Tag: wendy whelan

Wendy Whelan Just Gave Her Students the Best Holiday Gift Ever

All us normal humans are currently struggling through the tricky what-should-I-get-my-studio-friends-for-the-holidays tap dance.* But we can give up right now, because former New York City Ballet prima/perpetually extraordinary person Wendy Whelan just won the present game forever: She gifted her advanced Ballet Academy East students her own leotards. Picture that for a second: Wendy Whelan, […]

Watch These Awesome Fire Island Dance Festival Performances

The annual Fire Island Dance Festival took place in New York last week and raised a record-breaking amount for its worthy cause: Dancers Responding to AIDS. This year also featured five new world-premiere works and more than 30 professional dancers. Highlights included ballerina Wendy Whelan in choreographer Brian Brooks‘ piece First Fall, a MADBOOTS Dance […]

What We Learned from “city.ballet.” Season 2, Episode 11

Season 2 of “city.ballet.”—the AOL On series that gives an insider’s look at New York City Ballet—is live now! We’re recapping one episode per week. Watch all 12 at dancemagazine.com. The ballet world is ruled by the young. Young bodies are just better suited to its crazy demands, which means that it’s not uncommon for a […]

Happy Thanksgiving, Everyone!

I’m also thankful for dancing turkeys. Thank you, dancing turkeys, for dancing. And being turkeys. What are you thankful for this year? Finally hitting that 6 o’clock penchée? Being cast in your dream Nutcracker role? Getting your first pair of pointe shoes? Here at Dance Spirit, we have a Thanksgiving tradition: Each year, everyone on […]

Meet "the Balanchine Plant"

Few art forms are as obsessed with lineage as ballet. Want to learn the classic Russian repertoire? Train with one of the last generation’s greatest Russian dancers—because she was in turn coached by the previous generation’s star, who was trained by a ballerina of a yet earlier generation, in a chain going all the way back […]

Just When We'd Stopped Crying About Wendy Whelan's NYCB Retirement…

…New York Magazine had to go and re-open that big bag of feels. This week’s issue of NYMag includes a gorgeous group of behind-the-scenes photos from Wendy Whelan’s final performance with New York City Ballet. We see a little of everything: the three pairs of pointe shoes she wore during the show, her last bow, an […]

A Love Letter to Wendy Whelan

Ballerina retirements are always hard. There’s a unique feeling of loss that comes with the knowledge that you’ll never see a particular dancer onstage again—that that part of her life, and yours, is over. But somehow, the luminous Wendy Whelan was able to make her final show with New York City Ballet a joyful event. […]