Miami City Ballet

10 Questions With…. Jennifer Carlynn Kronenberg

June 22, 2011 by 4dancers

Today on 4dancers we have 10 Questions With Jennifer Carlynn Kronenberg…

Symphony in THree 2 — Jennifer Carlynn Kronenberg, courtesy of The George Balanchine Trust, photo by Bob Mooney

1. How did you get started in ballet and what are you doing now?

I always loved to dance, since a was a little girl, and I was always entranced by ballet in particular. I used to watch PBS “Dance in America” specials on TV and try to copy what I saw. My parents finally took me for lessons when I turned 8 years old. I knew I wanted to dance professionally, and I was fortunate enough to be contracted as an apprentice with the Miami City Ballet at the age of 17. I am still dancing with MCB now, and have been a principal dancer since 2001. I also teach annually for the CB School Summer Intensive and I have been a guest artist and teacher with several other schools around the country.

2. You have written a book – “So, You Want To Be A Ballet Dancer”. Can you tell readers what this is about?

My book is essentially a “how to” guide for young aspiring dancers who are considering a professional career. It is also, in part, a memoir in which I share stories of my own pre-professional struggles and mishaps. It is meant to be informational and inspirational at the same time.

I found that on my own way to becoming a professional, as I find now in students of my own, that there are so many essentials that go untaught; such as: the in’s and out’s of the stage and backstage, studio etiquette, auditioning skills, injury prevention, healthy diet and nutrition, stage makeup and hair, pointe shoe preparation and maintenance, handling criticism and stress, etc.

My goal is to provide some insight into these areas so that young dancers are ready to cope with these challenges before they are contracted into a company. All of the information I provide will prove useful in their continued years of study as well.

3. Who can benefit from reading this book—and why?

There is something in my book for pre-professional dancers and students of all levels and age groups. I provide standard information that every young dancer will find that they need to know later on, as well as advice and tips that they can use during their student years. I think it is so important to be well prepared to enter a company, and that being well prepared will ensure a start “on the right foot”. A career in ballet, as wonderful as it is, is full of challenge, dedication, frustration, and sacrifice. My goal is to ease young dancers’ transition from student to professional – even if it is just a little bit.

4. Can you share a piece of advice for young dancers? [Read more…]

10 Questions With…Miriam Landis

October 19, 2010 by 4dancers

Today we have an unusual interview–with writer/former dancer, Miriam Landis. She is the author of a book about ballet…but I don’t want to give everything away so…read on!

1. How did you wind up in dance?

My mom noticed early on that I was walking around the kitchen on my tippy-toes, so she put me in dance classes before I was even three. As I grew up I enjoyed ballet more and more and discovered I was good at it. When I was thirteen I started going away for six weeks to ballet summer programs in San Francisco, Philadelphia, and eventually New York. When I was sixteen, I attended the summer program at the School of American Ballet and they invited me to return for the full school year. I moved away from my family in Salt Lake City and lived in a dorm at Lincoln Center to attend SAB for my last two years of high school. After the annual workshop performances at the end of my senior year, Edward Villella invited me to join the Miami City Ballet.

2. What was your career like?

It was a whirlwind. I joined Miami City Ballet when I was eighteen and started dancing soloist and principal roles within a year. My first big part was the Flower Festival in Genzano pas de deux. I worked hard and the big parts came quickly. I danced leading roles Scotch Girl in Scotch Symphony, the ballerina doll in The Steadfast Tin Soldier, and even Liberty Bell in Stars and Stripes. By the time I was twenty-two I felt like I had accomplished what I wanted in ballet and was ready for a change of direction. Ballet was such a core part of my identity that it was difficult to move on. It’s still a huge part of who I am today and I’ve been able to apply the discipline and other skills in many other aspects of my life. I also made lifelong friends who I’ll feel connected with forever. I was fortunate to have the experience of dancing with such a prestigious company and felt so close to the people I trained and performed with every day for four years. My whole world revolved around dance during that time in my life.

3. What have you done since you retired from dance?

I branched out my interests when I left. I traveled through Europe and did two different study abroad programs in France. In fact, much of the book was written while I was living in France at a time in my life when i could reflect in a meaningful way. I completed all of the pre-med courses in college but eventually decided I didn’t want to become a doctor. l found it hard to go from working with bodies in perfect form to bodies with disease without becoming emotionally overcome. I switched my major to English instead and pursued a career in publishing. I started writing “Girl in Motion” during my junior year of college. After I graduated from Stanford I moved back to New York and worked as an assistant editor at a major publishing house in New York. Three years later I had a great opportunity to move to Seattle and work at Amazon in book merchandising. I’ve been in Seattle for three years and met my husband here.

