Archive for traditions
May 7, 2007 at 12:54 am · Filed under backstage, traditions, SUSAN, stage, students, ballet tuscon
Ballet Tucson celebrates the hard work of their ‘Seniors’–those graduating from high school–prior to the last performance of their spring season by bestowing upon them symbolic gifts to wish them well on their post-graduate journeys and adventures.
Gifts this year included: snowflakes (because each is unique), rocks (to represent strength), leis (that they’ll remember to have fun) and fancy, lacy (under)pants (so they remember they are always beautiful (and sexy?)). What a touching tradition!
Recent Posts by susan kim
December 10, 2006 at 11:14 am · Filed under SLOAN, ballet, injuries, traditions
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| Posted by Sloan
One of the fortunate things about being with a big company like the New York City Ballet is that they have workers compensation insurance for when their dancers get injured. It works for them because they get reimbursed by the insurance company for paying my salary when I am injured. And it works for me because I can still support myself while I heal my injury.
For the most part, the system is fairly smooth. But periodically as your injury continues, you are called to a state building on W125th St. for a hearing, so that the insurance companies lawyer, and your WC lawyer, can hammer out the finer details of your injury.
This past Thursday was one of those days. Above is the view from the FDR on my way uptown.
West 125th Street is dangerous… because of all the shopping opportunities.
The building where my hearing is, on the left… and the newly revamped Apollo theater on the right.
After signing in, everyone has to wait in this big room filled with incredibly uncomfortable wooden benches. There, your lawyer comes over to chat with you and let you know what everyone is hoping accomplish with the hearing. As I was talking with my lawyer, I found out that the insurance company had all sorts of information wrong and/or missing.
After an hour of sitting, we were called back into one of the conference rooms. There’s a big table. I sit at the head, the insurance company’s lawyer is on the left side of the table, my lawyer on the right, and the judge sits up a few steps higher on the opposite end of the table with a computer in front of him. There’s a voice recorder in the center of the table, and sometimes a stenographer taking notes.
Not much happened at this particular hearing but it was a good chance to get some information corrected that I didn’t know they had wrong in the first place. It’s great that this system is in place, but it can feel a little scary to depend on it when it is an environment where the people in control do not always understand dance as a profession. Trying to explain how you were going to doctors and getting physical therapy, but still dancing… and explaining how, yes I am currently employed by the company again but it is temporary and it’s a non-dancing role in the Nutcracker. It doesn’t mean I am healed. I still need physical therapy.
Recent Posts by kristin sloan
October 5, 2006 at 5:00 pm · Filed under traditions, events, lifestyle, EVAN MCKIE, theatre
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| Posted by Evan McKie
So I just saw this debacle.
At first sight, I was actually quite taken with the odd but exceptional beauty of a picture like this; the girl and the audience have just suddenly been cast into total vulnerability together for a short, but bittersweet, second… Then, naturally, I did the ‘’awe, poor girl…'’ thing aswell as the ‘’whatever, bitch probably stole the show, good for her!'’ thing and THEN……….like a girl taking a dreaded dive onto a cold Lagerfeld runway, my life flashed before my eyes… And when I say ‘my life’ I mean my somewhat peppered ‘performing life’ measured solely on the trips and stumbles that I have taken. (& mmm mmm let me tell you….) 
The truth is (and I hope ‘la lovely with the pretty pattern pantyhose’ knows this too,) that a stumble or fumble or even tumble like that can totally ‘make’ a show for many-a-spectator and turn the victim into the toast (or at least ‘talk’) of the town faster than it actually took to take the sudden spill. About a month ago, I had the pleasure of seeing ‘’History Boys'’ on Broadway and though the show was great in itself, I now find myself recounting one of the character’s funny and VERY unscripted mishaps (he suddenly slipped off a chair, slid under the table and hit his head on it on the way back up!!) just as much as I discuss the actual play. Bad of me, maybe, but seeing that brilliant cast being thrown into an instant fit of red-faced semi-contained giggling while obviously and painfully/hilariously trying to remain ‘in character’ was priceless! A performance whithin a performance! Spontaneous impromptu entertainement…for free!
