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A Program To Remember (Pacific Northwest Ballet)

December 1, 2013 by 4dancers

Image courtesy of PNB
Image courtesy of PNB

by Gigi Berardi

Stunning, breathtakingly beautiful, and unparalleled in programing and performance, PNB’s November program, Kylian + Pite, was one not to be missed. It is easily the most memorable (non-full-length ballet) program in the almost 20 years that I have been viewing and reviewing the company.

Huge kudos to Peter Boal, ballet masters all, and the generous supporters that made the PNB premieres possible – Forgotten Land (Kylian) and Emergence (Pite). Both ballets were utterly unforgettable, not to mention the gorgeous music of the PNB Orchestra.

In terms of performance, here are just a few highlights –

Foster and Mullin as the insect creatures emerging from the depths in Crystal Pite’s Emergence

  • Orza, Porretta, Bold, Gaines, and Bartee, as well as every single principal female — in anything
  • Samuelson breaking out and through in everything
  • Actually, all the petite mort dancers, who lived and breathed the ballet’s roles
  • In Sechs Tänze, the Imler, Merchant, Foster, Kitchens crew – mesmerizing
  • Forgotten Land – every single dancer made that piece come alive – haunting with a capital “H,” the dancers were aided in their other-worldliness by the literal and exquisite East Anglia backdrop
  • Week 2, virtually all the corps dancers (there were a few that needed a bit more confidence, if not rehearsal) in first-time roles – Bravo, Brava, Bravi, Brave!!!!!

This program, quite simply, will live in PNB’s history as one of its finest. Of course, there’s always 2014-2015.

Gigi Berardi
Gigi Berardi

Gigi Berardi holds a MA in dance from UCLA. Her academic background and performing experience allow her to combine her interests in the natural and social sciences with her passion for dance, as both critic and writer. Over 150 articles and reviews by Ms. Berardi have appeared in Dance Magazine, Dance International, the Los Angeles Times, the Anchorage Daily News, The Olympian, The Bellingham Herald, and scientific journals such as BioScience, Human Organization, and Ethics, Place, and Environment. Her total work numbers over 400 print and media pieces.

Her public radio features (for KSKA, Anchorage) have been recognized by the Society of Professional Journalists.  She has served on the Board of Directors of the Dance Critics Association, and is a member of the American Society of Journalists and Authors, as well as Book Review editor for The Journal of Dance Medicine & Science.  A professor at Western Washington University, she received the university’s Diversity Achievement Award in 2004.  Her fifth book, Finding Balance: Fitness and Training for a Lifetime in Dance, is in its second printing. Her current book project is titled A Cultivated Life.

Email: Gigi.Berardi@wwu.ed<mailto:Gigi.Berardi@wwu.edu>u

Website: http://myweb.facstaff.wwu.edu/~gberardi and http://www.gigiberardi.com/

Blogs: http://blog.gigiberardi.com/ and http://resilientfarmsnourishingfoods.blogspot.com/

Filed Under: Reviews Tagged With: dance review, kylian, pacific northwest ballet, pite

Finding Balance

April 26, 2013 by 4dancers

We are pleased to have as our guest contributor Gigi Berardi, dance author and critic, who has written over 150 articles and reviews that have appeared in Dance Magazine, Dance International, The Los Angeles Times, among others. She is also a natural and social scientist currently on the faculty of Western Washington University.  

Her academic and background and performing experiences allow her to combine her passion for both dance and science  Her fifth book, “Finding Balance: Fitness and Training for a Lifetime in Dance” is in its second printing, and is one I highly recommend especially for younger dancers.  Gigi’s master degree thesis in dance, from UCLA, focused on older dancers who were able to continue dancing and performing well past the age when most have to retire because of injuries – i.e, what were they doing differently that kept them actively performing into their 50’s, 60’s,70’s? Her current book project is called “A Cultivated Life” — look for it soon!               

-Jan Dunn MS, Dance Wellness Editor

______________________________________________________

finding-balance

by Gigi Berardi, MA

How do dancers find balance — literally and figuratively? I feel that the literal part (actually balancing in an unsteady position) is almost the less interesting. As I wrote in the final chapter of the second edition of Finding Balance: Fitness, Training, and Health for a Lifetime in Dance (Routledge, 2005),

The essential information [for] managing a life in dance can be summarized in a handful of principles. Some of those are:

  • Practice – in the form of endless repetition of dance movements – does not necessarily make perfect.
  • Dancers need to work with limitations, and in so doing, recognize their strengths.
  • Being injured is an opportunity to learn and become more sensitive to the warning signs of pain.
  • The brain-mind connection is important in learning dance and dances; thus the need for growing neural structures (dendrites), in which visualization techniques can help.
  • Learning (and therapy) is most effective with respected teachers (and practitioners) and in supportive environments.
  • Certain dietary practices … are counterproductive to long-term weight management (avoiding good, saturated fat; bouts of restrictive eating).
  • The science of dance is fraught with controversies …. healthy debate, and multiple interpretations (as is the art of dance); this is another way of saying that there is no one truth, but multiple truths (good and effective practice is often multidisciplinary).  However, good ideas and good practices often converge.

