How could this happen? David Hallberg joins Bolshoi Ballet 2
Sep
21
2011
In a tremendous blow to American ballet, our best home-grown talent, literally a corn-fed farm boy from South Dakota, David Hallberg, 29, announced today that he is joining the Bolshoi Ballet. Ka-thunk. This caps off, in one stunning announcement, twenty years, at a minimum, of Europe stealing the U.S.’s thunder as the global bastion of ...
Still the swingingest thing: West Side Story’s George Chakiris
A lot of ladies — and quite a few gents including American Ballet Theatre principal dancer Marcelo Gomes and the just-retired Jose Manuel Carreno — gawked as West Side Story star George Chakiris entered the Founder’s Room of the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion at the Los Angeles Music Center. It was the opening night reception following ...
Carmageddon & ABT’s communist caper-ballet 5
Despite best efforts, California authorities (the people who brought you Ronald “Tear down this wall, Mr. Gorbachev!” Reagan) could not put the kibosh on American Ballet Theatre’s “The Bright Stream,” choreographed by their new in-house guy, Alexei Ratmansky. Clearly controlled by Soviet agents, ABT foisted a clever piece of communist propaganda on our sunny climes. ...
Dear David Hallberg’s ankle …
Jul
14
2011
BREAKING NEWS * BREAKING NEWS * BREAKING NEWS * This just in from Renae Williams Niles, Director, Dance Presentations, Los Angeles Music Center: It was just confirmed that he [Hallberg] will not be dancing this week. Dear David Hallberg’s ankle, Please, dear Mr. Ankle, be a very nice and kind ankle, and be healed so ...
Miguel Gutierrez vs. American Ballet Theatre 1
Jul
9
2011
Informed that his upcoming performances at Los Angeles’s Alexandria Hotel will go toe to toe (he, barefoot, they, in pointe shoes) with American Ballet Theatre’s “The Bright Stream” at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion, Guggenheim fellow Miguel Gutierrez said: “Shit! It’s always between me and those fuckers!” [Would I make that up?] So, who are you ...
Great Los Angeles-born ballerina Cynthia Gregory returns to West Coast 1
Oct
6
2010
This Martha Swope photo of Cynthia Gregory with the Hungarian, Ivan Nagy, was published in a dance book I pored over as a teenager. The image had a huge impact on me — it was a proto-feminist portrait of a powerful, free young woman. Boy, did I ever want to be her. I enjoyed a ...
Hey, “Beauty”: Wake up!
Jul
17
2010
Ah, “The Sleeping Beauty” ballet. Tchaikovsky, its composer, was lucky. They wrote his stuff down. The Russian Imperial Ballet choreographer, Marius Petipa, less so. No video cameras in 1890. So following Petipa’s original “Beauty,” a century of quibbling ensued over the grand spectacle’s staging, intentions, and shoot, its steps! A huge eye-glazing gob of ink ...
David Hallberg, ballet dancer
Feb
18
2010
I would do a lot to have this gorgeous guy’s photo on arts•meme … even enjoy a guilty pleasure like “Kings of the Dance.” The six-foot-three, 27-year-old American Ballet Theatre principal dancer is beyond wunderkind — he’s exquisite. Orson Welles was a wunderkind; David Hallberg dropped down from heaven. Either that, or he grew up tap ...