Alex Wong seems be able to do absolutely anything he sets his mind to. The former principal soloist of the Miami City Ballet left the company while his star was on the rise in the classical dance world in favour of a spot on hit T.V show So You Think You Can Dance. It was a risky proposition, by any account – leaving a steady job and a potential promotion for the sink-or-swim nature of reality TV. But Alex proved…
Juliet Doherty talks pointe shoes, pilates and dispenses pirouette tips in our quickfire questions.…
Juliet Doherty is one of the new rising stars of ballet. As many have observed, she seems to have been built for classical dance, with her endless extensions and beautifully arched feet. But in the world of ballet, being biologically blessed means very little without the requisite hard work to learn how to use your gifts to your advantage. And despite a rocky relationship with the art when she was younger, Juliet’s commitment to the art has seen her star…
Masha is a student training at the famed Vaganova Ballet Academy in St Petersburg, a place many an aspiring dancer speaks of with undertones of reverence. To a lot of people, the Vaganova Academy may seem like a faraway place buried in the vastness of Russia, one that people know of only through photos or online videos of their prodigious students with their impossible technique and impeccably turned-out feet. But Masha is assuredly as much a 17-year-old as any other.…
Tristan Dyer is a well-travelled man – from America to Australia to Canada, he’s been there, danced that, training at schools all over the world. But where he is now, at London’s famed Royal Ballet is where he feels at home. And he looks it too. Tristan graduated from the Royal Ballet School in 2009 and funnelled straight into the company where he was most recently promoted to soloist rank this year. Watching videos of him rehearsing for Liam Scarlett’s…
It’s 11am on a sunny Moscow day and I’m standing outside the Press Office of the Kremlin Ballet. “Singapore…” the lady behind the glass-panelled counter sighs when she sees my passport, and disappears to the back of the office.…
After the premiere episode of Breaking Pointe on America’s CW channel, everyone had an opinion on Allison DeBona. Most of these opinions weren’t flattering. Breaking Pointe was a show that followed the dancers of Ballet West, under the banner of their leader/artistic director/big daddy Adam Sklute. And Allison DeBona, a Ballet West dancer and one of the show’s main characters, was seen by many as, to put it mildly, not a particularly nice person. (The word ‘bitch’ was bandied about.) …
If you had asked Joy Womack this time last year where she thought her ballet career would take her in 365 (and a quarter) days from then, it’s highly unlikely the answer would be, ‘principal dancer at the Kremlin Ballet’. And yet that’s exactly where she is now. It was where she spent the past few months dancing a season of Nutcrackers and Swan Lakes and Giselles, instead of on the stage of the Roman-columned theatre down the road –…
Let her entertain you – after all, it’s what Olga Karmansky was born to do. Before Julie Zetlin became the first American rhythmic gymnast to qualify for the Olympic games in London, that expectation had been foisted onto Olga’s shoulders.…
Google ‘Isabella Boylston’, and chances are that you’ll be presented with a list of Black Swan references. But really, it’s her white swan that’s had everyone talking. The dual role in Swan Lake was one Isabella had long dreamed of performing, and when the time came, her Odette was firmly in the limelight.…
The word triple-threat doesn’t seem adequate enough to describe Emma Dumont. From musical theatre productions as a young girl (she sings! She acts!), she eventually found her way to the silver screen. Her most prolific role to date has been that of the lanky, loyal Melanie Segel in ABC’s Bunheads, a delectable Amy Sherman-Palladino confection about ballet dancers in the small town of Paradise (she dances too!). Emma’s dancing sufficiently impressed the renowned Bolshoi Ballet Academy and she was offered…
A quick motion from a backstage crew member, and Precious Adams didn’t seem to even have a moment to take a breath. A quick glance backward, and it was her time. She walked onto the empty stage. Her body twirled, then stopped in the silence. And then she moved again, rippling, stopping. Moving, stopping. And when the music erupted in a symphonic burst, so did she.…