Yan Sham-Shackleton's Blog

Western Regional Conference | Amnesty International USA

I should be there.

Human Rights for All: One Movement, One World
Los Angeles, CA

Join hundreds of fellow Amnesty International members, supporters and human rights activists from across the thirteen Western states for Amnesty International's 2011 Western Regional Conference! This year's conference will feature prominent human rights defenders and leading experts who will discuss the most pressing human rights concerns of today: the uprisings in the Middle East and North Africa; the growing movement to abolish the death penalty; protecting migrant rights; ending poverty; the torture debate; and much more. Don't miss an inspiring weekend full of dynamic speakers, ground-breaking workshops, networking, and grassroots activism!

November 4 - 6
Four Points by Sheraton LAX
9750 Airport Blvd
Los Angeles, CA 90045

via www.amnestyusa.org

Dance Magazine – If it's happening in the world of dance, it's happening in Dance Magazine.

This story (libretto by McCartney) had familiar characters, but with little sense of motivation. There’s the water princess (Odette anyone?); the ardent prince; the jealous, powerful man; the fickle, perhaps evil woman; and a jester who excels at turning and jumping. But it was hard to care about any of the characters or be affected by the dramatic conflicts. Why does Princess Honorata’s head servant Scala betray her? Why does Scala treat the Prince like a pest before she decides to save them? (Perhaps a plot twist could be inserted, like Honorata or Prince Stone mistakenly doing something that slights Scala.)

As I’ve found before, the best part of Martins’ choreography is the partnering. One motif has Honorata coming downstage as though part of an ocean wave, and Prince Stone pulling her back upstage with beautiful, sensual lifts. But their duets never got truly rapturous, nor their separation unbearably sad. And the Terra Punk gang never got too aggressive. Everything was kind of medium.

Sara Mearns was lovely as Honorata; the luscious fluidity of her torso was just right for an underwater princess. Robert Fairchild made a fine prince (what else is new?). Amar Ramasar tightened himself into a knot to play the jealous, vengeful King Terra. The character who had the most transformational role was Scala, played by Georgina Pazcoguin first as severe and later as all loving kindness. She had to be like Carabosse and the Lilac Fairy all in one evening, and she pulled it off with a commanding presence.

via www.dancemagazine.com

The Top 7 Dance-Related Muppet Moments | Bodies Never Lie

The Top 7 Dance-Related Muppet Moments

Posted on September 24, 2011 by Ryan Wenzel

Nureyev guest stars on The Muppet Show in 1976.

Since Sesame Street‘s first broadcast in 1969, that program and  The Muppet Show have hosted some of America’s best ballet, modern, tap, and traditional dancers alongside Jim Henson’s pioneering puppets. (Postmodern choreography has been left out but understandably: After all, few adults, let alone children, understand Cunningham.) Below, in honor of Henson’s 75th birthday, are my seven favorite dance-related moments with Muppets.

via bodiesneverlie.com

Paul McCartney, Beatle and ballet composer, too

The ballet itself was frothy entertainment, set to pleasing, tuneful, often lovely music — a production likely to attract a broader audience to the ballet, always a good thing. It told a simple — one might say too simple — tale of an undersea kingdom threatened by earthly invaders. A sea princess, Honorata (Sara Mearns), falls in love with one of the invaders, a prince (Robert Fairchild), but their love is forbidden. Heartbreak and conflict ensue, but in the end they are together.

Martins' choreography was pleasant enough, without being striking or memorable. (One wonders what Christopher Wheeldon or Alexei Ratmansky might have done with it.) Mearns, the emerging star ballerina of the company, was typically affecting as the princess.

via www.sfgate.com

Fashion designers and dancers: a perfect fit - The Washington Post

But it’s not only for the thrill of flaunting fine couture that fashion designers are prized in the dance world. It’s for their visual sense. Choreographers may have no more than a vague idea of what they want their dancers to wear, but they know when and where they want the audience’s attention focused. A canny designer who can make an outfit pop — whether on a Hollywood red carpet or in an opera house — is a highly valued collaborator.

Tharp has turned to fashion designers for so many of her costumes because “first of all, they’re addicted to clothes.”

“They’re consumed by clothes,” says Tharp from Chicago, where she’s creating a work for Hubbard Street Dance Chicago. “They’re invested with every aspect of how the body is covered and uncovered. . . . Their primary focus is bodies looking fantastic from every angle.”

via www.washingtonpost.com

costumes

McCartney triumphs in 'Ocean's Kingdom' ballet debut: on scene reports - National Beatles | Examiner.com

He gave Stella a big kiss and they almost got caught in the curtain!  Then he and Peter Martins then came out by themselves for another final bow.  