In two Seattle performances this winter, I could see such principles in practice:

  • practice with a focus on artistry as much as architecture (the number and types of movements)
  • a dancer with the flattest feet imaginable dancing handsomely in a principle role (thus, working with limitations)
  • dancers who have returned triumphantly from catastrophic injuries
  • highly complicated new choreography (expertly danced), but taught with imaging exercises
  • working with (well respected) choreographers and ballet masters, and the good working relationship being obvious
  • body sizes of all shapes and sorts, indicating a more relaxed attitude of a “company look” (i.e., not sickeningly thin)
  • both companies having access to experienced health professionals, who are mighty aware of controversies around and variations of treatment styles.

And, what did I actually see in the performances? Great beauty, focus, and art – from Whim W’him’s season opener Crave More (choreography: Olivier Wevers and Anabelle Ochoa Lopez) to Pacific Northwest Ballet’s Romeo et Juliette (choreography: Jean Christophe Maillot). Dancers in both companies embodied many of the principles I mentioned – showing great control and remarkably imaginative interpretation.

In Lopez’s Crave, guest artist Lucien Postlewaite (former PNB principal and on loan from Les Ballets de Monte Carlo) and Lara Seefeldt danced a moving pas de deux, outrageous for its bold ideas and intimacy. Looking sharp off-balance, the couple maintained a tight bond. Disjointed music added to the jigsaw puzzle of it all. In PNB’s Romeo et Juliette, counterbalance is de rigeur, but therein is also one of the most striking examples of finding one’s center of mass, as given by the principal ballerinas (Kaori Nakamura, Carla Korbes, and Noelani Pantastico). Each Juliette balanced on the balls of her feet in one of the most mesmerizing moments of Act II, balancing for a full 8 bars of music, as she contemplated the faux-poison she was soon to take.

Back to the introduction of this short post, although balance typically is a great physical accomplishment, how much more the psychological balancing, so necessary to be fully the overeager Tybalt, the impetuous Romeo, the strong-willed but also fragile Juliette. But how much also, for Lopez’s dancers in Crave, or Olivier Wevers’ schizophrenic colleague in More (the gorgeous Andrew Bartee), or Wevers’ compelling couples in The Sofa, so present in the strangeness of it all. And as for Ochoa’s brilliant solo piece, the famed Before After, quite simply, there’s nothing like it – which makes it worth seeing again and again for its ferocious and soulful soliloquy – holding true for all the pieces in Wever’s stunning January program.

BIO:

Gigi Berardi
Gigi Berardi

Gigi Berardi holds a MA in dance from UCLA. Her academic background and performing experience allow her to combine her interests in the natural and social sciences with her passion for dance, as both critic and writer. Over 150 articles and reviews by Ms. Berardi have appeared in Dance Magazine, Dance International, the Los Angeles Times, the Anchorage Daily News, The Olympian, The Bellingham Herald, and scientific journals such as BioScience, Human Organization, and Ethics, Place, and Environment. Her total work numbers over 400 print and media pieces.  Her public radio features (for KSKA, Anchorage) have been recognized by the Society of Professional Journalists.  She has served on the Board of Directors of the Dance Critics Association, and is a member of the American Society of Journalists and Authors, as well as Book Review editor for The Journal of Dance Medicine & Science.  A professor at Western Washington University, she received the university’s Diversity Achievement Award in 2004.  Her fifth book, Finding Balance: Fitness and Training for a Lifetime in Dance, is in its second printing. Her current book project is titled A Cultivated Life.

Email: Gigi.Berardi@wwu.ed<mailto:Gigi.Berardi@wwu.edu>u

Website: http://myweb.facstaff.wwu.edu/~gberardi and http://www.gigiberardi.com/

Blogs: http://blog.gigiberardi.com/ and http://resilientfarmsnourishingfoods.blogspot.com/

Filed Under: Books & Magazines, Editorial Tagged With: dancers, finding balance: fitness, pacific northwest ballet, training and health for a lifetime in dance, whim w'him

10 Questions With…David Hunter

January 11, 2010 by 4dancers

This week’s 10 Questions With… features David Hunter, Owner and Editor of Ballet for Men. Take a closer look at a great resource for guys in ballet…and what went on behind the scenes before it came to the web…

My name is David Hunter, I’m 28 years old and a graduate student, working on a Masters in Teaching. I plan to teach high school social studies or english, and dance. I’ve always loved dance, but it wasn’t until I was 25 that I took an actual dance class. For some reason I never realized how much I actually loved to dance.  

