Musings on ballet, classical music, the violin, and life
Musings of a former ballet dancer who’s returned, years later, to the studio as a student.
News Flash on September 24th — World Ballet Day 2026 is a go! Thursday, October 29, 2026 will mark the return of World Ballet Day, and this year the theme is “How Stories Are Made.” Sounding pretty cool, huh? Details will be announced in due time, but what you can be guaranteed of, right now, … Read more
Am I allowed to say that back in 2024, I didn’t love the buzzy world premiere of Aszure Barton’s Mere Mortals? I’m still not sure if I’m brave enough to say “I hated it” because it brought such wide acclaim from critics and audience members alike with only a minority of naysayers. It seemed very clear … Read more
Sizzles isn’t the right word. Or maybe it’s the perfect word. Don Quixote opened at San Francisco’s War Memorial Opera House on March 19th on the waning end of a massive California heat wave — meaning, still too hot. But there was a silver lining. San Francisco, normally cool-to-chilly most months of the year, had … Read more
There is this moment In Helgi Tomasson’s Nutcracker where the party host, Dr. Stahlbaum, connects two electrical cords and the Christmas tree in the family’s San Francisco living room lights up. Everyone oohs and aahs because in-house electricity was a new-fangled thing in 1915, the year in which the production is set. The irony is … Read more
You might notice more white space on this blog. Less words. That’s on purpose. Space feels great. It’s a hard commodity to come by as we approach the holidays and the end of the year. Everything gets squeezed in, condensed. More food than usual. More family time than usual (leading, admittedly, to … Read more