4. Why did you decide to write the novel, “Girl In Motion”?

There were two reasons. One was that I read a lot of ballet books as I grew up and never found one that fully reflected what my experience was like. I felt a real need to share what I learned with younger ballet students. Second, the writing was also for myself. I was trying to come to terms with leaving the ballet world, and writing was a good way to process my experience.

5. What audience is the novel aimed at?

It’s for ballet students and their parents, and anyone who is interested in ballet.

6. How did you draw on your personal experience with dance in terms of your writing?

I wrote about the emotions I felt and the struggles I watched my friends go through. The feelings remain vivid in my mind ten years later. It was easier to examine how we became professionals through the lives of fictional characters because so many of the themes are universal to every young dancer.

7. What was the experience of writing a novel like?

It was so challenging. There was too much I wanted to say and didn’t know how to express in words. Dancing is all about saying things without words, and writing is completely the opposite. I wrote so many drafts of “Girl in Motion.” At certain times it was in third person, had different titles, and focused on different characters. I tried so many different ways of expressing the story.

8. Do you have any advice for people who might be thinking about writing a dance novel?

The publishing industry is difficult and a unique business world, which makes getting published through traditional routes a real challenge, especially if you don’t already have a persuasive way to market the book. Publishers want to see that. I’d say to worry about that later though, and first try to write the book. I always felt the challenge was to refrain from over-dramatizing ballet the way you often see it in done in films. It wasn’t easy to make the dancers seem like real characters that normal people can relate to, and that’s really important in a novel. Most people don’t go through the specific intense competition involved in a dancer’s life, and dancers’ experiences aren’t universal. Fiction needs to have more universal themes.

9. Can you share a favorite memory from when you were dancing?

One of my favorite memories was my very first performance with Miami City Ballet. We were dancing Western Symphony at the Olympics in Atlanta. I remember standing in the wings and watching all the dancers creating the ballet together, and there was just this incredible feeling of teamwork and love for what we were doing. I could see every person pushing themselves, concentrating, and striving for something larger than we could have done alone. The energy was just incredible.

I was so excited to be a part of it.

10. Where can people purchase your book?

Writing About Dance — Human Kinetics Book

The easiest place to find “Girl in Motion” is on Amazon.com.

You can also join the “Girl in Motion” Facebook page.

I’d love to know what people think of “Girl in Motion,” so don’t hesitate to post a review on Amazon or make comments on the Facebook page.

I hope people enjoy the book!

BIO: Miriam Wenger-Landis was a student at the School of American Ballet and a professional ballerina with the Miami City Ballet. She graduated from Stanford University and lives in Seattle.

10 Questions With…Rebecca King

October 5, 2010 by 4dancers

Today we have Rebecca King on “10 Questions With…”

Rebecca is a dancer and a dance blogger. See her writing at Tendus Under a Palm Tree.

1. How did you become involved with dance?

From the time I could walk, as my mother will tell the story, I was constantly dancing around the house. One day while enjoying some ice cream near the local community center, a group of little girls in tutus and tights came walking past me. I was mesmerized. My mother asked where they took ballet class and as soon as I turned three, I was enrolled. Around Christmas time, I would watch Baryshnikov’s Nutcracker on video and dance around the living room to the music. (I bet my parents were sick of Nutcracker music at that point, little did they know, there would be years and years of Nutcrackers to come.)

Warming up before a show at the Vail International Dance Festival 2009

2. What are you currently doing in the field?

Currently I am a Corps De Ballet dancer with Miami City Ballet. Two weeks ago, Miami City Ballet wrapped up filming for our first PBS special: “Great Performances: Dance in America.” We spent two weeks filming three ballets: Balanchine’s Western Symphony and Square Dance, and Twyla Tharp’s Golden Section. I will appear in Western Symphony’s Fourth Movement.

3. Would you share a special moment or two from your career?

Last season I got the opportunity to dance “Rum and Coke” in Paul Taylor’s “Company B.” Company B is a World War II ballet set to the music of the Andrew Sisters. In Rum and Coke, there is one girl who dances a solo, with 7 boys rolling around on the floor admiring her. I had the best time: I had great boys to play off of, and I got lost in the fun music and cute choreography.

4. What is the best advice you have ever received regarding dance?

I actually just got the best advice ever this past summer from my former teacher at Miami City Ballet School, Geta Constantinescu. She was telling me that it is so easy to focus on drama; to let our egos get the best of us and worry about who got what part, who got promoted, or who is doing well. But dancers need to remember what brings us to the studio every day. It is the love of dance. I think this is great advice for professional dancers and students alike. It goes to show that it doesn’t matter where you are in your career, there is always so much to learn.

5. Do you have any advice for those who would like to dance professionally?

I think the most important advice I can give young dancers is that hard work pays off. I know that may sound cliche, and we have all heard that before, but really, work ethic is what sets dancers apart. A dancer may have a perfect ballet body and be a nice dancer, but without the drive and determination, will not make it in the professional ballet world. So work hard, improve as much as possible, and hold on to the joy that dance brings you.

