Greetings readers!
Steve I am, author of this here blog. My relationship with dance began at a relatively “late” age as a college student at Ohio State University (where I received the majority of my intermediate ballet training under the tutelage of Karen Eliot, Jessica Zeller and Karena Birk—I’ve always wanted to write something spiffy like that) and the passion I developed for it has procured what you read today, a hopefully witty, thoughtful and charming commentary on various things involving dance (mostly ballet, my first love). I review live shows, DVDs, books, articles—you name it…and sometimes talk about my personal experiences as an adult student of ballet.
I currently live in Seattle, and in addition to attending many wonderful performances by the Pacific Northwest Ballet (where I currently take open classes, suffering to attain Balanchine speed), I am also on staff as one of the writers for Seattle Dances, writing reviews about local performances by modern dance companies. While I keep those reviews strictly professional, I often post some supplementary thoughts from “funny me” here in my personal blog.
Rather than explain my personal aesthetics in ballet (though I will say here and now that if there’s one thing I need to say directly, it’s that I am a junkie for Sir Frederick Ashton’s choreography), I shall list some of my favorite ballets, which will give you a pretty good idea (and indicate how escapist I am).
In no particular order…
Favorite Ballets:
- Manon (Sir Kenneth MacMillan)
- The Dream (Sir Frederick Ashton)
- Symphonic Variations (Sir Frederick Ashton)
- Voices of Spring (Sir Frederick Ashton)
- Tschaikovsky Pas de Deux (George Balanchine)
- Serenade (George Balanchine)
- La Sylphide (August Bournonville)
- Symphony in C (George Balanchine)
- Giselle (Jean Coralli, Jules Perrot)
- Rhapsody (Sir Frederick Ashton)
- Theme and Variations (George Balanchine)
And if you must know, I enjoy a great many dancers, but my favorite by far is Tamara Rojo, who I saw perform Manon with the Royal Ballet when they toured to Washington D.C. I look at that experience as the one that changed my life and the way I saw ballet, forever.
At any rate, that’s a good general picture of “me.” I hope that you will consider commenting on my posts and being an active reader, and then I can learn something about “you.”
Best regards from yours truly,
Steve
