This Jean Raoux painting from the 1700s depicts Orpheus and Eurydice leaving the underworld. In the back left you can see Hades (god of the underworld) and his wife Persephone, who have been charmed into granting Orpheus’ plea by the beauty of his music. A hero. A muse. A god. A nymph. A beautiful youth.… Read More
Ib Anderson as Apollo. From Balanchine: Celebrating a Life in Dance. Photo by Costas. What does it take to don the mantle of a newborn god? The role of Apollo has been coveted by dancers, in part because it was a role that Balanchine liked to rehearse himself, customizing the interpretation to suit each Apollo… Read More
This picture is of Lucas Threefoot and Xuan Cheng rehearsing for the Body Beautiful program. Photo is by Blaine Truitt Covert. The Second Detail is the kind of ballet that dancers love to dance. It’s a challenging, body-twisting, mind-bending, powerful ballet that requires constant attention to what is going on around us; I can’t think of… Read More
Some ballets take time to develop their full character and others change the face of the art form the minute they premiere. Balanchine’s Apollo did both- evolving significantly over the first 20 years of its production history while consistently being hailed as the event that launched neoclassical ballet. It was the beginning of a deep… Read More
(Pictured: Yuan Yuan Tan and Damien Smith in the San Francisco Ballet world premiere of Christopher Wheeldon’s Ghosts. Photo by Alistair McCauley) San Francisco Ballet Soloists Dana Genshaft and Garen Scribner will be joining us for Dance United on June 9th at the Keller Auditorium and we are delighted to learn that they will be… Read More
