SFB Scene

Friday, January 8th, 2010 | All Posts by Open Studio 455, SFB Scene | No Comments

• The Company returned to studios Wednesday after a much deserved break following Nutcracker. Dancers are right back in the swing of things with rehearsals for the Opening Night Gala and Swan Lake, and costume fittings for The Little Mermaid.
• Tomorrow is the first day of SF Ballet School’s annual audition tour, which begins in Santa Monica, CA and concludes on February 20 in San Francisco. The auditions are for admission to the School’s prestigious five-week intensive Summer Session, held from June 28–July 30, 2010. More than 1,200 students are expected to try out for approximately 200 coveted spots. Additional audition sites include Irvine, CA; Carlisle, PA; Washington, DC; Boston; New York; Seattle; Chicago; Boca Raton, FL; Winston-Salem, NC; and Fort Worth, TX. Be sure to check the School’s Facebook page for behind-the-scenes photos from life at the School.
• Ever wonder who takes such gorgeous pictures of the Company? You might be surprised to learn the answer is Artistic Director & Choreographer Helgi Tomasson’s son, Erik Tomasson. Next Tuesday, the San Francisco Museum of Performance & Design will open a stunning photography retrospective by Tomasson in honor of his fifth year photographing the Company. The exhibition, entitled Captured: Erik Tomasson Photographs San Francisco Ballet, will feature more than 20 images selected from the vast body of work that Tomasson has photographed during his tenure as SF Ballet’s photographer. The exhibit, located in the Veterans Building at 401 Van Ness Avenue (4^th Floor), is free and open to the public.

Maria Kochetkova and Joan Boada in Wheeldon's Within the Golden Hour; one of the photos featured in Captured: Erik Tomasson Photographs San Francisco Ballet (© Erik Tomasson)

Tags: Erik Tomasson, San Francisco Ballet School

Welcome to Club Nut!

Friday, December 18th, 2009 | All Posts by Christina Hecht | 1 Comment

Last night a group of volunteers spent a couple of hours transforming Lucy and Fritz Jewett Studio from a ballet practice space into . . . Club Nut.

Outside in the hallway, a cluster of pale blue-leotarded girls peeked in. “I’m in Club Nut! Are you?”

Today when our youngest cast members leave the Opera House after the matinee, they will be walked across the street to the ballet building and taken to Lucy and Fritz Jewett Studio. They’ll enter a huge room decorated with light-trimmed pine garlands wound around all the barres, two tables piled high with supplies for the day’s craft project, and a long buffet table where lunch will soon be served.

Welcome to Club Nut!

SF Ballet School students are a crucial resource for SF Ballet's Nutcracker! (© Erik Tomasson)

Club Nut is a service provided to the families of the student dancers, organized and staffed by ballet school parents and BRAVO volunteers. It is a safe and fun place for the children to rest, eat and play between their appearances in the matinee and evening performances of Nutcracker. For most of the children it is also a highlight of their holiday season!

San Francisco Ballet Students work on gift bags at Club Nut in December 2006. San Francisco Chronicle photo by Kat Wade

Imagine a huge, bright and warm room filled with 50 of your friends. In it are stacks of board games, friendly parents helping you do a craft project, a movie to watch, and a hot lunch. There’s a large, carpeted area where you can play, lounge and stretch with your cast-mates. Today’s menu is chicken-fried rice, macaroni and cheese, salad and fruit and upcoming meals will include spaghetti and pizza. For crafts, we’ll be decorating holiday stockings, and making lavender sachets, beaded ornaments, and quilled-paper cards.

Welcome to Club Nut!

(View a video about Club Nut made by the San Francisco Chronicle in December 2006.)

Tags: Bravo, Club Nut, Nutcracker, San Francisco Ballet School

SFB Scene

Tuesday, December 15th, 2009 | All Posts by Open Studio 455, SFB Scene | 1 Comment

The first week of Nutcracker performances are completed, but there are still plenty of opportunities to see the Company perform this holiday favorite! Over the last few weeks, San Francisco Ballet has been out in the community to spread the word about the production. Below are a few highlights from recent Nutcracker activities.

• Costumed San Francisco Ballet School students visited the Daly City and Sloat Blvd Lucky Supermarket locations much to the delight of week-night shoppers. Lucky Supermarkets is the official sponsor of Nutcracker Family Performances and donates juice, cookies, and gifts for these six performances.

