What’s New

Notes from the Villa

Brooklyn Ballet Founding Artistic Director, Lynn Parkerson reflects on her first month at the Villa Waldberta artist residency in Munich, Germany.

Out and up from my balcony.
I am mostly breathing.

How did I get here
Munich friends and colleagues, Kalle and Augusta Laar, initiated this wonder. 
I’ll be performing with them at their Women’s Poetry Festival on October 28.

Kalle

and Augusta

There are monthly gatherings, "Jourfix" here at the Villa Waldberta, of friends and culturally interested Volk.
I’m inspired to improvise with Georgian musician/composer Anzor Ghudushauri at September’s Jourfix.
Other artists in residence include an installation artist from Georgia, a set designer and a puppeteer from Austria, and a music historian from London.

At October’s Jourfix, Munich collaborator Claudia Jeschke and I hold court with a talk about Brooklyn Ballet and our process for creating the Waltz of the Flowers for The Brooklyn Nutcracker
Claudia and I are working here at the Villa on the Parents Dance for the first Act Party Scene, utilizing historical information including tableaus, formations, and spacial patterns as the foundation for the Company’s mixed genre dance steps.

And there was summer time with Aaron and Mira. We’re on a boat on the Starnberger See (Starnberg Lake).

And reading always. On deck, a season of women writers.

Congrats to Rosalie Knecht, former BB development assistant, on her second novel!
Happy Fall,
Lynn


 

 

The Brooklyn Nutcracker Youth Audition

Brooklyn Ballet is looking for young dancers (ages 8-16) to perform in The Brooklyn Nutcracker December 14, 2018 at the Kings Theater.

The Brooklyn Nutcracker transforms familiar Nutcracker characters and scenes to represent the diverse traditions and vibrant culture of melting pot Brooklyn. It fulfills Brooklyn Ballet’s mission by providing the borough’s youth with opportunities to dance, by expanding the annual performance season for the professional artists in our company, by injecting contemporary ideas into a classic art form, and by working together with Brooklyn’s diverse communities on a Nutcracker we can call our own.

Brooklyn Ballet is currently seeking young dancers (ages 8-16) to perform in this one night only event.

Audition Date: September 29, 2018 from 1:00-3:00pm

Location: Brooklyn Ballet, 160 Schermerhorn Street, Brooklyn, NY 

Audition Fee: $20

Brooklyn Ballet Student Audition Fee: $10 (Call to register) 

To reserve your audition slot, sign up here.

For questions or more information, email richardglover@brooklynballet.org or call 718-246-0146.

OPEN HOUSE: Saturday, September 15

Brooklyn Ballet welcomes students ages 3 through teen for a day of free classes at our Downtown Brooklyn dance school. Plus a Capezio pop-up shop offering 15% off all dancewear and shoes.

We hope you'll join us Saturday, September 15 for a chance to learn more about Brooklyn Ballet. All classes free! 

 
10:00-10:30 — Pre-Ballet I + II (age 3 + 4 by September)

10:45-11:30 — Elementary Ballet I + II (age 5 + 6 by September) 

12:30-1:15 — Jazz Dance (age 8+)

11:45-12:30 — Modern Dance (age 10+) 

1:30-3:00 — Ballet Conservatory IA/II (age 8-12)

3:00-4:30  — Ballet Conservatory III/IV Placement (age 13-18)

PRE-REGISTER HERE

And don't forget to visit the Capezio pop-up shop from 10:30am-2:30pm for a 15% discount on all dancewear and shoes. Look here for Brooklyn Ballet dress code information. 

Join us! 

Movement Mondays!

Join us for FREE outdoor dance classes this summer!

We're pleased to partner with the Downtown Brooklyn Partnership to present Movement Mondays: a series of free dance classes for all ages and abilities. The classes are outside at the plaza at 300 Ashland Place in Downtown Brooklyn. Take a look at our upcoming schedule below. We hope to dance with you soon!

July 16 at 6:30pm
Modern Dance, presented by Brooklyn Ballet
Feel the energy and flow of a beginner modern dance class based on the José Limón technique. Taught by Brooklyn Ballet faculty and solo performer Belinda McGuire.
More info

August 27 at 6:30pm
Pop and Lock, presented by Brooklyn Ballet
Brooklyn Ballet company member Michael “Big Mike” Fields teaches his unique style of Hip Hop for the whole family!
More info

September 17 at 6:30pm      
Ballet and Hip Hop, presented by Brooklyn Ballet
Catch a sneak peek of a mixed movement duet from The Brooklyn Nutcracker followed by an interactive ballet and hip hop class taught by dancers James “Floats” Fable and Christine Sawyer.
More info

Meet the FIRST LOOK 2018 Choreographers!

Brooklyn Ballet welcomes emerging and established choreographers to the stage to premiere new work as part of the FIRST LOOK 2018 dance series.

Learn more about these talented choreographers below, and save the dates for performances -  July 20 & 21 at The Mark O'Donnell Theater at The Actors Fund Arts Center in Downtown Brooklyn.

