Hannah O’Neill answers our fun quickfire questions.…
Browsing Tag
ballet
We recently launched our new Fall/Winter 2016 collection of ballet tops and clothing, modelled by Joy Womack and Miko Fogarty. It was all very exciting! Like all C&V clothing, it was designed to be mostly lovely, sometimes fun, but always empowering of the dancers to practice this art form, whether they’re professional ballet dancers, or students of all levels (including adult beginners like myself!). We are proud that we remain committed to the principles of ethical clothing manufacturing, by choosing…
There’s a lot that separates Boston Ballet’s Ashley Ellis and I. A couple of oceans, for one thing. And there’s the small fact that she’s a principal dancer in a top ballet company, talented and graceful and whipping out complex choreography with elegance and ease, while I can barely remember the adage combinations as I fumble through my weekly ballet classes. When I spoke to Ashley, we talked first about the rigorous life of a ballet dancer. I am aware…
Laurretta Summerscales sits next to me on a snug loveseat in her dressing room, curled up under a pink shawl. The English National Ballet principal has just completed the second show in a series of gala performances in Singapore. Performing five shows in 3 days while dealing with jetlag left most of the performers fairly tuckered out by the end, but even though she had just stepped off the stage 15 minutes ago, Laurretta still sparked with energy, a warm…
C&V Ladies Interviews Quickfire Questions
Quickfire Questions – Laurretta Summerscales
Posted on May 27, 2016
The instagram video of Ashley Bouder performing multiple pirouettes while 6 months pregnant may seem extraordinary to us mortals, but it’s par for the course for her. Ashley is known for her quick-footed and explosive dancing ability, and sometimes her falls – affectionately known as the ‘Bouder falls’ – because it’s impossible to defy gravity so spectacularly without taking a tumble once in a while. Her high-octane onstage persona is just as much a reflection of what she’s like offstage:…
Gillian Murphy is an icon of American ballet. A principal dancer with the American Ballet Theater for more than a dozen years, she and her then-boyfriend (now husband) Ethan Stiefel were considered ballet’s golden couple when they danced together and Gillian is, in her own right, supremely accomplished – a slew of accolades are a testament to this, as are the glowing reviews for her various performances. Her potrayal of Odette/Odile in Swan Lake is considered particularly special, so much so…
In August this year I had the chance to catch up with my friend, Birmingham Ballet artist Miko Fogarty. She told me she would be in Taiwan and would be game for a shoot and lunch, so a furious few days were spent mulling over a concept and cobbling together moodboards, styling looks and conversing with a photographer – the always reliable Puzzleman Leung, who was happily free on the day – and the next thing I knew, I was…
Keenan Kampa is the coolest. Watch a video of her dancing onstage, and she radiates the loveliness of a classically-trained dancer. All effort and hard work is hidden beneath a veneer of calmness and grace honed from years of ballet training, and refined in the notoriously exacting Vaganova Academy in Russia. Offstage, she exudes another sort of coolness – an effortless, off-the-moment chicness of someone who marches to the beat of her own drum. One only need to look at her breadth of…
Ballet C&V Ladies Interviews Mental Health
Interview – Ballet & Anorexia: A Conversation with Carling Talcott, Part 1
Posted on May 22, 2015
Carling Talcott and I come from very different worlds. She’s an American living in Denmark, and I’m a Singaporean living in, well, Singapore. She’s a professional ballet dancer with the Royal Danish Ballet, while I’m an adult ballet beginner who totters off to class once a week. But there are a couple of things we have in common, like a love of pizza and burgers, and being able to find humour in the mundane and the things we love, such…
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…