Category: Professional Dancers

Inspiration: Kathryn Morgan

Young NYCB soloist Kathryn Morgan hails from Fayetteville, North Carolina, and received her initial training from Mobile Ballet in Alabama, where she recently returned to perform as a guest artist. In 2004, Kathryn went to the legendary School of American Ballet, moving into an apprenticeship with NYCB in 2006 and a corps de ballet post in 2007. Her promotion to soloist happened just over a year ago, in October of 2009.

Kathryn, or “Katie”, is perhaps one of the company’s most charming ballerinas, and her quiet, radiant grace is apparent in every role. She has been featured by the New York Times, Dance Spirit and Pointe Magazine and guest-blogged for the latter. You’ll be truly inspired by the gorgeous photos on her website – it took me quite a while to decide which one was prettiest for this post!

UPDATE: Kathryn has a new website now, with a fabulous blog of her own. Check it out! It’s called IfThePointeShoeFits.

Inspiration: Sarah Van Patten

Sarah Van Patten has been a principal dancer with San Francisco Ballet for three years and is an exceptional talent and an elegant ballerina with artistic sincerity.

Born and raised in Boston, Massachusetts, Van Patten began her serious training at Boston Ballet School under Caroline Eaton, Jill Silverman and Kristen Beckwith and later trained under Jacqueline Cronsberg of Ballet Workshop of New England. She summered at the latter and also at SAB, Brianksy and Chautauqua.

Van Patten began her professional career as an apprentice at the age of 15 with the Royal Danish Ballet and was cast as the lead in Romeo & Juliet. A promotion to corps de ballet soon followed. In 2002, she moved to San Francisco Ballet to take a soloist position.

Check out Sarah Van Patten’s website and get inspired to reach for the stars in your next ballet class!

Inspiration: Olga Pavlova

Sometimes it’s tough to remember what you are working towards with the endless classes, rehearsals and corrections. Every dancer could use some inspiration to keep focused and excited about dance, so with that in mind, I thought I’d take some time to feature for you some of today’s elite ballet artists.

Trained at the Bolshoi Ballet Academy, Olga Pavlova is a versatile, ethereal ballerina currently with La La La Human Steps in Montreal. Check out her website bio and gorgeous photos!

Ballet in Print: Cuban Ballet

In order to reach their full potential as artists, many Cuban ballet dancers leave their country to escape the complicated politics of Cuba. And that nation’s loss has become the world’s gain as pointed out by noted dance critic and this book’s author, Octavio Roca. Cuban Ballet explores this evolution and is gorgeously illustrated with both vibrant full-color and dramatic black and white photographs of current and former Cuban ballet dancers.

Cuban Ballet provides an exceptional portrait of Cuban ballet’s history, including stories of select Cuban ballet stars. This book also features a forward by Mikhail Baryshnikov and by Alicia Alonzo, who you might have guessed is one of the dancers featured most prominently. Released only last month, this exciting and beautiful new book is available at a significant discount through Amazon.

Ballet in Film: The Corella Ballet Documentary

Ok, so if you were born after 1995, you might not have had the googly-eyes for Angel Corella during his tenure as a completely adorable principal dancer of ABT and Paloma Herrera’s often partner. But you can now if you watch him and his own ridiculously gorgeous company dancers in their fab new upcoming documentary!

This film is about Corella’s revival of ballet in his home country of Spain, which went without a major company for a long time until Corella decided recently to start his own, the Corella Ballet de Castilla y Leon. Thanks once again to DanceMedia, you can enjoy the preview trailer, which includes tantalizingly long snippets of company class, rehearsals and performances, including Corella himself dancing and teaching, during their preparation for my personal favorite ballet, La Bayadére. Try not to drool!

For those of you that reside down South here with moi, Corella Ballet will be performing in New Orleans on its 2011 tour, and you can check that out here.

Ballet in Print: Belyaevsky Ballet Photography

Former principal dancer with the Kirov Stanislav Belyaevsky is an incredible photographer who understands how to capture the dynamism, drama and virtuosity of Russian ballet all in a single still image.  Most of his collections can be viewed on his site and include recent and breathtaking shots of the Vaganova Academy, the Varna Competition, the Helsinki Ballet and the Finnish National Ballet and School.

You will be inspired and in awe by these stunning ballet images. Belyaevsky currently has a few books of his work available for purchase, but you won’t find them on Amazon. These books are currently only sold on Belyaevksy’s official website.

Ballet in Print: 2011 Balanchine Wall Calendar

NYCB twelve months of the year? Who could resist? Calendars are one of the easiest ways to perk up your room, kiddos, so here’s a lovely, inspirational option for you ballerinas-in-training.

Published in June of this year, this calendar includes gorgeously crisp full-color shots, much cleaner than some of those generic ballet calendars with hazy, out-of-focus photos of students and trainees. You’ll be looking at some of the best dancers in the country performing famous Balanchine choreography. I know what’s going on my holiday list!

Ballet in Film: Katia & Volodia

The incredible husband and wife duo of Ekaterina Maximova and Vladimir Vasiliev are two of the very best-loved Russian ballet dancers. Katia & Volodia reveals clips of their early training, rehearsals as pros, performance snippets and clips of them coaching younger dancers.

Partnered together as small children in ballet school, the leading pair were wed in 1961. Maximova passed away last year at the age of 70 and was survived by her husband. In March of this year, a gala was given in honor of Vasiliev for his 70th birthday.

Ballet in Film: La Danse

You know I love my themes! Today is French method ballet, so it’s the perfect time to introduce La Danse, a very recent documentary about the Paris Opera Ballet.

This much anticipated film contains beautiful footage of the world-famous company, but be forewarned – it’s about two hours long and is a mix of both modern dance and ballet. Both are of the best quality, however, which makes this documentary worth the time – just have some snacks ready!

The Ballerina Gallery

Part of becoming a well-rounded ballet dancer is not only striving for versatility, but educating yourself on dance history and the great dancers that have come before you. For the latter, a visit to The Ballerina Gallery is a must.

A simple A-Z guide of some of the very best dancers that ever were and that are today, this online collection of biographies and photographs of great ballerinas is positively inspirational!

Ballet in Print: In the Wings

Few photographers hold a candle to the perspective that Kyle Froman takes on ballet, and that really shows in his pictorial book, In the Wings: Behind the Scenes at New York City Ballet. This book is a dream for any aspiring student of ballet.

As an NYCB corps de ballet member for thirteen years, Kyle has had all the access to and intimacy with the company that a most photographers could only hope for. Add to this a professional dancer’s perspective on the productions that take place each night, and In the Wings becomes a wonderful peek into Balanchine’s great creation and one of the highest quality professional ballet companies in the world, New York City Ballet.

Ballet in Film: Ballerina

One my absolute favorite dance documentaries, Ballerina, is now available to watch instantly on Netflix. This exquisite portrait of five female ballet dancers from the legendary Kirov is a relatively recent film, which lends it a much more modern air than most dance documentaries available, particularly when it comes to the level of virtouosity of the dancing itself. If you are looking for true inspiration and to see just how elevated a level ballet can reach, I highly recommended you check it out.