Dancers don’t always have to be romantically invested in their partners to create a beautiful ballet pairing. But according to Anna Gerberich and Pete Leo Walker, principal dancers of the Charlotte Ballet and real-life power couple, it certainly doesn’t hurt.
Charlotte Ballet (formerly North Carolina Dance Theatre) built its reputation on George Balanchine’s nimble neoclassical lines, filtered through the combined joie de vivre of Jean-Pierre Bonnefoux and Patricia McBride.
Forget fairy tales and romances. For its first performance of the season here at Chautauqua Institution, Charlotte Ballet took up environmental themes.
For those who love the art of dance, the Chautauqua Dance program offers this summer everything from performances by dancers in-residence to lectures on various topics in the world of dance.
The Charlotte Ballet, known formerly as the North Carolina Dance Theatre, will be in residence for the first seven weeks of the Chautauqua season, under the artistic direction of Jean-Pierre Bonnefoux.
This has been the summer of Sasha.
Part of the excitement of hosting the Chautauqua Regional Youth Ballet is that after the performance, all of the kids in the audience try their hardest to relevé and pirouette. Holding tight onto a parent’s hand for support — each hoping, even if just for one night, to be the next prima ballerina.
Closing this season’s Family Entertainment Series, the Chautauqua Regional Youth Ballet from Jamestown, N.Y., will perform at 7 p.m. tonight in Elizabeth S. Lenna Hall. This marks the ballet company’s eighth performance at Chautauqua Institution.
“I just think it’s a beautiful art form — dance, ballet,” said Monika Alch, CRYB artistic director. “I think that everybody can enjoy it if they understand ballet, or [if] they don’t.”
When people ask Megan and Lorraina Boyette what it’s like to be a twin, they usually respond, “Well, I don’t know what it’s like to not be a twin.”
Before Week Seven’s focus on “Diplomacy” comes to an end, Chautauqua Dance associate artistic director Mark Diamond will relate diplomacy to Chautauquans in a way no speaker would have attempted.
NCDT dancers will perform Diamond’s “The Decision Maker” to open their final show of the season, which begins at 8:15 p.m. Saturday in the Amphitheater. Dancers will be accompanied by the Chautauqua Symphony Orchestra, with guest conductor Grant Cooper.
Guest review by Jane Vranish.
Choreography is like the air that dancers breathe.
Science-fiction author Ray Bradbury once said, “It’s lack that gives us inspiration. It’s not fullness.”
When choreographers create works intended to be “abstract,” that is sometimes when dancers find the most meaningful connections to the steps.
The Chautauquan Daily 