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Eric Underwood (dancer)
Eric Underwood is an American British ballet dancer, model and actor. He was a soloist with The Royal Ballet, he left the company in August 2017. He was one of the few black dancers in the company. Early life Underwood was born in Washington, D.C., and was raised at a poor suburb in Maryland. He has two paternal half siblings. There were gangs violence and gun crimes in the neighborhood, but Underwood stated "we were loved and appreciated at home." He also stated police officers would visit his school once a week to build "positive association" with police. Underwood danced at home as a child, but did not start formal trainings until he turned 14. His mother wanted to send him to study acting at Suitland High School Center for Visual and Performing Arts, as it was "more promising" than mainstream schools, but Underwood got stage fright at his audition. As he was leaving, he saw a ballet class and asked the teacher to let him try. He ended up training at the school as a ballet stu ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Melissa Hamilton
Melissa Hamilton (born 2 August 1989) is a Northern Irish ballet dancer and a First Soloist with the Royal Ballet, London. Early life Hamilton was born in Belfast and spent most of her childhood in Dromore, County Down. Her father is a builder and her mother is a pre-school teacher. Her sister is an architect and her brother is a primary school teacher. She started dancing at age four. She attended Dromore Primary School and Banbridge Academy, and left the latter after she finished her GCSEs. Until that point, the only training Hamilton had are once-a-week classes. At age 16, she was awarded a scholarship and entered Elmhurst Ballet School in Birmingham, where she trained for two years. During her first year, she was told she would not be able to catch up. However, in her second year, she was taught by Masha Mukhamedov (wife of Irek Mukhamedov), who believed she could have a career in dance. When Mukhamedovs moved to Athens, Hamilton followed them to train privately with Masha ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Clybourne Park
''Clybourne Park'' is a 2010 play by Bruce Norris written as a spin-off to Lorraine Hansberry's play ''A Raisin in the Sun'' (1959). It portrays fictional events set during and after the Hansberry play, and is loosely based on historical events that took place in the city of Chicago. It premiered in February 2010 at Playwrights Horizons in New York. The play received its UK premiere at the Royal Court Theatre in London in a production directed by Dominic Cooke. The play received its Chicago premiere at Steppenwolf Theatre Company in a production directed by Steppenwolf ensemble member Amy Morton. As described by ''The Washington Post'', the play "applies a modern twist to the issues of race and housing and aspirations for a better life." ''Clybourne Park'' was awarded the 2011 Pulitzer Prize for Drama and the 2012 Tony Award for Best Play. Plot Act I: 1959 Grieving parents Bev and Russ are planning to sell their home in the white middle-class Chicago neighborhood of Clybourne Pa ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sylvia (ballet)
''Sylvia'', originally ''Sylvia, ou La nymphe de Diane'', is a full-length ballet in two or three act (theatre), acts, first choreography, choreographed by Louis Mérante to music by Léo Delibes in 1876. ''Sylvia'' is a typical classical ballet in many respects, yet it has many interesting features that make it unique. The work is notable for its mythological Arcadia (paradise), Arcadian setting, creative choreographies, expansive sets and, above all, its remarkable Sheet music, score. When ''Sylvia, ou La nymphe de Diane'' premiered on 14 June 1876 at the Palais Garnier, it went largely unnoticed by the critics. The first seven productions of ''Sylvia'' were not commercially successful. The 1952 revival, choreographed by Frederick Ashton, Sir Frederick Ashton, popularized the ballet. The 1997, 2004, 2005 and 2009 productions were all based on Ashton's original choreography. History Preparations The origins of the ballet ''Sylvia'' are in the Italian poet Torquato Tasso, Ta ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Swan Lake