Plus, a special treat for audience members on July 20 - a free beer with your ticket purchase, thanks to our Free Beer Friday sponsor Greenport Harbor Brewing Company.

David Appel is a choreographer, dancer, and teacher whose work has been presented in a range of contexts throughout North America, Europe, and in Mexico since 1973. Part of the early post-Judson generation that transmitted and transformed those artists’ innovations, he has since primarily followed his own path, while performing along the way with Simone Forti, Steve Paxton, City Dance Theater of Boston, as an instigator and/or part of several dance/music collaborative and improvisation groups, and with many other individual artists in various media. He has received a number of grants and awards, among them three NEA Choreographers Fellowships, and has been invited to festivals in both the United States and abroad. Appel’s influences include learned and/or discovered approaches to movement languages and investigation, as well as his immersion in the popular social dancing from the 1960s and 70s that continues to serve as an anchor for the development of his ever-evolving kinesthetic sense. He is intrigued by and explores relationships between the body’s capacity to be more subtly articulate, the ways we find to move together, and our connections to and within the world around us. 

Hollis Bartlett and Nattie Trogdon are performers, teachers and dance makers. They have been collaborating together for the past 4 years building duets that draw from their experiences as humans and movers. Their work has been presented at Dixon Place, The Dance Complex (MA), Triskelion Arts, Mark Morris, and Gibney Dance Center. Hollis Bartlett, graduated from NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts. He has been a member of Doug Varone and Dancers since 2011 and has also worked with Brian Brooks, Adam Barruch, and the Metropolitan Opera. Nattie Trogdon was born and raised in North Carolina and graduated from SUNY Purchase. As a freelance artist in NY, she has worked for Doug Varone, David Dorfman, Kendra Portier, Annie Kloppenberg, Mark Dendy, and Oliver and Terri Steele.

Katy E. Cashin is freelance choreographer and resident dance choreographer for White Horse Theater Company (WHTC) in New York City. Cashin is fortunate to create original works for The Tallahassee Ballet with live orchestra and chamber ensemble including "Focus", "Sing, Sing, Sing", "Mainframe", "Trio for Six", and "Rebonds B" among others. Cashin’s WHTC productions include Tennessee William’s "A Cavalier for Milady", "A Perfect Analysis Given by a Parrot", Sam Shepard’s "Eyes for Consuela" and WHTC Artistic Director Cyndy Marion’s world premiere, "You. Are. Perfect." (YAP). YAP was selected for the 2017 Toronto Fringe Festival and will be revised this summer in Los Angeles, CA. Cashin has also created works for South Georgia Ballet, Brown Bag Dance Series and Sharp Show Production. Cashin received her BFA in dance performance and BA in history from Southern Methodist University. At SMU, Cashin performed in master works by George Balanchine, Maurice Béjart, Arthur Mitchell, and Gerald Arpino. She trained with The Tallahassee Ballet (TTB) under the direction of Joyce Fausone, Christina Paolucci of New York Theatre Ballet, Sheila Humphreys of the Royal Ballet, and Richard Sias of National Ballet of Canada. Cashin is currently pursuing her masters of public administration from Columbia University School of International and Public Affairs in New York City.

Experimentation and research, the key elements to choreographer Enzo Celli’s work, power his unconditional love for contemporary dance and theatre. His relentless curiosity gave birth to a structured technique permeated by poetry and aiming to become part of the current Avant-garde. Even though Celli has codified a technical language belonging to the contemporary dance field, it is the use of simple gestures appreciated by the audience that the essence of his poetic language reveals itself. Enzo Celli’s work, focusing on man, from the start has aimed to create an uncommon poetic language able to deal with sociological topics. Enzo Celli works have been set on prestigious theatres including: Alvin Ailey Citigroup Theater (New York), La Cigale (Paris), Erfurt Opera House (Germany), Na Strastnom Theater (Moscow), Guaria Theater (Curitiba, Brazil), Belgrade National Theater (SerbIa), Teatro Municipal Joaquim Benite (Lisbon), Espace Robert Hossein (Lourdes), Auditorium Conciliazione (Rome), James and Russia Drama Theater (Ufa, Russia), Sao Pedro Theater (Porto Allegre, Brazil).

Lisa R. Chow serves as Desert Dance Theatre’s artistic director, company manager, choreographer, performer and educator, and has toured with the company throughout Arizona, Mexico, Texas, New York, New Mexico, California, Nevada, Oregon and Vermont (since 1982). She is the co-founder and co-artistic director of Crossroads Performance Group with her husband Step Raptis, performing interdisciplinary music and dance projects throughout the state of Arizona and regionally since 1989. Lisa is also a manager, performer and collaborator in Step’s Junk Funk. She was the first Vice-President on the board of the Arizona Dance Arts Alliance, and since 2000 has coordinated the Annual Arizona Contemporary Dance Festival, currently called the Arizona Dance Festival. She is one of the founders and President of the Arizona Dance Coalition, a web-based non-profit organization that supports dance resources throughout Arizona. Since Desert Dance Theatre, Crossroads Performance Group and Step’s Junk Funk were listed on the artist roster of the Arizona Commission on the Arts, Lisa has had experience as a teaching artist for 36 years.

