Tonya Plank's Blog, page 43

HAPPY WORLD CUP EVERYONE!

Holy crap, I cannot believe these photos were taken four years ago, right after I'd just started this blog, actually.

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Like a proper newly obsessed samba fanatic, I'd dragged my friends to a Sushi Samba restaurant in the Flatiron District to watch the final game, between Brazil and … I don't even remember [image error] I think we had a lot of caipirinhas… But we also tasted for the first time Feijoada, Brazil's national dish. It was like comfort food to me, having grown up on Mexican, and I couldn't get...

WEEKEND VIEWING: NATALIA OSIPOVA IN DON Q

So, if you missed THE performance of the season last week at ABT (that's Natalia Osipova's American debut as Kitri in Don Quixote, with legendary Jose Carreno as her partner), here are some vids I found of her dancing the role at the Bolshoi.

There are actually a couple of videos posted on YouTube that are of the exact performance I'm talking about at ABT, but I know ABT didn't approve them so I feel weird embedding them here. Click on this link (but fast forward to around the 2:57 mark, when ...

MY FIRST AUTHOR INTERVIEW

Is up at A Moment With Mystee. That was really fun! Some of those questions I really had to think about. Thank you again to the wonderful Mystee [image error]

Above photo taken from here.

WEEKEND READING: BALANCHINE, DIAGHLEV AND WHAT'S WRONG WITH BALLET TODAY

I know it's not the weekend yet – and I still have another post or two I need to get up before it happens – but I haven't had time really to devour this article like I've wanted to and so wanted to link to it so you all can read it without waiting for me to become unbusy with never-ending book stuff. It's from the New Criterion and is by Laura Jacobs. It's about Diaghlev and all the excellent collaborations he engendered at his Ballets Russes – between Balanchine and all the brilliant...

SWALLOW ON INDIE READER

My novel is now available at the newish online bookstore Indie Reader. So if you want to support independently published books and independent bookstores, please think of buying there — not just my book but others they've got there as well. It's a curated bookstore; the books they sell have been selected by their staff. So they're all likely pretty decent [image error]

YVONNE BORREE'S FAREWELL PERFORMANCE

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On Sunday afternoon, principal ballerina Yvonne Borree gave her farewell performance at New York City Ballet. I always find farewell performances so sad, especially for the ballerinas, for some reason. And Yvonne just doesn't seem old enough to retire! At all.

Anyway, it was a really lovely program and she looked beautiful. She danced the third, "Andante,"  movement in Balanchine's Brahms-Schoenberg Quartet. She was partnered by Benjamin Millepied, a very good partner for her, as she looks...

OH NO ROBERTO!!!

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For those who haven't heard, Roberto Bolle is injured and will be out the rest of the ABT summer season. That means there will be no stalking expedition guided tour of the bowels of the Met at the end of Romeo this year.

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Oh well. We may have to organize a field trip to Europe next year. Maybe he'll be dancing Mats Ek's Giselle again?

In the meantime, here is this bottled water commercial. I think I posted it last year because it looks familiar but blog reader and Facebook friend Jonathan has...

BLACKPOOL 2010 OVER ALREADY

Wow, this year's Blackpool Dance Festival has already come and gone. Funny how priorities change; I used to look so forward to this every year. But this year I was so caught up in book stuff, and BookExpo America, that it didn't even register the competition was underway until I received my registration packet for next year's in the mail (the organizer always sends them out so that your packet is waiting for you when you get home – which is nice; it makes it not so sad that your vacation is o...

WISEMAN'S LA DANSE ON PBS

The Frederick Wiseman documentary La Danse, about the Paris Opera Ballet, which I loved (particularly the parts with Laetitia Pujol), is going to air in several  segments on PBS beginning on June 16th. Excellent!

ANOTHER GOOD SWALLOW REVIEW!

Just got another review of my novel by lit blogger Mystee, at A Moment With Mystee. I'm particularly happy because this isn't the usual type of book Mystee reads, and she still liked it.

She concludes with: "This book leaves us wide open for a series. Will there be another Sophie book? Even if there isn't this one is definitely worth picking up."

Wow, thank you Mystee! I don't know yet if there will be a sequel. I guess it depends on how this one fares in the long run. I'm working on something ...