Brooklyn Ballet Blog

"Everyone tells me how much I've grown, how much I've improved. When I go on to bigger and better things, I'm representing Brooklyn, and I'm proud to represent it."
-Bhajhan, former Elevate and Brooklyn Ballet student

Bhajhan, now 13 years old, came back to the studio to talk about his first time taking class during a Brooklyn Ballet Elevate performance at his elementary school. He now dances at American Ballet Theatre's JKO School, has performed in ABT's The Nutcracker at the Brooklyn Academy of Music and can't thank us enough for getting him started in ballet.

Brooklyn Ballet can't wait for John Michael Abenanty to come back to the studio and perform with fellow Elevate alums on June 5 & 8. The talented 17-year-old ballet dancer took some time out of his busy six-day-a-week ballet schedule to answer a few questions about his beginnings in ballet in Brooklyn Ballet's Elevate program and what he's up to now at The Harid Conservatory in Florida:

The Boys Are Back

Brooklyn Ballet welcomes back some of the dance world’s budding stars during a celebratory performance by young alum who came to ballet through Brooklyn Ballet's Elevate program for public schools.

Naazir and Shaakir Muhammad & John Michael Abenanty
formerly of Brooklyn Ballet; photo by Raw Material Photography

Join us at The Actors Fund Arts Center!
Wednesday, June 5, 7pm
Saturday, June 8, 2pm

Thank you from all of us at Brooklyn Ballet!

Brooklyn Ballet's 2013 season In 4D was a great success! We wish to extend tremendous thanks to our incredible dancers, esteemed collaborators, wonderful production crew, and our amazing supporters! We are so grateful for the support.

Brooklyn Ballet opened the 2013 Season: In 4D to excited audiences last weekend and looks forward to three more performances this Friday, Saturday and Sunday. 

Brooklyn Ballet is absolutely ecstatic to be performing with the fabulous Gil Morgenstern again this year. A superb violinist and director of Reflections Series International, Gil has collaborated with Lynn Parkerson on all our season performances in the Actors Fund Arts Center. Lynn and Gil believe live music truly invigorates dance in performance, and our audiences have wholeheartedly agreed.

The musician extraordinaire took a few moments to answer some of our questions about his musical choices for this season’s new mixed movement work-in-progress, Quilt. And we stealthily filmed some of last week’s rehearsal to give you a peek and a listen at how the dance is shaping up.

Spiders, Cooks and Mood Swings was presented during Brooklyn Ballet's 10th anniversary season last year as a work-in-progress. This year our hip hop, modern and ballet dancers all slip back into their characters to present the world premiere. It's great to see everyone back in rehearsal for this dance - such a large and energetic cast!

Brooklyn Ballet welcomed several new company members this year. It's been a blast learning about them in rehearsal--who they are, how they move, why they dance and more. We thought our readers would like a chance to get to know them, too.

Name: Duane Gosa
Age: 27
Neighborhood: Bushwick/Bed Stuy

Q: Where did you start your dance training?
A: I started dance at a performing arts program that was offered to upperclassmen at my high school in Ohio. After graduating, I continued to study ballet more intensely at the University of Akron.

Rehearsals with our ballet dancers for "Tracing Back" have started in earnest. Last week, Gabriela Galvez Espana, Duane Gosa, Miku Kawamura, Kerry Shea & Vincent Marra took a break from moving to watch a video of choreography Artistic Director Lynn Parkerson is referencing to create this new digitally-enhanced ballet.

New company member Gabriela Galvez Espana dances as Duane Gosa and Miku Kawamura look on

As the dancers learn some moves from the existing work in Brooklyn Ballet's repertory, Lynn has the luxury to focus less on the steps and more on the stylistic choices the dancers will make, as well as the spatial patterns that will ultimately become the work's scenery.

Company Uses Digital Technology to Reveal Intricacies of Ballet Choreography

Lynn Parkerson directs dancers in rehearsal last week

We're back in the studio!

Dancers are rehearsing five times a week for our upcoming season, and we couldn't be more excited about our shows next month. So thrilled, we want to share our process with you this year - continue to tune into our blog for tidbits from rehearsal, interviews with our dancers and collaborators, video, photos & more.