Maya Lee-Parritz is a dancer and choreographer based in NYC. As a performer she currently works with Jodi Melnick and Joanna Kotze, and she has shown her own work at Center for Performance Research. In the fall of 2017 she co-founded with Anna Witenberg a monthly dance series, Sundays in Process, where peers are invited to show their recent choreographic work in various stages of development, in order to facilitate discourse around new and experimental work in a non-curated platform. She works with time, pattern, rhythm, texture, color, space—and the relation of those elements to more concrete questions of politics, identity-making, and the (uneven) distribution of power locally and globally. She asks: what political values inhere in certain aesthetic experiences and formal structures? Her choreography follows film maker Abigail Childs’ dictum: “radical form equals radical content,”—through radical sensitivity to time, space, weight, speed rather than propagandistic persuasion, her work aims towards transformations of perception, changes in how we see and feel that remake the ground of our politics. What is the manifestation of that politics but the human bodies which live and die by its whims? She looks to the human body, the dancing human body, to reveal a phenomenology of the self.

Nicole Loeffler-Gladstone is a Brooklyn-based artist. Her writing appears in Dance Magazine, Dance Spirit magazine, The Brooklyn Rail, The Dance Enthusiast, Chamber Music Magazine and The Jewish Book Council. She is the director of Undertow Dance and has the pleasure of performing with TYKE Dance, under the direction of Sophie Sotsky. Nicole is pursuing her Pilates teaching certification through Core Pilates, is a stagehand at Gibney Dance and serves as the Communication Director for Clowns Without Borders USA. She is particularly interested in environmental justice, non-hierarchical political organizing and dismantling capitalism. She pays respect to Lenape elders, past, present and future, and endeavors to walk lightly on Manahatta, the Lenape homeland. 

Debbie Mausner graduated magna cum laude from Barnard College in 2016. Originally from Brooklyn, NY, she began her dance training at LaGuardia High School and The Ailey School. At Barnard she performed in works by Pam Tanowitz, Mark Morris, Caitlin Trainor, Trisha Brown, and Joanna Kotze. Since graduating, she has performed with company TrainorDance. She has also collaborated and performed with visual artist Eric Gottshall on numerous multi-media performances, most recently at Art Against the Occupation Gallery. Debbie founded a collaborative company, Debbie Mausner Dance Collective (DMDC), in 2017. Her work has been showcased through Collab Arts Collective, NACHMO, The Dance Complex, HATCH Presenter Series, The Creator’s Collective, WAXworks and Fertile Ground. In addition, Debbie has been a Teaching Assistant at Mark Morris Dance Center, working predominantly with kids with disabilities. She currently teaches creative movement and modern at Dancewave and with Kinderdance.

Stephanie Saywell is a choreographer, performer, poet, clown, musician, and dramaturg from Groton, MA. She holds a BA in Dance and a BA in Written Arts from Bard College, where she was also the recipient of the Ana Itelman Prize for Choreography in 2014. In 2015 she completed the Dell' Arte International School of Physical Theatre's Professional Training Program where she studied commedia, melodrama, mask, clown, mime, and devised theatre. In addition to apprenticing for and dancing repertory by the Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Dance Company, Stephanie has had the pleasure of performing for Witness Relocation, Messenger Theatre, ANIMALS, Paul Matteson, Peter Kyle, Sam Asa Pratt, Ainesh Madan, Brian Feigenbaum, and at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival. She is a 2016 graduate of Doug Varone's DEVICES 3 choreography intensive and mentorship program, and a 2017 recipient of the Streb GO! Commissioning Program for Emerging Artists. Her work has been shown at the Streb Lab for Action Mechanics, Triskelion Arts, Gibney Dance, New York Live Arts, Mark Morris Dance Studios, Green Space, and the Richard B. Fisher Center for the Performing Arts at Bard College. 

Sarah Toumani graduated from the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater. She danced as a soloist for the opening of the Danone Nations Cup in 207 at the Redbull Arena of New-York, danced for Miri Ben Ari and others and also became a member of Valleto Dance Company. Sarah has admired hip-hop since her childhood and has been most influenced by the largest street dance company in New-York City "It's Showtime NYC". She is now studying social dances under scholarship at Peridance Capezio Center. Sarah Toumani Dance Company is a New-York based dance company, mixing street styles and contemporary dance movements. The company uses the creativity and diversity of each member to create authentic work. 

