Dancers In The Streets

What a day! About 30 of us dancers, staff, and friends took to the streets of downtown Portland today to pass out flyers, talk to people, and galvanize support for OBT. We covered a lot of ground over several hours and made some wonderful connections with people. Here's part of the crew gathered at Jamison Park (including our arts-supporting mayor, Sam Adams!):




All in all, today was a great success and a testament to the power of personal connections. I have confidence that the work we did today will make a difference. Congratulations to us all, and onward we go!

DANCE UNITED - A BENEFIT PERFORMANCE FOR OREGON BALLET THEATRE

In what promises to be the most impressive array of dance talent that has ever shared a Portland stage, OBT presents DANCE UNITED, a benefit performance to raise funds to help reduce a sizeable shortfall in our operating budget. Leading dancers from world-class companies across North America are performing in support of us.

DANCE UNITED: A Benefit Performance for Oregon Ballet Theatre

June 12, 2009 at 7:30pm / Keller Auditorium

Tickets start at $50 and are available now by calling 503.2.BALLET or visiting www.obt.org.

Tickets will be available via Ticketmaster starting Monday, June 1st

FEATURING PERFORMANCES BY DANCERS FROM:

NEW YORK CITY BALLET
Megan Fairchild & Daniel Ulbricht in George Balanchine's Tarantella
SAN FRANCISCO BALLET
Sarah Van Patten & Damian Smith in Christopher Wheeldon's After the Rain
BALLET WEST
Christiana Bennett & Christopher Ruud in Ivanov's White Swan Pas de Deux
HOUSTON BALLET
Melody Herrera & Ian Casady in Stanton Welch's Falling Pas de Deux
THE NATIONAL BALLET OF CANADA
Zdenek Konvalina  in Maurice Béjart's Greek Dances

TREY MCINTYRE PROJECT
John Michael Schert in Trey McIntyre's Leatherwing Bat
PACIFIC NORTHWEST BALLET

Carla Korbes & Jeffrey Stanton in George Balanchine's Diamonds
THE JOFFREY
BOSTON BALLET

Melissa Hough & James Whiteside in TBA

WHITE BIRD presenting MINH TRAN & COMPANY
BODYVOX

LINDA AUSTIN DANCE
OREGON BALLET THEATRE
*More companies, both local and national, are expected to join the program and will be announced as added.

The press release can be found here.

The Oregonian article can be found here.

Adult Intensive 2009!

OBT's Adult Intensive Workshop, which is an annual tradition that draws lots of enthusiastic students, is going to be an even more exciting and illuminating experience than ever before. We've put a lot of thought into what would make these two weeks more valuable and informative for our adult students. The result of our brainstorming and surveying is that the intensive will feature longer technique classes so the teachers can actually spend time with students individually, explaining more fully the concepts of technique that are so fascinating and important, without rushing to get in a full class before the clock runs down. Additionally, there will be class offerings in pointe work, men's technique, and repertoire. We've sensed that there is interest in these areas, and what better time to explore them than during these two weeks in June?

Sign up now! These classes are going to be a fantastic experience for all, I'm quite convinced. They're all going to be taught by company dancers who have a special interest in teaching adult students of any and every level. Anne, Alison, Steven and myself will be teaching this year. You can find the complete schedule of classes and all the necessary info here:
http://www.obt.org/adultclass_schedule.html

I'm really excited to teach these classes and can't wait to see YOU there!

Working, working, working...
We're hard at work preparing Rush+Robbins, which we open in less than two weeks. Three of the four ballets are completely set and have been rehearsed for the past few weeks, and the fourth, The Cage, is in the works. Bart Cook, a repetiteur from the Robbins Trust, is here teaching The Cage and also taking a look at Afternoon of a Faun (which he staged for us last season) and The Concert (which was staged by Christine Redpath, but Bart is also an expert on the ballet, having danced it many many times).

Other than working on our rep for the regular OBT season, several of us are also participating in various projects which we are hoping will generate new performance and outreach opportunities for us. These projects range from summer gigs to teaching to choreographing for student demonstrations or performances in unusual (for us) venues. There is a lot of exciting energy and impetus behind what's going on outside the realm of what OBT's audiences typically see us doing. Stay tuned for details as things develop further!

Doernbecher Children's Hospital - Take 2

Just wanted to share some photos from OBT's trip to Doernbecher. It was a very rewarding day for all of us, seeing each and every one of these kids' faces light up as the dancers entered the room.

Here's the crew in the lobby

The first room we visited had the most adorable and excited little girl in it. She shrieked with joy as the girls in tutus appeared in the doorway:

Lucas did double-duty: lifting ballerinas and passing out teddy bears to the kids.

Stay on the lookout for a video about our experience, coming soon to a blog near you!

What's on the Prop Table?

This is a little like those "what's in your dance bag?" columns:

On the prop table backstage, we have:

Gatorade, Pedialyte, water (Pedialyte is the latest trend in rehydration)

Altoids

peppermints

ibuprofen and aspirin

giant bottle of Vitamin C tablets

Band-Aids

Hairpins, bobby pins, hairspray (for emergency touch-ups)

Various people's personal water bottles

Assorted bits of warmup clothes

Tambourines (for Tarentella)

Hand sanitizer (jumbo economy size)

Kleenex

A prosthetic arm and leg (no cause for alarm--- these were props for Il Distratto)

Usually there'll be signs taped above or near the prop table explaining the bow sequence for each ballet, too.

She's not REALLY fragile

I caught Kathi warming up backstage with this sign posted on her back:



Don't worry, she's fine. But sometimes, especially during a hard run, we feel like we might break if not handled with care. Luckily, the men of OBT are all wonderfully sensitive partners!
(The sign was intended for something else backstage--- one of the harpists' music stands, maybe?).