Midtown Modern Arts Festival and Pub Crawl

Hello!

Did you get out and about today and head to the Midtown Modern Arts Festival? We had a fantastic afternoon! After much anticipation, we finally "mobbed midtown"! Thank you to everyone who participated in our Thriller Flashmob.  The dancers had so much fun preparing this, and we are happy that so many people got involved and came out to support the arts.  You can watch videos of it on the Sacramento Ballet's Facebook page.  We also performed Ballet du Murphy, some Living Sculpture, and excerpts from our upcoming performance of Dracula.

This evening was also the Midtown Vampire Pub Crawl, which included stops at Lounge on 20, Capital Garage, Dive Bar, and Crest Theatre.  If you missed the chance to chat with the dancers tonight, be sure to get your tickets to Count Dracula's Masquerade Party! It's going to be an awesome event on October 29th. Don't miss out!!

Tonight is also our Dusk til Dawn sale. Get 20% off your tickets to Dracula until 7am tomorrow (Sunday) morning. Our first performance is less than 1 week away!!

~Katie Miller

Thriller Flashmob

The cat is finally out of the bag... or perhaps in this case, "the vampire is out of the coffin".  Sacramento Ballet will be hosting it's Flashmob tomorrow, October 15th on 20th Street, between J & K.  The Flashmob should start around 3:30pm - so make sure to get there in plenty of time to either participate or join in the fun!

The Sacramento Ballet Dancers will also be performing a few excerpts from their anticipated performances of "Dracula" at 4:30pm at the same location during Sacramento's "Artober" festival.  After you enjoy the festivities - keep the party going as the Ballet hosts a VAMPIRE pub crawl... stopping at some great locations and ending with a costume contest at the Crest Theater and a special showing of the movie Planet of the Vampire Women.

If you have yet to buy your tickets for our upcoming performances...tomorrow we are having our "Dusk til Dawn" ticket sale. Purchase your tickets from 7pm to 7am the following morning and receive 20% off your ticket order!

For more information on all these events and specials, please make sure to visit our website: http://www.sacballet.org/  THANKS!

Serenade Talks

How do you look at dance?  How do you talk about it?

Our Dracula Bits & Bites blog invites audiences to read ahead on the ballets they’ll see in the next couple of weeks and to follow along the Sacramento Ballet’s journey to prepare for those performances.  Perhaps you’ll think about your previous experiences watching dance, recalling what you liked or didn’t like, what you felt you connected with or what seemed foreign or unintelligible to you. Can you remember moments within a dance that conjured joy, sympathy, grief, anger, or confusion?  Did a choreographer’s point of view ever surprise you? Bore you? Has a music choice ever satisfied you, or irritated you?  Can you remember a visual image that brought forth tears, for better or for worse? Or that made you think deeply about a problem?  Maybe you interpreted your reactions in ways that helped you to understand a situation of your world differently. Or, more aware of life’s complexities, perhaps you left the theater with unanswered questions.

While typical dancer preparations include daily technique class and rehearsals plus in-studio showings and free events for the public, we also reflect on our artistic process of creating dances and on our crafting process of refining them. For ballets that already have been performed and whose choreographer no longer can oversee or wishes make changes to them (including George Balanchine, who died in 1983), our restoration method includes upholding the work’s integrity while discovering our own interpretations of the dances, thereby adding to their infinite stores of possible meanings. Balanchine’s Serenade receives particularly special treatment among the repertory at the Sacramento Ballet. 

Sacramento Ballet dancers in George Balanchine's Serenade. Photo by Alex Biber

Artistic Director Carinne Binda, who performed two of the three female lead roles and nearly every of 17 ensemble spots as a dancer with the Boston Ballet, has returned to Serenade many times in her life. (This season marks the fifth year the Sacramento Ballet has performed it, always under her guidance.) Like many dancers, she finds Serenade provides its cast with learning opportunities as it offers audiences Balanchine’s crystalline vision of Tchaikovsky’s musical score.  Carinne schedules occasional half-hour “Serenade talks” within our rehearsal days to congregate the company women and to discuss nuances of the ballet. 

Artistic Director Carinne Binda. Photo by Alex Biber

Dancers have vocalized diverse, imaginative readings of the choreography. (More to come on those in future posts.) But a common thread ran through our most recent conversation.  In sharing her point of view from inside the ballet, each woman referenced the spirit of teamwork both required to execute Serenade and naturally elicited by dancing it.  Throughout the ballet, each dancer must put forth her individual best effort.  Several women described a feeling of interdependence both among the corps and as the corps and soloists relate, knowing that everyone is counting on you to do your part as you are counting on them to do theirs. One moment in the opening movement of the ballet involves groupings of four or five women performing different sequences of steps in lines at different angles and in multiple places on stage. Then, suddenly, all the subgroups sweep together to form a single diagonal line.  The dancers move together briefly, then rush offstage one by one like a wave rolling in to shore.  All dancers must be keenly aware of how her part fits into her group’s, and how each group fits into the architecture of the stage, in order for the audience to see clearly the intent of the choreography and be able to conjure their own ideas from the pattern.