​Anna Witenberg is a dance maker and performer. Anna received her BA in Dance and a minor in Gender and Sexuality Studies in 2017. She has worked extensively with Sarah Michelson as a part of her four year residency at Bard, performing in works such as "tournamento" at the Walker Art Center, "September 2017 /|" at Bard, and "October 2017 /\ "at The Kitchen this past fall. Anna has performed in the work of Beth Gill and Anna Sperber at American Dance Festival. Anna is currently collaborating on a new ballet to be performed this Spring at the Whitney Museum in Nick Mauss’ exhibition Transmissions. Her own work entitled Wrought Coil was presented by Triskelion Arts this past February. She is currently collaborating with Anna Sperber on a new work. She works to illuminate themes of alienation and intimacy; the image of self through the other. She uses sparse rhythm, shape, and stillness to ride the vicissitudes of time that press upon the human body, leading it towards its inevitable decomposition and deterioration. Her own fictional, non-linear short stories and prose are the primary source from which she makes her dances. Her research and interests in plastic, color, fantasy, sci-fi, sex, and ancient mythologies surrounding the female body heavily informs her tastes and imagery. She is interested in choreography as a formal tool that can shape the sub-conscious into visible and rigorous forms. 

Lizzy Zevallos is from Jackson, NJ. After studying architecture and dance at Middlebury College, she came to New York where she has danced with Yin Yue Dance Company, Dante Brown/Warehouse Dance, Abarukas, and Circuit Debris among others since 2011. She has choreographed site-specific pieces for art galleries around Brooklyn and collaborated with artists, musicians, and designers. 


Performances take place July 20-21 at The Mark O'Donnell Theater at The Actors Fund Arts Center, 160 Schermerhorn Street in Downtown Brooklyn. Tickets are $15, with discounts for students and seniors. 

Click here to purchase tickets! 

Reflections on Revisionist History

Guest Blog Post by Amy Jacobus

In April, Brooklyn Ballet presented Revisionist History, an exuberant garden of dance to finally welcome springtime in New York. 

The program, which boasted ballet, pop-and-lock and modern, among other styles, shone a spotlight on the company’s unwavering commitment to connect the dots between our past and our future as a dance community. By offering a range of diverse genres in performance, sometimes side-by-side in the same work, Artistic Director Lynn Parkerson calls on us to honor our inspirations and move forward with all the knowledge in our bones.

Revisionist History takes the audience on a journey from early modern dance to Cunningham quirk, from Balanchine to ballet-with-street-cred.

The evening began with a refashioning of historical works - Isadora Duncan’s Chopin Dances performed alongside and interspersed with movements from Michel Fokine’s famed Les Sylphides. By pairing choreography from each, Parkerson examines the obvious impressions Duncan’s work made on Fokine.  

Miku Kawamura, Acée Francis Laird, and Angelique Smith in Chopin Dances

Isadora Duncan once said, “Nature is the source of the dance. The movement of the waves, of winds, of the earth is ever in the same lasting harmony.”

In watching the two dances co-exist, one can see Duncan’s waves move through the elegant, expressive port de bras of Fokine’s sylphs. Duncan’s lightness, her freedom of expression - this is the wind that flows through Fokine’s choreography to create that stirring romanticism unheard of in ballets that came before.

Where Duncan’s choreography feels of-the-moment, almost improvisatory, prompted by sensation - Fokine’s is structured just-so, to leave the impression that it’s emotionally and impulse-driven.

After this provocative mash-up, Parkerson herself performs a deliberate encore. In Revolutionary Etude, she seems to be declaring Duncan’s impact triumphant, profound, unmistakable.

Lynn Parkerson in Revolutionary Etude

This solo was created by Duncan after the death of her children. It’s raw and powerful, passionate and severe. Wordless screams, tightly held fists and an intense gaze come as a shock after such ethereal and subtle beauty in the dance just before. But isn’t there even more freedom in power than in running with abandon? In this brief moment, Duncan is deigned just as important as the prominent and legendary male choreographers on the program.

Brooklyn Ballet’s performance of The Four Temperaments, Themes 1-3 by George Balanchine comes like an academic interlude. Here, you see the body anew. One of Balanchine’s neo-classical masterpieces, The Four Temperaments is not sentimental or narrative in the least. It is a cold but wickedly compelling abstraction of the four humors of the body: Melancholic, Sanguinic, Phlegmatic, and Choleric.

Miku Kawamura and Charles Cooper in the First Theme from The Four Temperaments

Christine Sawyer and Acée Francis Laird in the Second Theme from The Four Temperaments

In the program’s historic progression, expression has moved from the arms, the heart, the eyes and the throat to a tilt of the hips, the wrapping of a thigh, a set of turned-in knees and deep, prolonged lunges. Ballet is finding a new voice right before our eyes.

Two lithe dancers take on Merce Cunningham’s duet from Landrover next, a work of exacting precision from 1972. One can imagine Cunningham’s original idea - to perform the work in front of a projection of changing landscapes - even though a set design was never instituted in performance. It’s modern dance, but it isn’t free from ballet’s postures and poses or technical precision. Fourth position, tendue, arabesque. Still, one can sense a different texture and new relationship to the music. This is how Landrover veers from The Four Temperaments. This is how art rebels at the same time as it genuflects.

Katherine Norton-Bliss and Acée Francis Laird in Landrover

Finally, Parkerson shares two works of her own.

