For ballerinas, it’s the dream role to end all dream roles: Odette/Odile in Swan Lake, the type of part dancers spend years preparing for and whole careers perfecting. And it’s a role that New York City Ballet principal Tiler Peck never thought she’d dance. Though Peck is one of the world’s preeminent ballerinas, her short […]
The dual part of Odette and Odile in Swan Lake is THE role, the one every trina dreams of from the moment she first dons a leotard. It’s also insanely difficult to perform, challenging even the most elite ballerinas with its multifaceted demands. So what’s it actually like to dance Odette/Odile? A new short film […]
The Russians are coming! The Russians are coming! Actually, they’re already here: Moscow’s famous Bolshoi Ballet has arrived in NYC for more than two weeks of performances. “Bolshoi” literally translates to “big”—which is perfect, because this company doesn’t do anything small. They’ve brought three huge productions with them to the Big Apple: classics Swan Lake […]
Picture this in 3D! (photo of Ekaterina Kondaurova by Gene Schiavone) Forget sinking ships and giant blue aliens. Director James Cameron has a new over-the-top movie project: Swan Lake. No, but really. Cameron has teamed up with Russia’s Mariinsky Ballet to present the world’s first-ever live 3D performance broadcast—and what better production to choose than […]
We first heard from beautiful ballerina Keenan Kampa in 2010, when the Washington, D.C. native documented her final year at the Vaganova Academy in St. Petersburg, Russia for us. (It’s incredibly rare for an American dancer to study at the iconic school, by the way, which speaks to just how amazing Keenan is.) Then, this […]
Swan Lake premiered at the Bolshoi Ballet in 1877, but since then it’s undergone many variations and alterations. Dancers perform everything from New York City Ballet’s stripped-down two-act version to Christopher Wheeldon’s Degas-esque fantasy. And while each interpretation has its own merit and relationship with Tchaikovsky’s score, wouldn’t it be cool to know what the […]
Channel classical ballet heroines in these princess-perfect tutus.
It’s no secret that we’re as obsessed with pretty costumes as we are with the pretty dancers who wear them. There’s just something so magical about following the life of a tutu, or going behind the scenes to see how costume shops take their creations from the page to the stage. Costumes also hold a […]