 

"A tent was set up at the side of the building for the gala dinner that followed.  

via www.examiner.com

BBC News - Sir Paul McCartney: Ordinary yet extraordinary

Which is not to disparage him or his remarkable achievements, but simply to say that after observing him at work and talking to him afterwards, he is not a man who wants to exude greatness - he wears the accolade because he has no choice.

I suspect in his own eyes he is an ordinary man to which an extraordinary thing happened.

via www.bbc.co.uk

Paul McCartney's ballet 'Ocean's Kingdom' debuts in New York - latimes.com

What was dearly missing from the evening was a sense of humor. Historically, straight-forward or nostalgic settings of Beatles music have not fared well (see: the musical "Rain" or the film "Across the Universe") because the magic behind the Fab Four's sound was its youthful insouciance.  Humor and a sense of not taking things seriously was what director Richard Lester brought to films like "A Hard Day's Night" and "Help."  Had City Ballet partnered McCartney with a choreographer in that vein, one who likes to tweak tradition — Mark Morris or Alex Ratmansky, say — rather than embalm it, "Ocean's Kingdom" might have been a fun diversion, or even more.

via latimesblogs.latimes.com

Benjamin Millepied ...dancing with the stars | ES Magazine

The family returned to their native Bordeaux when he was five. At 12, he left home to study ballet at the Conservatoire National Supérieur in Lyon. Three years later, he took a summer course at The School of American Ballet, the New York City Ballet's school. ('I wanted to stay, but my family were like, "Whoa!" ') The following year, having received the Bourse Lavoisier, a scholarship award from the French Ministry of Culture, he moved to the States for good. He barely had time to be lonely or homesick. 'I was super-motivated. I did it because I loved it, but you have to give so much of yourself and so much time to dance that you get this tunnel vision. You have issues with your body and your relationship with the mirror, and if you put on 2lb, you think you're fat.' Did he feel himself getting obsessed like that? 'Oh yeah. Everybody does.' By 2001, he was a principal dancer at the New York City Ballet. He would practise six days a week 'for hours', and danced on through injuries. 'That's hard, hard, hard,' he says. 'The pain people deal with is crazy. But if you cancel, someone else is going to dance in your place. It's your lead and someone else is going to do it. There were times when I said, "I'm going to dance tonight," and it's been crazy pain. I tore the bottom of my foot on both sides. That was the most painful injury I ever danced on.' How did he manage to do it? He shrugs. 'Pills, and ice. I performed in a show, and I was on crutches the next day.' The reality, he says, is even worse for ballerinas. 'Female dancers deal with the toe shoe every day and that's more… tedious.' He cracks a smile and his whole face lights up. Talking about dance, even its dark side, is more to his taste than talking about his new amour. Portman, in contrast, is positively gushing about him, describing him at the Oscars as 'my beautiful love, who has now given me my most important role of my life'.

At only 34, Millepied could have several more years at the top, but has decided to focus instead on choreography and modelling. He began choreographing in 2001, employing his charisma to lure fashionable collaborators. In 2006 alone, he worked with Mikhail Baryshnikov, for whom he created a solo ballet Years Later; Marc Jacobs, who designed the costumes for his ballet Amoveo; and the composer Philip Glass. Next year, he's working with Rodarte, the design team behind the Black Swan costumes and Natalie's designers of choice - she wore Rodarte to the Oscars after ditching Galliano in light of his anti-Semitic rant.

via www.thisislondon.co.uk

Can Paul McCartney pull off a ballet? - Telegraph

Nor, of course, is he the first pop star to be involved in some way with serious-minded dance. Joby Talbot’s orchestrations of some of the White Stripes’ songs for Wayne McGregor’s Chroma, at Covent Garden, were a resounding success; the Pet Shop Boys recently had plenty of fun at Sadler’s Wells with their original (part-electronic, part-orchestrated) music for Javier de Frutos’s The Most Incredible Thing; balletician-turned-punkster Michael Clark launched his career with a symbiotic relationship with noisemakers The Fall, and has more recently used songs by Lou Reed, David Bowie and Iggy Pop to barnstorming effect.

There are dozens more crossover examples. None of those that come to mind, though, feel quite the same as this pop megastar stepping quite so far out of his established comfort zone, to deliver quite such a daunting slab of music, for quite so grand a ballet company.

Still, with the science behind good ballet music so very inexact, who knows? Tchaikovsky is nearly always perfect to set steps to, Bach only sometimes good, Mozart generally useless. Those shouty guitar heros The White Stripes (it turns out) make for fabulous ballet music, whereas original, choreographically orientated scores by some of the more successful, classically trained writers of musicals have proved as melodically and rhythmically thrilling as low-fat margarine.

via www.telegraph.co.uk