Pas de Deux, a duet that premiered in 2017, is a direct commentary on how forms can influence one another if simply introduced. Against a projection of expanding and contracting vertical bars, designed by visual artist Cornelia Thomsen, ballet dancer Miku Kawamura (Paunika Jones, Friday cast, is pictured) and gliding hip-hop dancer James "Floats" Fable sit back to back, undulating slowly, waking up to the other’s presence.

Paunika Jones and James "Floats" Fable in Pas de Deux

The dancers watch each other move with instinctive acceptance and appreciation, not curiosity. The music by Jean Phillipe Rameau, played live by pianist Julius Abrahams, supports Kawamura’s strong staccato movement as well as it does Fable’s undulating torso and sliding, swirling footwork. There’s beauty and strength in what they both do best. And when they try on each other’s movement, it isn’t awkward or cheesy - it’s lovingly performed. Fable is credited as a collaborating choreographer on the work.

Parkerson’s newest work-in-progress closes the program. Brooklyn Ballet has been creating integrated works since 2005, and their newest signature mixed-movement piece, At The Intersection was created with longtime collaborator Michael “Big Mike” Fields and joins three hip-hop dancers and eight ballet dancers. Music, a city soundscape complete with MTA announcements, is by Malcolm Parson.

Brooklyn Ballet Company in At The Intersection

The repetition of life in the city, the routine, the exasperation of it all is apparent throughout. When the conductor says “Ladies and gentlemen, protect yourself…” it feels more ominous than looking for suspicious packages. But moments of choice, individuality and personality shine through. In a stirring, mid-dance solo, dancer Paunika Jones (Miku Kawamura, Friday cast, is pictured) rolls her wrists and ankles while prone on the floor. It feels like giving up, but the world picks her back up and moves back into a routine again before you know it.

Photos by Julie Lemberger

Amy Jacobus is a dancer turned marketing strategist for artists and entrepreneurs. You can learn more about her work at amyjacobus.marketing 

Thank you for coming! Plus, upcoming show at St. Francis College

Thank you to everyone who joined us for Revisionist History!

A magical weekend, and we are so grateful to our supporters, board members, dancers, collaborators, technical crew, staff, volunteers, and audience members for making these performances a success. 

And we thank New York City Ballet Principal Tyler Angle - who led a thoughtful and enlightening Q&A after Saturday evening's performance. 

If you missed the performance and are eager to see masterworks by George Balanchine, Isadora Duncan, Michel Fokine, and mixed movement works by Lynn Parkerson, you are in luck! We have a final encore presentation of Revisionist History at St. Francis College as part of their Concerts at Half-Past Twelve Series next week.  Details below! 

REVISIONIST HISTORY at St. Francis College
Monday April 30 at 12:30pm
180 Remsen Street
Brooklyn, NY 11201
Free!                                

Top Six Photos: Rodin Hamidi

REVISIONIST HISTORY: Spotlight on Duncan/Fokine

For this season’s performances (April 19-22), Brooklyn Ballet is embracing multifaceted dance styles and refashioning historical works. One of those works, conceived by Brooklyn Ballet Founding Artistic Director Lynn Parkerson, combines choreography by Isadora Duncan and Michel Fokine.

Isadora Duncan is widely known as the “mother of modern dance”. She rejected the rigidity of ballet in favor of more expressive, natural movement, and her dancing became hugely popular in tours throughout Europe.

Michel Fokine was a Russian choreographer and dancer, and the first resident choreographer of the Ballet Russe. His choreography was groundbreaking for the time - his ballet dancers had more freedom of movement in the upper body - and historians speculated that he may have been influenced by Duncan after seeing her perform in Russia.

Lynn Parkerson puts that theory into practice with “Chopin Dances” a recreation of the works of these two giants of the dance world, performed by Brooklyn Ballet Company. To see these historic works side by side and in the flesh, check out Revisionist History April 19-22. Tickets are on sale now!

Top photo: Michel Fokine and Isadora Duncan

Lower photos: Brooklyn Ballet Company rehearses "Chopin Dances" by Richard Glover

REVISIONIST HISTORY: Spotlight on Merce Cunningham

For this season’s performances (April 19-22), Brooklyn Ballet is embracing multifaceted dance styles and refashioning historical works. One of those historic works is an excerpt from Landrover by legendary dancemaker Merce Cunningham.

Jamie Scott (former Cunningham dancer and Princess Grace Award recipient) of the Cunningham Trust restages Duet from Landrover on Brooklyn Ballet company. The piece, which originally premiered in 1972 at the Brooklyn Academy of Music, is rooted in the exploration of people moving through different geographies and representing varied spaces with varied backgrounds.

Cunningham began his career as a soloist in the Martha Graham Dance Company. He went on to form his own company and created over 150 dances. He was renowned for his great innovations in movement vocabulary using chance procedures, his collaboration with musician and partner John Cage showcasing that dance and music could exist in time and space without influencing one another, and his belief that “the subject of his dances was always dance itself”.

To see an example of Cunningham’s innovations in the flesh, check out Revisionist History April 19-22. Tickets are on sale now!