Photo by Alexander Reneff-Olson

Photo by Alexander Reneff-Olson

Photo by Alexander Reneff-Olson

• Continuing a very special SF Ballet tradition, several dancers from the Company went to California Pacific Medical Center and UCSF to perform for – and visit with – children currently in pediatric units over the holidays. Click here to watch the ABC7 news story about the visits.

• On November 20th, several San Francisco Ballet School students appeared in Nutcracker costumes for the Embarcadero Center Tree Lighting Ceremony.

Photo by Alexander Reneff-Olson

• Soloists Pauli Magierek and Garen Price Scribner shared some of their favorite training exercises with ABC7’s “The View from the Bay” hosts Spencer Christian and Janelle Wang. Click here to watch the segment.

Tags: Garen Scribner, Nutcracker, Pauli Magierek, San Francisco Ballet School, View from the Bay

Jordan and the Trainees at Assemblée Internationale

Wednesday, December 9th, 2009 | All Posts by Jordan Hammond | 1 Comment

Canada’s National Ballet School brought together 13 ballet schools from around the world. The experience included seven ballet classes, 15+ hours of rehearsal, three dress rehearsals, and four performances, all in just one week, but the memories and knowledge will last me a lifetime. I took too many pictures to count, in order to help me remember all of it.

Day 1: Heading to orientation where banners hung along the streets in honor of the event and the National Ballet School’s (NBS) 50th Anniversary!

Day 1: At orientation, waiting to meet with a student of NBS who showed us a tour of the incredible six-floor building where all the events would be taking place

Day 2: Myles Thatcher, Jean-Yves Esquerre, and Lola de Avila watching rehearsal for the existing repertoire performances where the Trainees performed the 2nd and 3rd movements from Helgi Tomasson’s “Haffner” Symphony, as well as Parrish Maynard’s Fractals

Day 3: Dress rehearsal time for the existing repertoire performance! Ingeniously, the school set up a projector so we could watch the rest of the performance while we warmed-up in the studios down the hall!

Day 4: The Trainees after the performance of Tomasson’s “Haffner” Symphony

Day 5: Rehearsing Words Unsaid in the afternoon and later, performing Fractals in the second existing repertoire performance that evening

One of my favorite memories of the Assemblée was working on the choreographic workshop performance, because that was when I truly was able to work and interact with other students at the event. Prior to arriving in Canada, we received a video from a student choreographer at another school and we were each assigned to learn one of the roles in the piece, from the video. The idea was that when we arrived in Canada, we could become an international cast of students dancing together in one student choreographer’s piece. I learned a beautiful work choreographed by a student at the Hamburg Ballet School: Words Unsaid. His ballet was about the lack of relationship people have when they pass each other, without saying what’s on their mind or making a point to look them in the eye, and how we could all interact more when we take the time to notice the people around us. I was extremely inspired after working with the cast of students in this piece from all over the world, including the Hague, Stuttgart, Royal Ballet School, and NBS, not to mention the choreographer himself. In order for the piece to come together, we really had to feel and dance as one during each every movement of this ballet.

Day 6: After the first performance of the choreographic workshop presentation, the cast of Words Unsaid

Day 7: A final group picture after the last choreographic workshop performance, where all the Trainees danced in different pieces by international student choreographers

On the last day of the Assemblée, a Student Forum was held to discuss topics such as what students believe artistic directors are looking for in a dancer, as well as what dancers might expect from artistic directors. I thought it was really interesting, considering that many of us will be auditioning for jobs this upcoming year. It was also nice to hear from one artistic director, David Nixon of Northern Ballet Theatre, regarding different attributes he looks for in selecting dancers. At the same time, Mavis Staines of Canada’s National Ballet School spoke and encouraged all of us to reach for our dreams, and stay true and confident with ourselves. The final person who spoke was Cuban ballet forefather Fernando Alonso, who shared his story and his thoughts on how the body should be trained for ballet. But my favorite quote from him would was when he said that he has “never worked a day in his life.” I loved hearing that because I feel that if you have a true passion for dance and a love for ballet, then it should never feel like a job. I mean how lucky are we that we get to do something we love every day?

It’s still hard for me to wrap my mind around all that happened that week and how much of the international ballet world I was able to see, meet, and work with. I’m so thankful to have been a part of this great experience and I would like to thank Canada’s National Ballet School for inviting our school to take part in such an incredible project that has greatly inspired and impacted me in so many ways.

Tags: San Francisco Ballet School, Trainee Program