Tonya Plank's Blog, page 40

LAST WEEK AT ABT: ROMEO AND JULIET

So, this is the last week of ABT's Met season, and they are closing out with my favorite, Kenneth MacMillan's Romeo and Juliet. My recommended casts are both performances on Saturday – Natalia Osipova is debuting as Juliet in the matinee, dancing opposite David Hallberg, and that evening is the lovely Diana Vishneva (who has really been blowing me away this season), with Marcelo Gomes as her Romeo. (Angel Corella was originally scheduled to be Vishneva's Romeo but he is injured). Also, the...

MEDALISTS ANNOUNCED IN USA INTERNATIONAL BALLET COMPETITION

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Medalists in this year's USA International Ballet Competition, held in June in Jackson, Mississippi, have recently been announced. This is one of the most prestigious ballet competitions in the world. People from all over the world compete, as you can see by this list of winners and their home countries. It has launched the careers of many current greats, including, probably most famously, Jose Carreno, whom I just blogged about in my last post.

So, congrats to these winners, many of whom I'm ...

WEEKEND VIEWING: JOSE MANUEL CARRENO

(Middle photo of Fancy Free – with Sasha Radetsky and Herman Cornejo – taken from Ballet.co; other photos from ABT website)

Jose Carreno is my dancer of the season this ABT season, mainly because I love him and am trying to see him in everything possible so in case, as people are surmising, he retires next year or the year after. I'm trying to get my fill. Not that you can ever really get your fill of a dancer like him. But it seems to be what everyone is doing — I'm hearing, "Oh, I'm trying ...

MANHATTAN DANCESPORT CHAMPIONSHIPS ARE THIS WEEKEND AT THE BROOKLYN BRIDGE MARRIOTT

And I almost forgot… Friday night is the pro Latin competition, meaning Yulia Zagoruychenko and Riccardo Cocchi will be dancing, but I have a ticket to ABT and I really, really need to see my fave Marcelo Gomes dance Oberon in The Dream and Jose Carreno and Diana Vishneva in the pas de deux from MacMillan's Manon. I may go to MDC Saturday night for the pro Rhythm and Standard, and the professional showdances. I always like Rhythm and you don't get to see that in the international...

SO YOU THINK YOU CAN DANCE WEEK 3: GO ALEX!!!

So, I love that they focused on inspirations this week, allowing the dancers to talk about whom they look up to. It gives America some exposure to some of these great dancers.

Adechicke and Lauren's hip hop to a Dave Scott routine. First, Adechicke says he's inspired by Desmond Richardson! Yay! Says he liked him because he's manly, nothing feminine about him. Well, I love that he loves Desmond since I do too [image error] I thought this routine was pretty good. He doesn't completely blow me away for some ...

SWALLOW ON CRYSTAL REVIEWS

Swallow has received another positive blog review [image error]

I was out at ABT last night (Sascha Radetsky and Hee Seo's Thais Pas de Deux is, I think, the most beautiful thing I've seen all season. I'd seen them in rehearsal and it was well worth waiting for, and I enjoyed this cast of The Dream – David Hallberg as Oberon, Gillian Murphy as Titania and Herman Cornejo as Puck – much better than the first, and Maria Riccetto for the first time really caught my eye in both The Dream and Ashton's Birthday...

SWALLOW ON BOOKS AND CHAT

Oh and I just saw that Swallow is reviewed today on Books and Chat!

SINGLE-MINDED WOMEN ROCK!

Swallow is "red-hot read" and "reader favorite" on SingleMindedWomen.com, a fabulous webzine geared toward the single woman! How awesome is that [image error]

AN ERA ENDS: DARCI KISTLER GIVES HER LAST PERFORMANCE WITH NYCB

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Yesterday afternoon marked the end of an era as Darci Kistler, the last dancer to be hired, trained, and made into a star by George Balanchine, gave her last performance with New York City Ballet, where she's danced for the past 30 years. Kistler, originally from Riverside, California, began studying at Balanchine's School of American Ballet in 1976, was hired to dance with the company in 1980, and was made into a principal in 1982, at 17 years of age. She remains the youngest principal ever ...

MAURICE KAPLOW'S FAREWELL PERFORMANCE WITH NYCB

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Thursday evening longtime New York City Ballet principal conductor Maurice Kaplow gave his final performance with the company. I had never been to a conductor's farewell before, and, of course, part of what made this extra sensational was that the newishly mobile orchestra pit (photo above) was raised to stage level for part of the program.

There were four pieces in the program: Melissa Barak's recently premiered Call Me Ben (the only piece Kaplow didn't conduct), which was followed by...