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Dan Duell's Ballet Blog |
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Chicago's voice of Balanchine
read Dan's biography
5/15/2013 - BALANCHINE + BEYOND
Realizing Destinies Onstage Through Community
Dear Readers,
With our Balanchine + Beyond performances a mere three days away, Patricia and I are witnessing myriad daily revelations of new-found self-expression, technical accomplishment, and inspired delivery of the roles our dancers are about to perform onstage at the beautiful Harris Theater for Music and Dance.
Serenade, Swan Lake and Celestial Rites
Serenade and Swan Lake choreography by George Balanchine © The George Balanchine Trust / Celestial Rites choreography by Ted Seymour
Photography by Margo Ruter
It is no small feat to bring such ballets as Serenade, Swan Lake and Celestial Rites to our standard of performance readiness - in their recent visits to Ballet Chicago both world-renowned repetiteur Sandra Jennings and famed ballerina Darci Kistler noted the remarkable degree of our commitment to the artistic needs of these works, from the energy of the most dynamic leaps to the wave of every arm, the articulation of every foot, the placement of each and every finger.
I would like to turn now to a fundamental aspect of our work not often mentioned - community. Making and performing dances is an endeavor of people working very hard together. The degree of cooperation needed to make ballet really beautiful is exceptional - it requires deep trust between students and teachers, strong teamwork among students in daily classes and rehearsals, and faithful organizational support as dancers climb the ever-higher rope of technical, artistic, and personal growth. An art form that requires such comprehensive yet focused cultivation of one's physique from head to toe (after all our bodies are our instrument of expression), happens much more freely in a harmonious atmosphere of mutual support. Participating together in something much larger than us all, sharing moments of truth on stage with an audience, are powerful experiences that foster permanent bonds of friendship, make indelible memories, and form life careers. Performing ballet is essentially a multi-faceted community effort shared with a community of viewers - not a bad way to spend a life!
For Balanchine + Beyond, our community of participants includes first and foremost our dancers, young people of diverse cultures and backgrounds. It also includes our helpers within the organization, faculty, pianists, administrative staff, parent volunteers, production crew, and our wonderful Board of Directors. It includes a large community of workers of the Harris Theater. It includes the foundations, philanthropic groups, and extraordinary individual donors who support our scholarship programs and seasonal performances. It includes our "living link" colleagues in the fields like Sandra Jennings, Darci Kistler, and the administrators of the George Balanchine Trust. And in a very real way it includes Balanchine and Tchaikovsky, who visit us daily in the studio and will be very much with us onstage.
I cannot think of a more fitting and beautiful way to celebrate twenty-five years of Ballet Chicago.
On May 18th and 19th at the Harris Theater, come see Balanchine + Beyond - visit www.balletchicago.org and get your tickets today!
Until next time,
Dan Duell
Artistic Director
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5/10/2013 - George Balanchine's Swan Lake
Authentic Essence in Ballet Chicago's Production
Dear readers,
 Back in 1951, Balanchine choreographed a beautiful Swan Lake using just one act of a story for which Tchaikovsky had composed four full acts of music. Possessed of an innate understanding of music and theater as well as a brilliant university education in composition and theory, Mr. B. knew just how to pare down Tchaikovsky's story and score to their essence - the love story between Odette (The Swan Queen) and Prince Siegfried. While this one-act version of the ballet remained exclusively in the repertoire of New York City Ballet for decades, in recent years select companies and schools have begun to perform it.
Ballet Chicago is honored, with the blessing of the George Balanchine Trust, to present Balanchine's Swan Lake (not seen by Chicago audiences in thirty-six years) at the Harris Theater. To prepare this beautiful work we imported world-renowned repetiteur Sandra Jennings to teach our studio company ladies how to become swans onstage, which they are all doing marvelously.
To dance our Swan Queen, in collaboration with the Royal Danish Ballet we brought back our first Royal Danish Ballet exchange student Benita Bunger. Benita, who is now a full company member at RDB, studied at Ballet Chicago last summer and utterly fell in love with our teaching. Benita's partner is the beautiful classicist Kirk Henning, a member of the Suzanne Farrell Company at Kennedy Center and a frequent guest performer nationally, including last year with us at the Harris Theater. As a further artistic touch, we are having Darci Kistler, the last ballerina whom Balanchine personally coached in the role of Swan Queen, come to Ballet Chicago to observe and coach our students.
But there is more - Ballet Chicago's production will feature a complete set of new swan tutus of impeccable design based on those of Balanchine's legendary costume designer Karinska. These will be illuminated onstage by our lighting designer Margaret Nelson, who traveled to New York in January with Patricia to get first-hand viewing of this Balanchine's Swan Lake in performances by New York City Ballet.
Thus we feel well prepared to provide Chicago audiences thrilling performances of Balanchine's Swan Lake in a superbly authentic rendering.
We note with sadness the passing on April 11, 2013 of the great American ballerina Maria Tallchief, who was Balanchine's very first Swan Queen. We celebrate her life of great artistry, inspiring generations of dancers and viewers, and gratefully dedicate this season's performances of Swan Lake in her memory.
On May 18th and 19th at the Harris Theater, come see this rarely performed classic - visit balletchicago.org and get your tickets today!
Until next time,
Dan Duell
Artistic Director
Above image: Ballet Chicago Studio Company Members rehearsing Balanchine's Swan Lake
Choreography by George Balanchine © The George Balanchine Trust
Photo by Margo Ruter
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