Top photo: Merce Cunningham CBS Photo Archive/Getty Images, 1967. Credit: Getty and Corbis
Other Photo/Video: Brooklyn Ballet Company Members Katherine Norton Bliss, Acee Francis Laird and Angelique Smith rehearse Landrover

REVISIONIST HISTORY: Spotlight on George Balanchine

Brooklyn Ballet dancers stage the classic "The Four Temperaments" in Upcoming Spring Season

For this season’s performances (April 19-22), Brooklyn Ballet is embracing multifaceted dance styles and refashioning historical works. One of those historic works is The Four Temperaments (1946) by legendary dancemaker George Balanchine. A ballet with unceasing appeal, The Four Temperaments references the medieval concept of the psychological humors that exists within every person: melancholic, sanguinic, phlegmatic, and choleric.  

The Four Temperaments is visionary because of its abstractness - the dance was not created to tell a story (unlike many ballets of that time) and the dancers performed the work in simple, black and white practice leotards and tights - so as not to distract from the movement.

In 1957, New York Times critic John Martin wrote of the ballet: “Looked at purely as movement, this is a remarkable ballet, both in its invention of curiously creative movements and in its development of them in phrases of high potency.”

Former New York City Ballet dancer Deborah Wingert restages Themes 1-3 of this iconic ballet on Brooklyn Ballet Company. Pianist Julius Abrahams accompanies the work. Tickets are on sale now!

 

Photos of Brooklyn Ballet Company performing The Four Temperaments in 2011 by Julie Lemberger

Hello Spring!

Read all the details about our Spring Season launching April 19-22!

Brooklyn Ballet is excited to present Revisionist History, a provocative and diverse Spring season of broad range and repertoire. This Season's offerings include works of legendary dance makers George Balanchine, Merce Cunningham, Isadora Duncan and Michel Fokine, as well as premieres of mixed genre and interdisciplinary works by Founding Artistic Director Lynn Parkerson.

“With the infusion of modern and improvisational techniques and an ethnically diverse cast Brooklyn Ballet is expanding the ballet vernacular through creative dialogue with seemingly disparate dance forms,” states Lynn Parkerson. “Our Spring Season, “Revisionist History” provides an historic perspective of dance in the 20th Century while leading ballet into the 21st.”

PERFORMANCE SCHEDULE

Thursday, April 19 at 8:00pm, Pre-performance reception at 6:30pm
Friday, April 20 at 8:00pm, Free Beer Friday!
Saturday, April 21 at 4:00pm, Children’s reception after the show
Saturday, April 21 at 8:00pm, A post show discussion follows the show
Sunday, April 22 at 4:00pm

TICKETS

Opening Night $75 (Includes Pre-Performance Reception)
General $25
Students/Seniors $15
Children Under 12 $10

​CLICK HERE TO PURCHASE TICKETS

 

Photos: Tameeka Colon

Next Step Summer Intensive Announced!

Next Step Summer Instensive Dates

July 30 - August 24, 2018

Brooklyn Ballet's Next Step Summer Intensive program is designed to give each participant a solid technical foundation, based in classical training, upon which to build his or her own creative power. We aim to prepare dancers for professional and high school performing arts auditions while cultivating increased technical ability. Students are also offered a performance opportunity where they will collaborate with Brooklyn Ballet’s Artistic Director Lynn Parkerson and Next Step Director, Richard Glover. A culminating performance will be held at The Actors Fund Arts Center, in the heart of downtown Brooklyn.

Audition Dates 

February 18

March 18

June 9

FREE DANCE SHOWING: "Yam Potatoe an Fish!"

Alanna Morris-Van Tassel
JANUARY 27, 2018 ~ 7PM Brooklyn Ballet Studio

Alanna Morris Van-Tassel returns home to Brooklyn to showcase her most recent choreographic work-in-progress: "Yam, Potatoe an Fish!" This piece explores the themes of home and displacement. Performance also featuring Elyse Morris (Former artist with Abraham.In.Motion) 

This is a FREE showing for the Brooklyn Ballet community and select guests. Seating is limited! 

RSVP: CLICK HERE or Call Brooklyn Ballet: 718-246-0146

Brooklyn Ballet
160 Schermerhorn Street
Brooklyn, New York, 11201
www.brooklynballet.org

About Alanna Morris-Van Tassel:

Dance Magazine's "Top 25 Dancers to Watch in 2018," Alanna Morris Van-Tassel has spent 10 seasons with Minnesota-based dance company TU Dance (Toni Pierce-Sands and Uri sands, Co-Artistic Directors) and has worked professionally with Nathan Trice/RITUALS, Andrea Miller, and Janis Brenner & Dancers. During her tenure at TU Dance Alanna danced featured roles by celebrated choreographers, Kyle Abraham, Gioconda Barbuto, Camille A. Brown, Ronald K. Brown, Greggory Dolbashian, Katrin Hall, Francesca Harper, Dwight Rhoden, and Uri Sands. In 2011, Morris-Van Tassel received a Minnesota SAGE Award for Outstanding Performer and is a recipient of the 2015 McKnight Dance Fellowship. In the summer of 2016, supported by The Jerome Foundation, she traveled to Trinidad to study Afro-Caribbean dance as a part of the New Waves! Festival in Port of Spain. In September 2017 Alanna was an Artist-In-Residence with Art On Purpose (Arima, Trinidad) where she commissioned a new solo dance by choreographer, Jamie Philbert and participated in a range of community engagement activities, including a Master Class and public showing of the works-inprogress. Alanna continues to actively engage community in the Twin Cities by producing her own work and collaborating with many arts and educational programs and individuals. She is currently developing a solo dance concert to premiere in Minneapolis in Spring 2018. Alanna holds a BFA in Dance from The Juilliard School. https://www.alannamvt.com/

 

Free APAP Performance Sunday January 14!