As a male, it was hard for me to get started. I couldn’t find many good resources for what I needed to know as a beginner. I wasn’t aware of all the opportunities that men had in ballet. I started late, but I currently dance for a pre-professional company who provides me with a scholarship for all of my classes. I take ballet classes 6 or 7 days a week and get to perform for thousands of people in 2 feature length ballets per year and various other festivals and performances. 

1. What made you create this dance blog?

I started taking ballet when I was 25, and I didn’t really know anyone else who was into ballet. So finding out what I needed to know to get started was really hard. Most of the information I could find was geared toward women. I was always surprised that there was never more information for males who are interested in dance. Ballet has been great for me, and I want that type of experience to be available to everyone interested. I want my blog to help provide information to make it easier for guys to get into dance.

2. What are the top three pieces of advice you have for other dance bloggers?

 1) Provide what you want. I ask for a lot of advice and suggestions, and I definitely try to provide what I think readers will want, but that advice isn’t always there. Most of the time I think about what I wish was there. I ask, “what information or resources should be available?”  If I am interested in it, chances are someone else is probably interested too.

2) Do more than you think you have time to do.  I always feel like I don’t have time to do anymore. But then I force myself to take on something else, and I end up finding time to do it. Having a blog requires you to keep working on making it better and coming up with new and interesting things. This takes up more and more time, but it also pays off more and more.

3) It is all a process.  Rarely does anything pay off right away. It is important to recognize goals in the long term and think about the small steps that lead up to those goals. You won’t find more readers overnight, but you can do a little bit everyday to help build a following over a few months or even years.

3. What is your organizational routine when it comes to blogging (for example, do you research one day and write the next….do you post every day…etc.)?

I usually spend a while coming up with an idea for a post before I even do any work with it. I have a list of topics I want to cover. I choose one of those topics either based on what I think is important information for beginners that isn’t out there or if there is something that has been on my mind for a while. I spend more time researching and organizing the topic than I spend actually writing the post. I feel like this is really helpful for me, and hopefully the readers. There are a lot of ideas and information to fit into any one post, so it is helpful to get all those ideas and facts outlined first.  

I try to write whenever I can find time. During the school year I’m a full time graduate student, dance and rehearse full time, and work, so I don’t get to update as much as I want. That is something I would like to change. I want to find a way that I can provide something to the readers several times a week, if not every day.

 4. What would you say are your blog’s strengths?

BalletForMen.com provides a lot of information that is hard to find in one place, if at all. It is hard to find information for male ballet dancers, so I provide that. Also, I understand what it is like to get started later, so I understand what questions beginners might have. It is also quite personal. The blog provides a personal look at ballet and the guys who do it. This is especially true in the podcasts, but also with some of the dancer interviews we’ve got coming up.

5. Do you have anything new coming up on the horizon?

New podcasts are coming out every week. These are a lot of fun to record, and to listen to. There will be a lot of different perspectives covered on the Ballet For Men podcast. The first run of Ballet For Men t-shirts are getting printed this month. I’m releasing a free e-book for new dancers. I’ve also been talking to different people about contributing to the website. There are a ton of other things I’m working on, but these are what people will see pretty soon.

6. If you had to describe your blog in just five words, what would they be?

 Showing guys ballet is awesome.

7. Can you recommend another dance blog?

I really enjoy TheWinger.com. I like being able to read posts by dancers that I also actually see in performances.

8. Who are your all-time favorite dancers?

I’m a fan of Gene Kelly and Mikhail Baryshnikov. I think they both have done amazing things for guys in dance. Angel Corella is also one of my favorites. One of my favorite female dancers is Louise Nadeau. She just retired from Pacific Northwest Ballet at 45 years old. She is a beautiful dancer and a beautiful person. Plus she makes me think that I can dance for many more years.

 9. What is your favorite piece of music?

 This is tough to choose a favorite, but I think one of my favorites would be the Dancepieces by Philip Glass from In The Upper Room. I saw PNB do Twyla Tharp’s In The Upper Room when I first started dancing, and it was the first piece that REALLY struck something inside of me. That dance didn’t just touch my heart, it danced with it.  Whenever I hear those songs I remember why I love to dance.

10. Tell us something about yourself that may come as a surprise…

I danced in Christina Aguilera’s Dirrty music video. At the time I was living in L.A. and it was before I started taking ballet. I used to like to break dance, so I auditioned for the video. Somehow I got a part, but luckily, I’m a skinny guy behind a lot of bigger dudes, so you can’t find me in the video. But I do have the pay-stub to prove it!

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Filed Under: 10 Questions With..., 4dancers, Online Dance Resources Tagged With: Ballet, ballet for men, christina aguilera, dance, david hunter, gene kelly, in the upper room, louise nadeau, mikhail baryshnikov, pacific northwest ballet, philip glass, the winger, twyla tharp

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