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lovelyballetandmore · 9 months

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Ruben Martin | Carlos Gonzalez | Zimmi Coker | American Ballet Theatre | Photo by Emma Zordan

#ruben martin #carlos gonzalez #zimmi coker #balletphotography #white tights #ballerina #ballet stage boots #stage boots #swan lake #swanlake

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ballet-symphonie · 10 months

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European/American Dance Companies Asks

As it seems from the website, Francesca Hayward was promoted to a principal in 2016. However, she made her debut as O/O in Swan Lake last season. Why did it took her so long to be given that role?

Listen, not every company is like the Bolshoi, where you just show up and are given O/O willy nilly. I jest, but first of all, there’s simply not always enough shows for every principal to get one and there also not always enough time for countless casts to be rehearsed. Although to be fair, ROH do prep quite a lot of casts. They do SL frequently of course, and while I’m unsure if she had any injuries that caused her to miss out on an earlier seasons’ run, I’m quite confident that her participation in CATS certainly could have delayed it a season or two depending on her schedule and form.

Thoughts on Elisabeth Beyer? I found her incredible... wish to see her dancing in the ROH or the Dutch National or the Staatsballet in Berlin

She’s very exciting and is finally in the main company corps as of this June! Hopefully she’ll start getting more opportunities soon!

Do you have promotion predictions for the Royal Ballet or ABT this year?

ABT: Carols Gonzales and Fangqi Li have the roles to make a push this Met Season. I also think Jake Roxander’s potential is very high but he’s very young but Jaffe is not McKenzie. I would also like to see Zimmi Coker out of the corps. I would be shocked if anyone goes to principal, they could use another guy but I’m not sure they’ve got one ready just yet.

ROH: I think Not promoting Daichi Ikarachi would be crazy, especially after wining the Eric Bruhn Prize. I know there’s a push for a new male principal, either Luca Acri or Joseph Sissons but I think someone has to retire, they just have too many. I am hoping for Annette Buvolli and Mariko Sasaki to be first soloists and I think Sae Maeda and Joonhyuk Jun should be soloists. Yu Hang to first artists as well. ROH is so difficult, there are so many talented people.

Thoughts on Alina Cojocaru?

An angel sent from heaven. She’s never allowed to retire- I don’t make the rules.

Do you know if Madison Penney is in a company? She graduated from Royal Ballet School in 2022, in a seemingly high position, having danced Raymonda in the grad performances. I would find it strange if she wasn’t hired by the royal but there seems to be no indication of a company on her instagram?

Getting into the Royal is no cakewalk, they not only have to compete with the graduates but also the prix prize winners. I thought I remembered her going to BRB? But she’s not on the site. I don’t really keep up with her.

#francesca hayward #ballet #royal opera house #royal ballet #abt #alina cojocaru #ballet ask #ballerina

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patricedumonde · 6 months

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Why hasn’t Zimmi Coker been promoted yet? 👀

#random musings

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galina-ulanova · 4 years

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Zimmi Coker as Little Red Riding Hood in The Sleeping Beauty (ABT, 2019)

#ballet #zimmi coker #abt #the sleeping beauty

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swanlake1998 · 4 years

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remy young, erica lall, lauren bonfiglio, zimmi coker, leah baylin, and the rest of the artists rehearsing for the nutcracker ~waltz of the flowers~

#ballet #ballerina #remy young #erica lall #lauren bonfiglio #zimmi coker #leah baylin #erica_lall #video

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gussolomonsjrtest · 5 years

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NEW CREATORS AT ABT

The program on Wednesday, October 23, comprised ballets by one recent and two new dance makers for the company, and the dancers seemed energized by the spirit and the rigor of the new works. There are no radical departures in form, but these younger choreographers have a feel for what the dancers are technically capable of and don’t hesitate to exploit their strengths.

The company’s initiative to promote women dance makers has changed the power dynamics onstage and fostered more of a balance of control in the dancing. Yes, the women still get lifted and supported by men, but they’re no longer passively compliant. Sometimes they ask for what they want and get it. With this current initiative to increase both the racial diversity and the pool of women choreographers in ballet, there seems to be a welcome generational shift to greater equality of control for ballerinas.

As if to prove the point, the program opens with James Whiteside’s debut ballet for the company, featuring a high-powered cast – Calvin Royal III (African-American), Joo Won Ahn (Asian), Aran Bell, Devon Teuscher, Catherine Hurlin, Isadora Loyola, Katherine Williams, and Stephanie Williams. “New American Romance,” is set to “Suite Bergamasque” for piano solo by Claude Debussy, played flawlessly by Jacek Mysinski, live.

James Whiteside’s NEW AMERICAN ROMANCE. (center) Aran Bell, (clockwise from top right) Calvin Royal III, Isadora Loyola, Stephanie Williams, Devon Teuscher, Catherine Hurlin, Katherine Williams, and Joo Won Ahn. photo by Rosalie O’Connor

The work – nicely organized into four movements separated by blackouts – is a look at the choreographer’s unique take on romantic love, one that steers clear of Hollywood sentimentality. A duet for Catherine Hurlin and Aran Bell – the closest thing to a traditional “romantic” pas de deux – demands total trust with spectacular lifts that literally flip Hurlin repeatedly and surprisingly over Bell’s powerful arms and climaxes in a risky, one-handed overhead press. No saccharine love affair this!

