What makes a balletomane? A lean.

Dance
If when peering at this Andrea Mohin photo for the New York Times … ~your heart picks up pace, ~ it messes you up, ~ you “get it,” ~ you feel deep joy … seeing the way that David Hallberg is leaning away from his “Giselle” partner, Natasha Osipova, well then … mazel tov, you’re ...

How could this happen? David Hallberg joins Bolshoi Ballet 2

Dance
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 ...

Dear David Hallberg’s ankle …

Dance
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 ...

Natalia Osipova’s ethereal “Giselle” 1

Dance
I met and briefly interviewed the phenomenal 24-year-old Bolshoi and ABT ballerina Natalia Osipova yesterday, in rehearsal for an upcoming performance in Orange County next January. She struck me as a magnificently moody Russian. Read my L.A. Times article here. This Russian television broadcast shows Osipova’s unearthly technique, particularly her jumps, and there is something so ...

David Hallberg, ballet dancer

Dance
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 ...