By Quinn Wharton member of the corps de ballet of San Francisco Ballet. August 31, 2010
The strangest thing about the Copenhagen tour has been the environment we worked in. Tivoli Gardens is the theme park that inspired Disneyland; it was the genesis for that whole enterprise.
When I first walked into the park I was stunned; it’s sort of polar opposite to the environment that we usually perform in. Yet here I was, walking to the theatre while the cotton candy machine was getting warmed up and the rides were groaning and crunching, waking from their night’s hiatus.
The more time that I spent in the park, the more I came to feel that my initial reaction was a biased one. The Gardens have retained a huge amount of the tradition and culture from when it was first created. There is a show that happens every day, in the old pantomime tradition, about a ballerina and a Harlequin chasing each other and being thwarted by a white clown. It’s been going on for decades and is a story that every child in Denmark knows.
All the rides were actually really enjoyable–from the big roller coasters to the Drop Zone. I had forgotten how much fun it is to wander around in a big, bright festival environment. Then, when the sun starts to set, the park gets even more magical. Everything is covered in lights, creating a beautiful glow to walk around in. Usually a jazz band or classical orchestra is performing by the lake, so you can hear live music from pretty much everywhere in the park. It just feels like a very honest environment and has a different undercurrent from the theme parks back home.
Maybe I’m partial because Tivoli is in Europe, or maybe it’s just because Tivoli is such an ancient establishment, but this is a theme park I would be happy to come to again and again. Below are a few pictures I took of Tivoli at night.
By Quinn Wharton member of the corps de ballet of San Francisco Ballet. August 25, 2010
Sleep is incredibly important for what we do. On tour even more so: we don’t have our apartments to go back to or our regular schedule to settle into. Especially when flying, you’ll see us sleeping everywhere, from the comfortable to the odd. It helps that what we wear most of the day is basically tight-fitting pajamas. its very easy to want to curl up in a hoodie and some slippers. These photos were taken during our plane flight from SF to Copenhagen (including a layover). So we had a real reason to be sleeping in every nook and cranny and I thought it was still worth capturing.
By Glenn McCoy Executive Director at San Francisco Ballet August 23, 2010
On August 17, San Francisco Ballet and more than 30 other San Francisco cultural organizations hostedArts Forum 2010: State of the Arts in San Francisco. The event was designed to engage candidates running for public office in the upcoming elections and to educate them about the significant impact the arts have on our city. Over 400 artists, arts managers, arts funders, and arts supporters attended along with 24 candidates. The candidates were encouraged to develop their own platform on the arts as part of their campaigns this fall.
The program, held in the Forum at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts featured a panel discussion by Kary Schulman, Director of San Francisco Grants for the Arts; Moy Eng, Interim Program Officer for Arts and Culture at the San Francisco Foundation; and Joe D’Alessandro, President & CEO of the San Francisco Convention and Visitors Bureau. These experts offered facts about the history of arts funding in San Francisco, the tremendous reach of arts education programs offered by the city’s arts organizations, and the impressive economic impact the arts have on the area.
Randy Cohen, Vice President of Local Arts Advancement for American for the Arts, the nation’s leading nonprofit advocacy organization for the arts, gave the keynote address. Armed with research data from mapping studies of the nation’s 680,000 arts establishments and employees, Randy painted a compelling picture for the positive impacts of the arts and culture industry and the wisdom of supporting it. Check back for more statistics from Randy’s speech in a later post.
In the meantime, allow me to share a few facts here about the value of San Francisco’s arts community. Did you know that . . .
Over 4 million people participate in and support the programs and activities offered by our arts organizations, with at least 1 million coming from outside the city. They are estimated to spend over $95 million while they are here.
San Francisco’s arts community provides jobs to over 4,500 artists, dancers, singers, musicians, writers, filmmakers, scientists, stage technicians, designers, clerical and administrative workers, and more. Over 1,700 of these workers live in the City of San Francisco and the other 2,500 commute daily, contributing to our economic and cultural vitality.
San Francisco’s arts community produces hundreds of free or low-cost community programs throughout the city’s diverse neighborhoods.
San Francisco’s arts community maintains a strong commitment to educational programs, offering high quality education programs serving almost every public school in the city. These programs reach over 700,000 young people each year.
What can you do to support this vital part of our community? Let the candidates running in your district know that you want them to make it a priority to support the arts in San Francisco.
The Charm of Tivoli
member of the corps de ballet of San Francisco Ballet.
August 31, 2010
The strangest thing about the Copenhagen tour has been the environment we worked in. Tivoli Gardens is the theme park that inspired Disneyland; it was the genesis for that whole enterprise.
When I first walked into the park I was stunned; it’s sort of polar opposite to the environment that we usually perform in. Yet here I was, walking to the theatre while the cotton candy machine was getting warmed up and the rides were groaning and crunching, waking from their night’s hiatus.
The more time that I spent in the park, the more I came to feel that my initial reaction was a biased one. The Gardens have retained a huge amount of the tradition and culture from when it was first created. There is a show that happens every day, in the old pantomime tradition, about a ballerina and a Harlequin chasing each other and being thwarted by a white clown. It’s been going on for decades and is a story that every child in Denmark knows.
All the rides were actually really enjoyable–from the big roller coasters to the Drop Zone. I had forgotten how much fun it is to wander around in a big, bright festival environment. Then, when the sun starts to set, the park gets even more magical. Everything is covered in lights, creating a beautiful glow to walk around in. Usually a jazz band or classical orchestra is performing by the lake, so you can hear live music from pretty much everywhere in the park. It just feels like a very honest environment and has a different undercurrent from the theme parks back home.
Maybe I’m partial because Tivoli is in Europe, or maybe it’s just because Tivoli is such an ancient establishment, but this is a theme park I would be happy to come to again and again. Below are a few pictures I took of Tivoli at night.
The Nimb Hotel
Tivoli Concert Hall at Night