''Swan Lake'' ( rus, Лебеди́ное о́зеро, r=Lebedínoye ózero, p=lʲɪbʲɪˈdʲinəjə ˈozʲɪrə, link=no ), Op. 20, is a ballet composed by Russian composer Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky in 1875–76. Despite its initial failure, it is now one of the most popular ballets of all time. The scenario, initially in two acts, was fashioned from Russian and German folk tales and tells the story of Odette, a princess turned into a swan by an evil sorcerer's curse. The choreographer of the original production was Julius Reisinger (Václav Reisinger). The ballet was premiered by the Bolshoi Ballet on at the Bolshoi Theatre in Moscow. Although it is presented in many different versions, most ballet companies base their stagings both choreographically and musically on the 1895 revival of Marius Petipa and Lev Ivanov, first staged for the Imperial Ballet on 15 January 1895, at the Mariinsky Theatre in St. Petersburg. For this revival, Tchaikovsky's score was revised by ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Serenade (ballet)
''Serenade'' is a ballet by George Balanchine to Tchaikovsky's 1880 '' Serenade for Strings in C'', Op. 48. Serenade is credited as being George Balanchine's first full-length ballet in America. Using the students of his newly formed School of American Ballet, Balanchine choreographed this ballet for an American audience that had not been widely exposed to ballet before.Bird, "Principles of Choreography as Exemplified in the Works of George Balanchine" (1980). Master's Theses. 1851 Students of the School of American Ballet gave the first performance on Sunday, 10 June 1934 on the Felix M. Warburg estate in White Plains, N.Y., where '' Mozartiana'' had been danced the previous day. It was then presented by the Producing Company of the School of American Ballet on 6 December at the Avery Memorial Theatre of the Wadsworth Atheneum with sets by the painter William Littlefield. Balanchine presented the ballet as his response to the generous sponsorships he received during his immig ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Manon (ballet)
''L'histoire de Manon'', generally referred to as ''Manon'', is a ballet choreographed by Kenneth MacMillan to music by Jules Massenet and based on the 1731 novel ''Manon Lescaut'' by Abbé Prévost. The ballet was first performed by The Royal Ballet in London in 1974 with Antoinette Sibley and Anthony Dowell in the leading roles. It continues to be performed and recognised internationally. Background Kenneth MacMillan had been thinking about choreographing a ballet about the story of Manon Lescaut for some time. Three years into his artistic directorship of The Royal Ballet, he wanted to create a large-scale operatic ballet that would provide exciting roles both for the company's principal dancers and the ''corps de ballet''.Parry, p. 428 On the last night of the company's summer season in 1973, MacMillan left a copy of Prévost's novel in Antoinette Sibley's dressing room, with a note informing her that it would "come in handy for March 7, '74". As the copy of ''Manon Lescaut' ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Four Temperaments (ballet)
''The Four Temperaments'' or Theme and Four Variations (''The Four Temperaments'') is an orchestral work and ballet by Paul Hindemith. Although it was originally conceived as a ballet for Léonide Massine, the score was ultimately completed as a commission for George Balanchine, who subsequently choreographed it as a neoclassical ballet based on the theory of the four temperaments. The music was premiered in Switzerland by the Stadtorchester Winterthur under the direction of Hermann Scherchen on March 10, 1943. However, Balanchine created the choreography a few years later. The ballet, ''The Four Temperaments'' was the first work Balanchine made for the Ballet Society, the forerunner of the New York City Ballet, and premiered on November 20, 1946, at the Central High School of Needle Trades, New York, during the Ballet Society's first performance. Though at the premiere, critics did not receive the ballet well, it was later acknowledged as a "masterpiece," and was reviv ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Cinderella (Ashton)
This version of the ''Cinderella'' ballet, using Sergei Prokofiev's ''Cinderella'' music and re-choreographed by Frederick Ashton, is a comic ballet. Ballet productions Plot outline Ashton's ''Cinderella'' is his own realised dream of a Petipa ballet and the ballet itself enacts the realisation of dreams, notably Cinderella's own. When we first see her she is a demi-caractere dancer dreaming of being a ballerina—that seems to be the balletic point of her solo with the broomstick in the kitchen—and it is as a ballerina that she magically enters the ballroom, stepping ''en pointe'' down the stairs and advancing in ''pas de bourree'' to the front of the stage. Back in the kitchen she recalls the slipper (or rather the pointe shoe) that she carries in her apron; the shoe is the clue to her dream and persuades her it was true. The Prince finds Cinderella, but in his arms she discovers her own identity as a ballerina and her dream of herself has been realised. Cinderella's mic ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