"Vivid and magical...unusual elegance and distinction."
             -Alastair Macaulay, The New York Times, December 8, 2017
 
January 14th at 3:00 & 7:00 pm
Jewish Community Center
334 Amsterdam Avenue
 
Join Brooklyn Ballet for a free presentation of The Brooklyn Nutcracker (excerpt) and a sneak peek of our upcoming Spring Season, Pas de Deux from Revisionist History.
 

RSVP 

AFRO-CARIBBEAN & DIASPORA MASTER CLASS

with Brooklyn-Born and Dance Magazine’s ‘25 to Watch’ 2018 ALANNA MORRIS-VAN TASSEL

FOR DANCERS AGES 9-17
- All levels welcome!
- Live drumming!

About Alanna Morris-Van Tassel:

Dance Magazine's 25 to Watch in 2018 Awardee, Alanna Morris Van-Tassel has spent 10 seasons with Minnesota-based dance company TU Dance (Toni Pierce-Sands and Uri sands, Co-Artistic Directors) and has worked professionally with Nathan Trice/RITUALS, Andrea Miller, and Janis Brenner & Dancers. During her tenure at TU Dance Alanna danced featured roles by celebrated choreographers, Kyle Abraham, Gioconda Barbuto, Camille A. Brown, Ronald K. Brown, Greggory Dolbashian, Katrin Hall, Francesca Harper, Dwight Rhoden, and Uri Sands. In 2011, Morris-Van Tassel received a Minnesota SAGE Award for Outstanding Performer and is a recipient of the 2015 McKnight Dance Fellowship. In the summer of 2016, supported by The Jerome Foundation, she traveled to Trinidad to study Afro-Caribbean dance as a part of the New Waves! Festival in Port of Spain. In September 2017 Alanna was an Artist-In-Residence with Art On Purpose (Arima, Trinidad) where she commissioned a new solo dance by choreographer, Jamie Philbert and participated in a range of community engagement activities, including a Master Class and public showing of the works-inprogress. Alanna continues to actively engage community in the Twin Cities by producing her own work and collaborating with many arts and educational programs and individuals. She is currently developing a solo dance concert to premiere in Minneapolis in Spring 2018. Alanna holds a BFA in Dance from The Juilliard School. https://www. alannamvt.com/

Fees: 
Free for Brooklyn Ballet Conservatory Students
$20 - Brooklyn Ballet Students
$30 - Guest Participants

TO REGISTER, Click HERE, call 718-246-0146 or email info@brooklynballet.org

Kickstart The Brooklyn Nutcracker!

Brooklyn Ballet has just launched a Kickstarter campaign for our 2017 production of The Brooklyn Nutcracker. Join us to make this our largest, most successful year to date!

Brooklyn Ballet creates in a spirit of inclusivity and in celebration of diverse dance styles. This is the core of our mission.  After a run of sold out performances last year, The Brooklyn Nutcracker is back, and bigger than ever before.  It is the perfect show for Brooklyn, and we hope you will become a backer. Your gift supports the creativity of our choreographers & collaborators, the excellence of the dancers, and the promise of our Youth Ensemble. Every donation (no matter what level) is deeply appreciated!  

Click here to learn more about The Brooklyn Nutcracker, and check out the exciting rewards we have to offer in exchange for becoming a backer. 

Whether you give $5, $50, $500, or more - every donation makes a difference.

Click here to donate and learn more! 

 

Opening Night Gala!

Join us for our Opening Night performance of the Brooklyn Nutcracker, immediately followed by a gala dinner at the elegant Maison May - a few short blocks away from the theater.

We are pleased to invite you to our Opening Night Gala of The Brooklyn Nutcracker! Tickets include premier seating to this acclaimed holiday performance, immediately followed by a sumptous dinner at Maison May - a beautiful and intimate brownstone, just a short walk from the theater. Dinner will be a specially-chosen menu of locally sourced, sustainably produced farm-to-table fine cuisine.

Tickets may be purchased here, by selecting "Performance + Gala" at checkout. 

GALA DATE & TIME
December 7, 2017
7pm Performance at Irondale Center
8:45pm Dinner at Maison May

LOCATION
Performance:
Irondale Center
85 S. Oxford St.
Brooklyn, NY

Dinner: 
Maison May
246 Dekalb Ave.
Brooklyn, NY

Questions? Contact janetcharleston@brooklynballet.org for more information. 