Katherine Williams, Isadora Loyola, and Stephanie Williams are best buds, tipping on their pointes in mutual support, copying each other’s motifs in canon, and shimmying their shoulders in liberated defiance. Whiteside underlines the women’s power by having Katherine Williams do a chain of entrechats and all three, tours to the knee, which they pull off without batting an eye.

Movement Three introduces romantic gender diversity, when, after starting as a lovey-dovey duet for Teuscher and Ahn, it veers into the unexpected, when Royal enters and becomes the object of both their affections. They end up with their bodies draped atop of each other in a discreetly passionate threesome.

(l-r): Calvin Royal III, Joo Won Ahn, and Devon Teuscher in James Whiteside’s NEW AMERICAN ROMANCE photo by Erin Baiano

Brandon Stirling Baker bathes the piece in washes of cool light, and costumes provided by Primadonna are sweetly romantic, long, blue tutus on the women and blousy, light blue shirts and dark tights for the men, accentuating the irony of Whiteside’s wry deconstruction of traditional romance. It’s a structurally clear and teasingly inventive debut that promises more to come.

Gemma Bond’s world premiere, “A Time There Was” draws its moods from Benjamin Britten’s acerbic “Suite on English Folk Songs” – whence the title – and his “Fugue and Variations on a Theme of Frank Bridge.” David LaMarche conducts with his customary brio. Sylvie Rood’s costumes are body-hugging but ornate bodices that suggest Renaissance attire; sleeves get added for some of the women and skirts made of streamers for some of the men. Serena Wong is the lighting designer, starting the piece dramatically by silhouetting the cast of fifteen against the cyclorama.

The ballet is divided into five sections that each feature a different couple with background attendants – Cassandra Trenary and Cory Stearns, Katherine Williams and Tyler Maloney, Zimmi Coker and Gabe Stone Shayer, Stearns and Teuscher, finally Isabella Boylston and Whiteside. The action whizzes by, dense and fast-paced, so distinctions among the characters are a matter for later reflection. A slow tempo passage generally greets the entrance of each subsequent featured couple, but the texture of the dancing throughout is similar, making it hard to parse in a single viewing.

But the movement has a youthful exuberance and freshness, and the costumes liven the space with changing color palettes, as dancers rush on and offstage. The final ”Fugue and Finale,” features Boylston partnered by Whiteside and brings the ballet to a quiet, pensive close, with them drifting offstage together.

(l-r): James Whiteside and Isabella Boylston in Gemma Bond’s A TIME THERE WAS. photo by Rosalie O’Connor

I imagine Jessica Lang’s “Garden Blue” (2018) to be set in a bright garden, saturated in Nicole Pearce’s sunny lighting. But although bright colors predominate in the costumes, none is actually blue. The three couples wear sleek unitards in electric colors; Aran Bell and Catherine Hurlin in red/orange, Thomas Forster and Brittany Degrofft in canary yellow, and Blaine Hoven and Skylar Brandt in fuchsia; the fourth woman, Hee Seo’s unitard is white with green patches.

(l-r): Hee Seo with Catherine Hurlin, Thomas Forster, Blaine Hoven, Aran Bell, Skylar Brandt, and Brittany DeGrofft in Jessica Lang’s GARDEN BLUE. photo by Rosalie O’Connor

The costumes are by Sarah Crowner, as is the setting, which consists of three sturdy wooden forms that look like the whirlybirds that fall from maple trees; two are onstage and a third, hangs above. The music is the first three movements of Antonin Dvořák’s “Piano Trio No. 4 in E Minor.” Dancers’ repeated tiny flutters of arms suggest insects’ wings. The dancers rearrange the set pieces throughout, sheltering and concealing dancers, and reshaping the space. Seo flits about like the boss of the six, making things happen. Lang’s ballet like the other two are welcome, lyrical additions to the ABT repertory.

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lovelyballetandmore · 9 months

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Jake Roxander | Zimmi Coker | American Ballet Theatre

#zimmi coker #jake roxander #american ballet theatre #brown tights #ballet slippers #ballerina

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ballet-symphonie · 8 months

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a couple more ABT asks sorry I love your blog!!

Who do you think will replace Herman Cornejo now it looks like retirement is pretty imminent? I would think Roxander but is he tall enough for Skylar which I imagine would be number one concern....

Do you think Zimmi Coker is principal material or will max out at (hopefully) soloist?

Do you know why Kevin McKenzie had a policy of such slow promotions? And then Aran Bell seemed like a total exception getting Romeo at 19. Obviously he is a prodigy but so is Skylar Brandt I'm not sure what the logic is behind the different trajectories?

I'm not sure how tall Roxander is, he's also young enough that he could hope to grow another inch or two. There's lots of tall, beautiful men in the corps, I'm partial to Robare and Klein but they're not exactly Cornejo replacements.

I think Coker is bright and fun, but not sure she will make it all the way to principal, I wouldn't bet anything on it.

I believe McKenzie was generally a proponent of slower growth, that was just his management style. In my opinion, he was not always growing the 'right' people if you know what I mean but that's beside the point. Skylar wasn't always as consistent as she was now and ABT used to be quite top-heavy with the women before there were some notable retirements. Aran was a necessity, there were like 3 and a half functioning ABT principals at one point and two of them were the two shorties, Simkin and Cornejo.

#abt #american ballet theatre #ballet #ballet ask

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lovelyballetandmore · 4 years

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