Tours en l'air organizes ballet-themed escorted holidays to see the best companies perform great ballets in beautiful places. You can join a trip from anywhere. A highly knowledgeable balletomane who has enjoyed 100s of performances in over 20 cities around the world,I speak English, French, and German, and am a Travel Industry Council of Ontario certified Travel Counsellor. I also teach ballet appreciation courses.
For a taste of what our trips are like, follow https://www.facebook.com/toursenlair/ on facebook.
Tours en l'air Ballet Holidays are offered in partnership with CWT Victor Travel, 101 - 8800 Dufferin Street, Concord, ON L4K 0C5, 416-736-6010, TICO # 1892647

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Friday, April 22, 2011

Recreational Ballet for Beginners

Looking for a form of exercise that tones and strengthens your body, improves balance, flexibility, & coordination AND feeds your soul & your aesthetic sense, & lets you get in touch with your inner artist? Try BALLET! You don't have to be young, skinny, or neurotic like that Black Swan woman. You don't have to wear pointe shoes, a tutu, or outfits that reveal your every flaw. And guess what? MEN can do it TOO!!!
If you're looking for an absolute beginner adult ballet class, or one level up from beginner, Metro Movement,

833 Broadview Ave. 2nd. fl. Toronto, Ont. Ph. 416-463-9174.

is offering the former on Sunday afternoons 1:30-3:00 and the latter Thursday evenings 6:30-8:00 starting May 12. You can attend on a drop-in basis for only $15 a class without having to sign up for a whole term, or purchase a 5-class or 10-class card for substantial savings. You'll love it!

Thursday, April 21, 2011

Canada's National Ballet School Spring Showcase

More info here: http://toursenlair.blogspot.com/p/toronto-ballet-dance-outings.html

Paul Taylor Company B performances in Ontario

Hot breaking news! If you remember the National Ballet's performances of Paul Taylor's Company B, set to Andrews sisters songs, from about 15 years ago, you will be thrilled to know that the Paul Taylor company will be performing it and other pieces in Brampton, Markham, St. Catharines, and Kingston, April 26-29 (not May as announced in today's Toronto Star). Details here:
http://www.ptdc.org/attend-performance/taylor-worldwide
If you need to be reminded how great Company B is, here are some clips:

Wednesday, April 20, 2011

Upper Body Workshop for Dancers

The famous Juilliard teacher Irene Dowd will be in Toronto June 5 giving a workshop at Metro Movement Dance Studio. More information here: http://toursenlair.blogspot.com/p/for-dancers-and-dance-students.html

New take on Dying Swan!

Monday, April 18, 2011

Saturday, April 16, 2011

Festival des arts de Saint-Sauveur

The lovely Laurentians are the backdrop to a dance festival July 28 to August 4. On the program this year are:
Aspen Santa Fe Ballet

a group of soloists from Royal Swedish Ballet,

3e etage, a group of soloists from the Paris Opera Ballet whose trailer you will love:


Gauthier Dance from Stuttgart, directed by Canadian Eric Gauthier (a graduate of the National Ballet School), which has become wildly popular for its entertaining pieces in the few years of its existence


For some very interesting background on Gauthier's work visit their website:
http://www.theaterhaus.com/theaterhaus/index.php?id=1,2,208


I am not planning a group trip this year (unless 20 of you suddenly announce you want to go) but I am going to check it out so that I can plan one for next year. For information, visit the festival's website at http://www.fass.ca/fass_2011/fr/spectsalle.php
Meanwhile I do have some more juicy trips up my sleeve for fall and winter. Stay tuned!


BALLET MAKES LIFE BETTER

GET MORE BALLET OUT OF LIFE WITH TOURS EN L'AIR

Friday, April 15, 2011

Secrets of the Flesh

National Ballet of Canada Principal Dancer Aleksandar Antonijevic has a new photo exhibit opening May 5, featuring pictures of other NBOC dancers. For details, click on the "Toronto Ballet and Dance Outings" tab.

Thursday, April 14, 2011

What's on in ballet

Check out the "What's on in ballet" tab for a master calendar of all the major ballet companies' performances in the coming year.

And they say FRENCH is the language of ballet...

Two dancers in the Ballet du Capitole (Toulouse) talk about dancing Balanchine:
"c'est un challenge ! »

"On doit être très attentif, techniquement et physiquement au top »

Ah, la langue de Molière....

