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This is your last chance to score tickets to Ballet Fantastique’s 5X5 celebration Friday, Oct.10, at the Hult Center, featuring dinner, performances, an auction and after party (Good thing dancers have a lot of stamina). Proceeds from the 5X5 shindig benefit Ballet Fantastique’s educational outreach programs. Tickets are $55-$155 at balletfantastique.org. Continue reading
While you’ve been getting ahead of that bumper crop of zucchinis, local dance-makers have been busy building new pieces to perform this month. Check out Dance in Dialogue (D.i.D.), a “salon-style community performance series” initiated by choreographers Margo Van Ummersen, Shannon Mockli and Carolina Cabellero that invites the audience to provide precious feedback to artists on new and emerging works. A thoughtful approach to two problems facing any performing artist — securing a venue and finding an audience — D.i.D. Continue reading
While in Moscow last autumn, ballet dancer Rachel Richardson experienced a decidedly Russian moment at the gilded Kremlin Palace. “It was crazy,” she recalls with a laugh. “While we were backstage, 80 military men in the stereotypical fuzzy hats with their machine guns were marching through, literally right next to us as we were warming up.” Continue reading
Peering through the fence at New Day Bakery in the Whiteaker on any second Wednesday, you may see the twirling of skirts, the shuffling of cowboy boots and dance partners shimmying to the sounds of accordion and washboard. If you squint and listen to the zydeco music, it almost feels like a bustling square in New Orleans. Continue reading
Habib Iddrisu has a slender, compact body, an unlined, youthful face and a headful of small, short dreads. The University of Oregon adjunct dance professor travels the world with traditional African singing and dance groups and actively teaches African history. But he won’t reveal his age. “I keep that to myself,” he says. Continue reading
The Senior Moments Dance Team got its start when Richard Walker, retired owner of Champion Friction, issued a public invitation in The Register-Guard to join a seniors’ flashmob. Seventy-seven people showed up to that first rehearsal at the Vet’s Club in May of 2013, and the group’s been dazzling audiences ever since. Continue reading
Susan Kincaid never thought she would take dance classes and perform on stage. But, at 44, she finally found herself “brave enough” to step out of her comfort zone and try tap dancing at Petersen Barn Community Center. Continue reading
All That! Dance Company Ballet, contemporary jazz, tap, hip hop, ballroom allthatdancecompany.com 688-1523 Continue reading
A local mother-daughter team is pushing the limits of ballet by finding inspiration in the most unlikely of places. For The Book of Esther, Ballet Fantastique’s Donna Bontrager and her daughter Hannah Bontrager go way, way back — to approximately 486 BC — for the finale of their 2013-2014 season. What better way to end the company’s “New Legends” series than with a story from one of the oldest existing works of literature: The Old Testament? Continue reading
Sarah Ebert may be a newcomer to choreographing for the Eugene Ballet Company, but she hasn’t shied away from the pace. “In modern dance, we take months to let things marinate — we explore, we play. But in ballet, the time limit is interesting. It’s fast, and it works, because the EBC dancers are willing to experiment,” Ebert says. Continue reading