Providing that nobody gets majorly hurt, a fall onstage usually turns out to be short and quite funny in retrospect. For a performer it can be quite an experience/rush/high/low though, to have an unexpected blunder like this and from my personal experience it can be sorta hard to come to terms with the fumble-factor. I used to think to myself, ‘’what the %&$§ was that out there, Evan? Misha or Sylvie or some other trade-master that I admire the crap out of would have never have let that kind of nonsense occur!..not in a trillion years!!!'’ I was sad… but as I was watching TV I saw a vintage clip of this….
Hmmmm…. ok so wait, the almighty QUEEN NAOMI? Taking an unplanned descent to what could have been a very abrupt crash landing onto a Vivienne Westwood carpeted catwalk? This is the same woman that has been globally revered (certainly not for her behaviour) but for her practically perfect prowl!!!!! Ms. Campbell, not Miss Shambles!!…but then I saw that she was smiling at whichpoint she picked up that pink boa and worked the rest of that runway so fiercely that I’m surprised those shoes didn’t tear up the carpet! Lesson learned. 
OK– so if someone like 
can have a bit of scratch at the floor while on the job then that means that someone as seemingly pulled-together and paramount as 
may have also been faced with a similarly inconvenient circumstance, or two, in her day. THAT means that there may be a slight chance that even ol’ 
might not have been able to avoid the odd toss up from time to time. I feel relieved.
So, I have kind of come to the conclusion that, even though as dancers we spend so much of our lives perfecting and rehearsing and refining, it’s ok to be a fumbling idiot every once in a blue moon!! Infact, I would like to take this opportunity to extend an invitation to all of you to share and describe (in vivid detail, no less) one of those ’special’ instances when you realized that even though you are a WINGER, that didn’t mean you could fly. Just relax and let it all come pouring out so that we can laugh…ahem… ‘with’ you. I have a feeling that there are some J U I C Y stories to be told here. DO NOT HOLD BACK! You’ll feel better after! I promise.
LAGERFELD SS 07. Paris. October 4.
(If the scattered links throughout are messed again then I will try my best to shape them up ASAP.)
Recent Posts by Evan McKie
September 6, 2006 at 9:16 am · Filed under family, studio, dance event, traditions, culture, events, lifestyle, DAVID, article, japan
Today was utter chaos!
As I am warming up for class, I see a group of dancers doing some sort of traditional Japanese dance outside the studio. To my surprise and delight, they go on for the whole morning, with TV cameras and photographers taking shots of them. I finally got an explanation that the Prince and Princess of Japan, who are pictured here, just had a son. Now they havent had a SON for 41 years in the Royal Family, they continued to have girls, so having a boy is a big deal… To pass on the throne I guess. The Royal couple met at the university right across from my hotel, so that was due to the fuss with the dancers in the area.
The festivities lasted ALL day and newspapers were being handed out everywhere (as you see this one I picked up from the subway). So it was quite an experience to be here in Tokyo while the princess had her baby boy. The country was rejoicing.
I guess the Royal couple met at the university right across from my hotel, so that was due to the fuss with the dancers and such.
The english version of the newspaper…
The dancers from the studio windows.
Recent Posts by david hallberg
August 29, 2006 at 12:29 am · Filed under ballet, dance, tour, dressing room, traditions, CARLA, pacific northwest ballet, jacobs pillow
| | Posted by Carla
The dressing rooms at the theater are full of signatures of the dancers that have performed there. This was my spot at the dressing room.
PNB left a nice mark on the wall next to the stage with all the company names together. Maybe some of you can see it next time you go there.
Recent Posts by carla korbes
August 29, 2006 at 12:14 am · Filed under ballet, dance, dance event, dancers, artists, traditions, CARLA, pacific northwest ballet, jacobs pillow
| | Posted by Carla
It is a tradition that all the companies that come dance at the Pillow take a group photo at the special Jacob’s Pillow rock. So here we are, dancers, Peter Boal, coreographers and musicians, all together for the record.
Recent Posts by carla korbes
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