Monday, April 11, 2011

Berlin, Dresden, and Prague Sat. 31 March – Tuesday 10 April, 2012 (Easter is 8 April)

3 performances

Berlin State Ballet: Romeo & Juliet (Cranko), Gala-style mixed program (excerpts, pas de deux)

Dresden Semperoper Ballet: Coppelia (Balanchine)

day trip to Prague

This is the latest addition to my 2011-12 offerings. Everyone who has been to Berlin raves about it.
If you want to see what the ballet company, now under artistic director Vladimir Malakhov, looks like, here's a trailer for their Onegin:

and here's another one with William Forsythe's very cool Vertiginous Thrill of Exactitude:


Dresden has been magnificently restored, and the ballet company there, under their Canadian artistic director Aaron Watkin, has been getting stellar reviews. Here is a clip about their Coppelia (voiceover is in German, but visuals are good):


We would stay 7 nights in Berlin and 3 in Dresden, with a day trip to beautiful Prague, which is only 2 hours from Dresden. Don't worry if you don't speak German; both cities get a lot of tourists, and I do speak German.

This trip would have to be finalized in October, so I need to get planning soon if I know there is sufficient interest. Please get in touch if you are interested.

National Ballet of Canada to perform at Sadler's Wells

Karen Kain, Artistic Director of The National Ballet of Canada, today announced that the company will perform in London, England at Sadler’s Wells. The National Ballet will perform Alexei Ratmansky’s new production of Romeo and Juliet April 16 – 21, 2013, which makes its world premiere on November 16, 2011 in Toronto.

If you love ballet, please check out my season of outstanding ballet trips by clicking here.

GET MORE BALLET OUT OF LIFE WITH TOURS EN L'AIR

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Word Lady

In addition to organizing all these wonderful treats for ballet lovers, I am "Canada's Word Lady", an expert on language usage and history. If you are fascinated by the English language, head over to my other blog, katherinebarber.blogspot.com
where you will find Word of the Week word histories, weekly columns about English usage, and more.

Sunday, April 3, 2011

BRITISH BALLET BARGAIN!

Birmingham Royal Ballet is a fantastic company with a wonderful repertoire, both deserving to be better known. The two programs they are offering in February 2012 are guaranteed to warm the cockles of your heart (a perfect Valentine's gift!). This could be booked as early as this May.

AND IT'S A BARGAIN!

It looks like a trip could be done for about $2,000Cdn per person double occupancy (in addition, airfare to Birmingham from Toronto is currently about $1200, but as always these trips are not just for people from Toronto; you can join in from anywhere). All prices are just estimates for now, and it could be possibly less for a larger group. For this, you would get:

  • 6 nights (February 24-March 1) with breakfast in a comfortable 3-star hotel located 2 minutes walk from the theatre and 2 minutes walk from the train station

  • Frederick Ashton's Daphnis and Chloe (to Ravel's shimmering score) and his intensely romantic Two Pigeons, which, the first time I saw it (danced, in fact, by BRB), left me with what can only be described as a literal warm fuzzy feeling, as the entire audience at the Met in New York leapt to their feet and roared their approval. Watch this rehearsal video of the heart-melting final reconciliation pas de deux with BRB' s Robert Parker and Nao Sakuma and you will understand! http://www.brb.org.uk/Pigeons-studio-2009.html

  • David Bintley's comic masterpiece Hobson's Choice, about a feisty young woman defying her father to marry a poor shoemaker. You can see a clip here:

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OYq0txUC-2w

  • 2 three-course dinners

  • day trip by private coach through the beautiful Cotswolds, stopping to visit some picturesque villages, to Blenheim Palace, home of the Dukes of Marlborough and birthplace of Winston Churchill

  • day trip by train to Oxford with guided walking tour of the colleges and gardens and Inspector Morse's favourite pubs, and the otherworldly experience of evensong sung by one of the renowned college choirs

Birmingham itself has an excellent art gallery with one of the world's finest collections of pre-Raphaelite art, a town hall that looks like a Greek temple, a renowned symphony orchestra, a fascinating jewellery museum, pleasant canal district and botanical garden, and, as home to the international headquarters of Cadbury, a chocolate museum! Stratford-upon-Avon is less than an hour away. The pretty cathedral town of Worcester is a short train ride away through the picturesque Malvern Hills. You can even pop up to London in two hours.

All comments and suggestions welcome! Please let me know if it appeals (as usual, I am not asking for a commitment, just trying to gauge the amount of interest so that I can proceed to the costing).