How to get more out of ballet

August newsletter. Don't miss out on the hottest ballet news! Join the Tours en l'air mailing list by entering your email address in the window to the right, then following the prompts.

  Tours en l'air

Dear Balletomane, Once again I had an extraordinary time seeing New York City Ballet in Saratoga Springs (you really MUST go next year) and also enjoyed the international ballet galas in Saint-Sauveur (ditto).
In this newsletter:

1. **VERY IMPORTANT**: Tours en l'air 2014-15 season: PLEASE VOTE
2. Ballet Appreciation Courses
3. Tours en l'air EXCLUSIVE invitation from Ballet Jörgen
4. Ballet Cinema Broadcasts
5. National Ballet of Canada news
6. Discounts on theatrical performances
7. Rollicking Story of the English Language Course
   
8. Videos

Tours en l'air 2014-15 season: PLEASE VOTE

Thank you to those of you who let me know which ballet trips you're interested in for next year. I still need many more people to express an interest in order to pursue any of the trips. Remember, you are not committing to anything. The trips may seem far off, but tickets have to be put on hold well in advance.

Please check out the full list of offerings and let me know which ones you might possibly be interested in/available for:

http://toursenlair.blogspot.ca/p/upcoming-ballet-trips.html

At the moment, these are the most popular:

Munich and Stuttgart end April 2015

London and Edinburgh February 2015

New York June 2015 (Royal Ballet and American Ballet Theatre)

I am actually surprised I haven't had more interest in the January trip to New York. Maybe you didn't notice that it's an opportunity to see three of the world's top companies in one week without having to cross the Atlantic:

Saturday 17 January - Saturday 24 January 2015

New York
5 performances

Royal Danish Ballet Principals and Soloists:
Bournonville Excerpts

New York City Ballet:

Serenade, Agon, Symphony in C (all Balanchine)

Symphonic Dances (Martins), The Cage, Andantino (both Robbins)
 
Cortege Hongrois (Balanchine) Donizetti Variations, La Valse, Chaconne (all Balanchine)  

Mariinsky Ballet:
Cinderella (Ratmansky) TO BE CONFIRMED

If you yourself want to go on one of these trips, try drumming up some enthusiasm amongst your friends. We had a group of four ladies who had been friends since university who used the San Francisco trip as a kind of reunion. If you have children or grandchildren who are into ballet, why not offer them a ballet trip as an essential part of their training?

Ballet Appreciation Courses

This fall I am offering ballet appreciation courses in Ottawa, Whitby and Toronto:
“Best of Ballet” survey course
Courses focusing on the National Ballet of Canada performances and Bolshoi and Royal Ballet live broadcasts
In-depth History of Ballet II – Fokine, Nijinsky, and Diaghilev's Ballets Russes course (no pre-requisite required) covers an essential period that all balletomanes should know about, and will help you get so much more out of John Neumeier's Nijinsky
For full details, please click here: http://toursenlair.blogspot.ca/p/ballet-appreciation-courses.html

Tours en l'air EXCLUSIVE invitation

Canada's Ballet Jörgen begins its coast-to-coast tour of Cinderella this September. 
As a special treat to thank you for being on the Tours en l'air mailing list, I have arranged for us to attend a free open rehearsal just for Tours en l'air on the afternoon of Monday, September 15 at their studios at George Brown College in Toronto.  Artistic Director Bengt Jörgen will speak on the ballet and its history. Please RSVP to me by August 30. Huge thanks to Ballet Jörgen for the invitation.

Ballet Cinema Broadcasts

For listings for the Bolshoi and Royal Ballet in Canada, as well as Matthew Bourne's Sleeping Beauty and the Royal Winnipeg Ballet's Moulin Rouge, click here: Bolshoi, Royal Ballet broadcasts in Canada 2014-15

For listings for the Bolshoi and Royal Ballet in the US, click here: Bolshoi & Royal Ballet Cinema Broadcasts in the US 2014-15

The Royal Ballet's The Winter's Tale will not be shown in Canada, but if you live near the border or are a snowbird, you may be in luck. Here's how to find a venue near you: Royal Ballet Winter's Tale cinema broadcast in North America

National Ballet of Canada news

Principal Dancers Guillaume Côté and Heather Ogden are expecting their first baby, due in December.

The company has made a programming change to its June mixed bill: Alexei Ratmansky's Shostakovich Trilogy (parts 1 and 3) will replace his Tempest. Also on the program is Guillaume Côté's Being and Nothingness, as previously announced.

Discounts on theatrical performances

As a valued member of the Tours en l'air mailing list, you are entitled to discounts on many productions in the Greater Toronto area, including Cirque du Soleil, Ross Petty's Cinderella family musical, Mirvish productions and more. Email me for details.

Rollicking Story of the English Language Course
This course, described by one of my students as "the best course I've ever taken", is a very entertaining and informative look at how English came to be the way it is. I am offering it in three venues this fall: Kitchener-Waterloo, U of T School of Continuing Studies, and the Goethe Insititute. For more information: http://katherinebarber.blogspot.ca/p/history-of-english-language-courses.html

Videos:

Vail International Dance Festival

This fabulous festival has been churning out so many outstanding videos featuring Tiler Peck, Robbie Fairchild, Herman Cornejo and others that all I can do is recommend that you subscribe to their entire Youtube channel and check them out:

https://www.youtube.com/user/VailDance

And do think about whether you might want to go on a ballet trip to Vail sometime!

New York City Ballet promo video

Featuring some of the dancers and pieces the June Tours en l'air group enjoyed so much.

http://youtu.be/ik7F2td1eh0

Nicolas Le Riche Farewell livestream

If you missed this live, you can still see it here:

http://www.operadeparis.fr/actualite/soiree-exceptionnelle-nicolas-le-riche

Joffrey Ballet Swan Lake rehearsal live stream THIS THURSDAY
Watch LIVE! Thursday August 21 at 11:30 am Central Time (12:30 pm Eastern) LIVE STREAM of Christopher Wheeldon rehearsing his "Swan Lake" with the Joffrey dancers. youtube.com/user/TheJoffreyBallet

San Francisco Ballet's Maria Kochetkova and Joan Boada

in Yuri Possokhov's Francesca da Rimini (which the 2013 San Francisco Tours en l'air group saw) as filmed by ... a robot: Ballet and ... robots?

And finally, for a laugh, the same diminutive Maria Kochetkova with Joffrey Ballet's 6' 6" Fabrice Calmels. Those of you who met Fabrice on our Chicago trip or saw Maria on one of our San Francisco trips will particularly enjoy this:

Please forward this newsletter to a friend!

Sincerely,

Katherine Barber

Tours en l'air

www.toursenlair.blogspot.com

201 Hanson St, Toronto, ON Canada M4C 1A7 416.693.4496

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