Dancer Chloe Horne imagines this part of the ballet as a water park in which each group swirls, twists, and flows as if each its own ride.  I imagine each group comprises a species within a tropical ecosystem.  Why tropical? Because, even though we are all dressed simply and identically, each group’s dynamic looks as distinct and colorful as plant, animal, and insect varieties in a rainforest.

I hope you’ll return to this blog following a performance and post a response with your own reading.

--Emily Hite

NEIGH... I'm a horse!

So in week five I have to say that I am having so much fun. Not only do we as dancers get to experience the beautiful artistry that Trey Mcntyre creates in "Second Before the Ground," or the masterful classic of "Serenade" by George Balanchine, but I personally have been having a hilarious blast with one of the other company members, Alex Biber. We have been cast as the role of "The Chariot Horse" in Ron Cunningham's "Dracula." Now mind you that is not all that I am in Dracula, and that is not all that I do in the performance. This role is small, but is becoming a hilarious and humbling experience, only because of the costumes we must wear. Though effective for the stage,  they are so funny when the whole costume is finally put on. We have to wear these incredibly huge helmets that are sculpted to look like a horse head, with bulging red ruby eyes. However, what puts it all into its funny perspective for me, is the huge amount of horse hair that is connected to the head. When Alex and I put on these fun costumes, we find ourselves playing in the mirror, rather then listening to company notes (luckily we haven't been too much of annoyance to Ron and Carinne while we have these costumes to play in). Included are these grey unitards that have bulging in the muscular parts of the body, including the chest (lol). I personally wouldn't mind wearing the unitard for class someday, especially if it makes me look more muscular than I already am.
Alex and I are always coming up with ideas of what other popular songs we could dance to in these costumes. My personal favorite is from the movie "Flash Dance." People who have seen the movie could obviously use their imaginations.
Now even though it may seem as though I could be having too much fun in these chariot horse costumes, I must admit that they are perfect for the ballet "Dracula." When added with the lighting and other technical aspects it takes to run a performance, you will find that the costume is quite effective for the scene the chariot horses take place. Though in order to see these costumes, you must come to see the show for yourselves. It is filled with everything, from your life in a flash before you hit the ground, to the romantic, and ethereal classic that can last a lifetime, and ending with a horrific tale of blood, and lust. Come experience it with us!!!................. Roberto Cisneros

"Ohhs" and "Ahhs"

It was just another day at the Sacramento Ballet, the dancers started off their morning with Carinne’s class followed by a few rehearsals.  We were sitting in the silent studio; putting on our pointe shoes, stretching, or just taking a break, when all of the sudden we heard a roar of children’s’ voices coming down the block. Well, here we go, with about a week until the Sacramento Ballet moves into the theatre, we had the opportunity to run our upcoming program in front of three classes of elementary students from one of our Leaps and Bounds schools.  It certainly added a lot of fun for us to hear all of the kids “ohhs” and “ahhs” and of course the occasional laughs!  I particularly enjoyed a part in Balanchine’s Serenade when I was so close to a couple of children they tried to touch my pointe shoes!  Probably not the safest idea, but it certainly made me smile!

With such a short time left, I cannot wait to move into the theatre and start performing (which is my favorite part of being a professional dancer)!  I love being able to share my love for dance with my audience.  I have been working very hard and have had so much fun with this repertoire; I cannot wait to share it with you!

Lauryn Winterhalder

More than paint

I've been having some thoughts about the wonderful art form I'm a part of. I don't think it's better, worse, or more or less important than other forms of expression. These are just some reasons I appreciate dance. 

A painter's paint does not develop inflamed tendons, have mood swings, illness, or bad turning days. A painter can control his medium without the risk of offending it. He doesn't have to worry about the feelings of red if the painting he is working on calls for blue. The finished product can be perfected and will stay the way the painter leaves it. A choreographer's medium is as complex as you are and more so because they usually work with multiple dancers. I have great admiration and respect for the brave people that have committed their time, talents, and more than I can probably imagine to be choreographers. Because the medium is so alive, because no performance is perfectly the same or exactly the way the choreographer intended it to be, because the medium understands what it is to be human, dance reaches and touches in an essential way. I am moved by watching dance. It is a precious part of life. Please relish it, support it, watch it, and do some dancing yourself.

Chloe Horne

A Sacramento Ballet Sunday

Hello everyone!

I'm sure you were probably thinking the dancers of the Sacramento Ballet had a nice, beautiful, and relaxing day off today, right? Well, we actually had quite the day! Did you see us on the news this morning? Some of the dancers were at the studio bright and early to promote our performaces of Dracula and our upcoming Flash Mob on Good Day Sacramento! Others performed the funny "Ballet de Murphy" two times thoughout the day. In between all of that, we continued our rehearsals for Dracula, Serenade, and Second Before the Ground.  Also, this evening when I got home, I posted my newest video! Check it out by clicking on the link below. The shows will be here in no time, so I hope everyone has their tickets!

Keep connected with all of the Ballet's upcoming events through our Facebook page or the Sacramento Ballet website. There are a lot of great events coming up, so you don't want to miss out!

Week 4 Serenade preview:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZUIP5KIG-B4

Enjoy!
Katie Miller