long ago I finished our June Show at CPYB. It is basically just a ton of random stuff in an “end of the year” type show. It ran from June 20th through the 23rd. Way to many things were performed to be mentioned but I performed La Bayadere, Balanchine’s Stars and Stripes and Walpurgisnacht, and piece by CPYB’s in-house choreographer, and two ballets by one of our wonderful teachers Laszlo Berdo.(I think that is it…) It was all a lot of fun and the performances all went pretty well.
Below are some pictures taken backstage…enjoy!
Hope you enjoyed…I will put up some pictures from san fran soon!
Recent Posts by Madison Keesler
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