Musings on ballet, classical music, the violin, and life
The other night I had a ballet dream. Not a dancing onstage kind, or one of those scary ones where you hear your cue but you’re trapped in your dressing room, two floors down, panicking that you’re blowing it. No, in this dream I was an audience member, not a dancer. I’d been allowed access … Read more
Story has it, San Francisco Ballet principal dancer Yuan Yuan Tan’s career once hinged on one precipitous toss of a coin (ironically and coincidentally a Chinese yuan). She was ten, born and raised in Shanghai by traditional-minded Chinese parents. Her father was against the idea of her training to become a ballet dancer (too Western, … Read more
There is a wonderful blog called Grown-Ups at the Barre and when I saw it, I instantly fell in love with the concept, the collaborative effort and different points of views from various contributors. (Not to mention it’s a fun name with a great-looking graphic on the home page.) They have allowed me to chime … Read more
Interested in my ballet fiction? Check out Off Balance and the award-winning Outside the Limelight, as well as my newest, A Dancer’s Guide to Africa. Just click on their titles! The dare, of course, was to me, thrown out by me. And once the thought had been floated out there, I sensed I had to do it. … Read more
So, I was in the neighborhood of Paris’s Palais Garnier the other day—you know how that goes, just a weekday drop-by on a free afternoon—and I decided to invest in the 10 euro price to tour the opera house and its museum, since odds are low I’ll be attending a performance of the Paris Opera … Read more