La Bayadère
''La Bayadère'' ("the temple dancer") ( ru. «Баядерка», ''Bayaderka'') is a ballet, originally staged in four acts and seven tableaux by French choreographer Marius Petipa to the music of Ludwig Minkus. The ballet was staged especially for the benefit performance of the Russian ''Prima ballerina'' Ekaterina Vazem, who created the principal role of Nikiya. ''La Bayadère'' was first presented by the Imperial Ballet at the Imperial Bolshoi Kamenny Theatre in St. Petersburg, Russia, on . From the first performance the ballet was universally hailed by contemporary critics as one of the choreographer Petipa's supreme masterpieces, particularly the scene from the ballet known as ''The Kingdom of the Shades'', which became one of the most celebrated pieces in all of classical ballet. By the turn of the 20th century, ''The Kingdom of the Shades'' scene was regularly extracted from the full-length work as an independent showpiece, and it has remained so to the present day. Nea ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Anastasia (ballet)
''Anastasia'' is a ballet created by Kenneth MacMillan. The first version in one act was premiered in 1967 by the Deutsche Oper Berlin, Deutsche Oper Ballet. In 1971 MacMillan expanded the work to three acts for the Royal Ballet; the original one-act version became the final act of the 1971 work."Anastasia (three acts)" Royal Opera House Collections Online, retrieved 10 October 2014 The 1967 version uses Bohuslav Martinů's Symphony No. 6 (Martinů), Symphony No. 6 (1953) and untitled electronic music by Fritz Winckel and Rüdiger Rüfer. The three-act version also used Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky, Tchaikovsky's Symphony No. 1 (Tchaikovsky), Symphony No. 1 and Symphony No. 3 (Tchaikovsky), Symphony No. 3. The ballet is based on the story of Anna Anderson, who purported to be the Grand Duchess Anastasia N ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Agon (ballet)
''Agon'' is a 22-minute ballet for twelve dancers with music by Igor Stravinsky. It was choreographed by George Balanchine. Stravinsky began composition in December 1953 but was interrupted the next year; he resumed work in 1956 and concluded on April 27, 1957. The music was premiered in Los Angeles at UCLA's Royce Hall on June 17, 1957, conducted by Robert Craft. Stravinsky himself conducted the sessions for the work's first recording the following day on June 18, 1957. ''Agon'' was first performed on stage by the New York City Ballet at the City Center of Music and Drama on December 1, 1957. The composition's long gestation period covers an interesting juncture in Stravinsky's composing career, in which he moved from a diatonic musical idiom to one based on twelve-tone technique; the music of the ballet thus demonstrates a unique symbiosis of musical idioms. The ballet has no story, but consists of a series of dance movements in which various groups of dancers interact in pairs ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Afternoon Of A Faun (Robbins)
''Afternoon of a Faun'' is a ballet choreographed by Jerome Robbins to Claude Debussy's ''Prélude à l'après-midi d'un faune''. The ballet features two young dancers meeting at a rehearsal studio. Robbins was influenced by Stéphane Mallarmé's poem '' L'après-midi d'un faune'', the inspiration for Debussy's score, as well as Vaslav Nijinsky's 1912 ballet to the same score, and his own observation of dancers. The ballet was made for the New York City Ballet, and premiered on May 14, 1953, at the City Center of Music and Drama, with the two roles of the ballet originated by Tanaquil Le Clercq and Francisco Moncion. ''Afternoon of a Faun'' has since been performed by various other ballet companies. Background and development Claude Debussy's ''Prélude à l'après-midi d'un faune'' was inspired by Stéphane Mallarmé's poem '' L'après-midi d'un faune'', about a faun's encounter with nymphs. The first ballet set to the score was choreographed by Vaslav Nijinsky and premiered i ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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