6. What has been your biggest challenge in dance?

While at the Rock School in Philadelphia for my senior year of high school, I was diagnosed with an os trigonum in my right foot. An os trigonum is an extra bone in the back of the foot that is very common in dancers. I was told that I would have to have surgery. I was going to be out for about four months and would not be able to attend Miami City Ballet School’s summer program nor would I be able to audition for companies as I had planned. Despite all the worries, in the end I really got lucky. I had a wonderful surgeon in San Francisco who is the orthopedic for SFB, had wonderful physical therapy, and was able to start back to ballet slowly at my home studio.

King 2 — Paul Taylor's "Company B" "Rum and Coke", Photo by fellow MCB dancer Leigh-Ann Esty

About two months after my surgery, I wrote to Linda Villella, the Director of Miami City Ballet School, asking her if I could attend the school for the year, based solely on my audition for the summer program months before. She accepted me into the Advanced level and allowed me to continue my rehab with the Physical Therapists hired by the company. Six months after my surgery, I was onstage with Miami City Ballet dancing in the Nutcracker.

7. What is it that you love so much about ballet?

I love performing. When I am on stage, I feel like nothing can touch me. All the worries of the day melt away for those moments, where the lights are shining brightly and I am performing into a dark space in front of me. I know that there are people out there in the audience, but I can’t see them, I can only feel their presence and their delight by the sound of applause. It is an intimate moment that dancers share with the audience; where the dancers are completely lost in the steps, the music, the joy, and the audience is completely lost in what they are watching.

8. Do you have a special routine that you go through before a performance, or is each one different?

Each one is different; as each ballet requires different preparation depending on the type of ballet and the choreography. For example, warming up for a contemporary ballet is much different than warming up for classical ballet. I usually begin getting ready about an hour and a half or two hours before a show starts. I always do my hair first; I like to have my hair slicked back and completely out of my face before starting my makeup. I then put on my costume, cluttered by warm ups, and head to the stage with my iPod and bag of shoes. If I am dancing in a ballet that is really difficult and will cause my calves to cramp, I will eat half a banana on the way, to get some extra potassium. After doing a barre in my socks, I will put on my shoes, to test them and warm up my ankles.

About 10 minutes before the show I have my costume done up in the back and start reviewing the choreography and rehearsing those pesky steps from the ballet that are a challenge for me. After wishing the cast good luck, or “Merde”, with a kiss on the cheek, warm-ups are stripped off as everyone takes their places. This is my favorite moment; the anticipation of the curtain rising.

9. You write a dance blog…can you tell readers a bit about how you got started and what it’s about?

I am lucky enough to have a job that allows me to do what I love everyday. My job is so exciting and unique, that I choose to find an outlet that would allow me to share my thoughts and experiences with the public. Not only do I want to reach out to people who already know and love ballet, but also to find and educate people who are unfamiliar with the ballet world.

For those who are ballet lovers, I want to bring them news about Miami City Ballet and share my experiences around this exciting city. For people who don’t know quite as much about ballet, I hope that I can show the glamorous and trendy side of this art form. I think that many people misperceive ballet as boring and outdated. I hope to prove them wrong.

10. What is next for you?

Currently we are kicking into full gear to prepare for the opening weekend of Miami City Ballet’s 25th anniversary season. Opening night is October 15 at Miami’s Arst Center for the Performing Arts. We will be performing Robbin’s “Fanfare”, Balanchine’s “Bugaku”, and Balanchine’s “Theme and Variations”. Also on tap this season is Balanchine’s “Scotch Symphony”, “La Sonnambula”, and “Western Symphony.” I am also looking forward to the company’s premier of Twyla Tharp’s “Baker’s Dozen” and Paul Taylor’s “Promethean Fire”. Last but not least, our fourth program is John Cranko full length “Romeo and Juliet” which we have already staged. The company has a lot of exciting things happening this season, and I can’t wait to get into the theater!

BIO: I was born and raised in Northern California. I received my ballet training from former San Francisco Ballet School Director Richard Cammack and former ABT and SFB dancer Zola Dishong at Contra Costa Ballet Centre (http://www.contracostaballet.org/) in Walnut Creek, CA. My senior year in high school I moved to Philadelphia to train at the Rock School. After graduating in 2006, I moved to Miami to train at Miami City Ballet. After a few months in the school I was asked to learn Snow and Flowers with the company for their upcoming Nutcracker shows. After performing those parts as a student, I was also on stage dancing Willies in Giselle and in Balanchine’s Symphony in 3 later that season. I was then offered a Company Apprentice contract for the 2007-2008 season. In 2008 I was promoted to Corps De Ballet.

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