| Ballet director keeps close watch on `Cinderella'
The Moscow Festival Ballet's production of ``Cinderella,'' to be presented next Sunday at Miller Auditorium, has a strong family feel. From the dancers to the technical crew to the man responsible for training and advising the cast, there's a strong sense of a parent-child relationship. Even the audience is part of this dynamic because ``Cinderella'' is often the first ballet a child will attend. Sergei Radchenko, the artistic director and founder of the Moscow Festival Ballet, said he enjoys watching children suddenly blossom into ballerinas during the performance. ``They start to dance on the spot,'' he said during a phone interview. ``(They) show their mommy how to dance.'' Radchenko, who formed the Moscow Festival Ballet in 1989, tours with the company.
Founder of National Ballet of Canada dead
Celia Franca, the founder of The National Ballet of Canada whose uncompromising standards inspired legions of dance artists, died Monday at age 85. The veteran dancer had been admitted to Ottawa Hospital last week and died there Monday morning, said a National Ballet spokeswoman. Coincidentally, Celia Franca: Tour de Force, created by retired prima ballerina Veronica Tennant, was scheduled to be re-run on Bravo! that evening. "It was a sad time," Tennant, who visited Franca in hospital over the weekend, said over the phone from her Toronto home. "It's been quite a journey and I feel she's given her all and she made it clear that she'd given her all." Born in London, England, Franca began dancing at the age of four and was a scholarship student at the Guildhall School of Music & Drama and the Royal Academy of Dance.
Lucinda Dunn and Hal McElroy
Australian Ballet Principal Artist Lucinda Dunn started dancing at the age of four. At 15, she won a scholarship to the Royal Ballet School in London, but the very next year, her career suffered a major setback when Lucinda fractured her back and spent months in a body cast. Rather than putting her off dancing, however, the experience cemented her desire to become a professional ballerina, and at 17, Lucinda took up an offer to join the Australian Ballet. Surviving the stress fracture of her back, however, was one of the most difficult times in Lucinda's career. "They put me in plaster for, it was twelve weeks and three hours. Can you imagine? I'm on a full scholarship to the Royal Ballet School in London, I'm from Sydney and I can't dance. They had to fully immobilise me so [the cast] was from under my arm pits to my hip bones.
Arthouse, 'Macbeth,' 'La Dispute,' Ballet Austin
Less adventurous than Arthouse's previous project, "E-Flux Video Rental," and less expected than its annual "New American Talent,""The Sirens' Song" is a well-curated exhibition of good to very good paintings that operate on many levels. Ably curated by Blanton Museum of Art assistant curator Kelly Baum, the show is somewhat inspired by Maurice Blanchot's 1959 essay, "The Song of the Sirens," about Homer's "Odyssey." Narratives (or stories) are referred to in individual paintings with varying degrees of clarity. In William Villalongo's "Earth Wind and Fire," cartoonish heads with mouths agape float amid yellow and orange flames, all painted on black velvet. The artist alludes to African American popular culture and revisits the Hurricane Katrina catastrophe. Seth Alverson creates his own event in "Word Has It That Everything Has Been Permitted for Quite Some Time Now." Divided into two scenes, it is read as a before and after.
Dance studio dedicates 'Narnia' performance to injured cast member
It was a dream more than 20 years in the making.On Friday night, Kay Kissick will watch her students from the Arts Studio of Kentucky perform a three-act ballet they've been rehearsing since July. For two decades she's wanted to own a studio and put on a ballet of this size. Forty-five dancers will take the stage at Leeds Center for the Arts to perform "The Chronicles of Narnia" under her direction. It's not an opening night that came easily. Fire, snow and a near-fatal car accident have marred the path to Friday evening. "I feel like we've really been tested, and we're stepping up to the plate, and we're gonna make this happen regardless of what happens from here on out," Kissick said.
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