The Brooklyn Nutcracker is Back!

Last year's performances sold out - don't miss your chance to see this holiday sensation. Tickets on sale now!

We are thrilled to present the return of The Brooklyn Nutcracker, December 7-16, at the Irondale Center in downtown Brooklyn. Following a sold-out premiere season in 2016, The Brooklyn Nutcracker fuses ballet, hip-hop and an array of world dance genres to create a new tradition for today’s audience. A re-imagined holiday classic, this critically acclaimed work transforms familiar Nutcracker characters and scenes to represent the diverse traditions and vibrant multicultural history of Brooklyn.

Our unique collaboration with tech-based artists and designers provide audiences with a multi-sensory experience, exploring ground-breaking technology of light and motion-responsive costumes. Within moments, the digital set and backdrop transports the plot from historical old Dutch Brooklyn to the iconic Flatbush Avenue—in an homage to the county of Kings.

"The Brooklyn Nutcracker was born in 2010 on a Brooklyn street corner, a dance collaboration between a petite ballerina and a large hip-hop dancer. Passersby were mesmerized so I knew we were on to something,” explains artistic director Lynn Parkerson. “Last year’s sold-out season confirmed that Brooklynites loved seeing a holiday classic, personalized to the places they call home.”

PERFORMANCE SCHEDULE
Thursday, December 7 at 7:00pm*
Friday, December 8 at 7:30pm
Saturday, December 9 at 3:00pm and 7:30pm
Monday, December 11 at 7:30pm
Wednesday, December 13 at 7:30pm
Thursday, December 14 at 7:30pm
Friday, December 15 at 3:00pm and 7:30pm
Saturday, December 16 at 3:00pm and 7:30pm

*An opening night Gala reception at Maison May follows the performance. More information here

Three additional student performances for public schools  held on December 11, 12 and 14 at 11:30 a. m.

TICKETS and VENUE INFORMATION
Prices start at $25.
Click here for tickets! 

Irondale is located at 85 South Oxford Street in Brooklyn, New York. The theater is accessible by Subway: C to Lafayette; B, D, M, N, Q, R, 2, 3, 4, or 5 to Atlantic Avenue/Pacific Street; and G to Fulton Street.

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Brooklyn Ballet Open House!

Brooklyn Ballet welcomes new students for a day of free classes at our Downtown Brooklyn dance school, plus a Capezio pop-up shop offering 15% off all dancewear and shoes. Join us!

OPEN HOUSE: Saturday, September 9, 10am-5pm

Children's classes free! 

 

10:00-10:30 -- Pre-Ballet I + II (age 3 + 4 by September)

10:45-11:30 -- Elementary Ballet I + II (age 5 + 6 by September) 

11:45-12:30 -- Beginner Teen Ballet (ages 13-18) 

*12:30-2:00 -- Ballet Conservatory IA/II Placement ages 8-12  

*2:00-3:30 -- Ballet Conservatory III/IV Placement ages 13-18

4:00-5:00 -- Directors meeting with Conservatory Parents & Students  

*Denotes placement class with audition fee. Pre-register to audition here

Pre-Register for Free Classes Here! 

We hope you'll join us for a chance to learn more about Brooklyn Ballet. Registration for Fall classes is open all day! 

And don't forget to visit the Capezio pop-up shop for a 15% discount on all dancewear. If you are unable to join us on September 9, you may also purchase dancwear at capezio.com. Use code BrooklynBallet15 for a 15% discount at checkout! Look here for Brooklyn Ballet dress code information. 

 

Above Photograph by Jennifer Davidson

Gaudium Awards 2017

Brooklyn Ballet is honored to be a beneficiary of the Gaudium Award Celebration, presented by the Breukelein Institute.

The Gaudium Award is presented by the Breukelein Institute, a non-religious, not-for-profit organization under the direction of the Brooklyn Oratory of St. Philip Neri. The Breukelein Institute is devoted to affirming, improving, and reforming the quality of life in the City of New York, and particularly the County of Kings, through the development and support of programs that foster educational, social, and recreational activities. 

This year's awards ceremonies are benefitting Brooklyn Ballet, Nazareth Housing, and The Oratory Scholarship Fund.

The awards will honor:

Farrell Evans
Sports Illustrated/ESPN golf journalist; Co-Founder, The Bridge Golf Foundation, Harlem

Bebe Neuwirth
Tony and Emmy-winning actress, dancer, singer in film, television and theatre

Garry Trudeau
Pulitzer Prize-winning creator of Doonesbury, Tanner ’88, Alpha House

Carolyn Woo
Recent President and CEO of Catholic Relief Services; Dean, University of Notre Dame,
Executive VP, Purdue University

and
THE 2017 GAUDIUM AWARD OF MERIT

Monday, September 18, 2017
Half After Six O’Clock
The Yale Club
50 Vanderbilt Avenue, New York City

Business/Cocktail Attire

For ticket information, please email nellierainwater@brooklynballet.org.

 

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