Boys and Ballet

Peter and the Wolf

Boysballet — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 02:10:14 +0000

The Royal Ballet School preforms Prokofiev’s Peter and the Wolf.

Unfortunately, the DVD is no longer available.

The Joy of Ballet

Boysballet — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 01:19:58 +0000

This Swedish documentary features a group of boys who attend a ballet school. The boys demonstrate that their classical ballet training is also useful to them in other activities such as break dancing, skateboarding, snowboarding, rollerblading, music, etc.

Here is a rough translation of what the boys are saying:

First Boy: My mother and I saw a program with boys who danced ballet.
I thought they were good. I want to start dancing and be just as good.

It is pretty tough: 1 1/2 hours four times a week.

I like to work on my balance and improve my flexibility and technique – better than everyone else at school. I almost have the best balance.

It is wonderful to be able to properly move my body and work other muscles.

I would like to become a star, famous ballet dancer and earn lots of money.

I do not care if my friends think I’m girly. Maybe I am, but I enjoy ballet and intend to continue. If boys are teased a lot and still continue to dance, I think it makes them stronger.

Second Boy: Ballet began with boys, so why is it considered a female sports?

Third Boy: People have an ingrained image …

First Boy: Two girls called me “Ballet, Ballet, Ballet,” they chanted. Then I started to call myself “Ballet” and they left off – for it was no fun teasing me when I played along.

When we break dance we have the advantage of our classical training where we learn to follow the rhythm and pace of the piano. Sit-ups and push-ups also build the muscle and strength we need to break dance. Others think break dancing is hard, but I am going into the Opera Ballet so I do not think it is so hard in comparison with classical ballet.

Ballet star finds his feet

Boysballet — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 02:21:23 +0000

by Rob Bates
Wentworth Courier
Photograph by Alan Price
November 16, 2009

Hal Chrichton-Standish may be the only male ballet dancer at Woollahra Primary School but the talented youngster said that wasn’t as tough as most people assume. “When you think about how people would react to seeing a boy doing ballet, you would normally think that they would tease me but they don’t. So that’s really good,” Hal said.

Hal, 11, was recently offered a place at the Australian Ballet School under its International Training Program. Having trained at Alegria Dance Studios in Woolloomooloo since he was four, Hal was picked from thousands of youngsters from Australia and abroad who auditioned.

“It all started when I watched a production of the Nutcracker with my mum when I was about three,” he said. “I think it was the fluidity of it all that I really liked. It’s just really grand.”

The Nutcracker is still his favourite production and in 2007 he danced with the Australian Ballet in the Royal Birmingham’s production of the piece at Sydney Opera House.

Hal’s mum, Kim Chrichton, said she had been taken completely by surprise when her son asked to enrol in ballet classes, but she couldn’t be more proud of him. “He was just blown away when he watched his first performance,” Ms Chrichton said. “He knelt for the entire thing because they didn’t have a booster seat and wouldn’t stop dancing around after seeing it.”

Hal is in the Department of Education State Dance Junior Ensemble, Drama Primary Ensemble and the Junior Singers and has been offered a place at a performing arts high school.

Secret ballet lessons made Billy the kid a star

Boysballet — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 02:48:03 +0000

Clare Morgan Arts editor
Sydney Morning Herald
Photo: Angela Wylie
November 9, 2009

It was a case of art imitating life for Dayton Tavares, a schoolboy about to take a star role in Billy Elliot the Musical on Broadway.

Dayton, 13, of Penrith, left for New York last week with his mother Sharon to begin rehearsals before his debut next month.

But in an echo of the musical – in which Billy takes ballet classes instead of the boxing lessons demanded by his coal miner father – Dayton spent six months learning ballet before spilling the beans to his father, Elvis. Kylie Vassallo, Dayton’s dance teacher at Studio 11, Penrith, said he came to a hip-hop class when he was nine after being persuaded by his sisters, Aeysha and Tenille.

Straight away, Ms Vassallo saw her new student had talent and suggested he take up dance. ”He had so much ability, which was obvious right away. He was doing soccer at the time but he fell in love with dance. I suggested he take up jazz and tap, but his father didn’t want him to do ballet. We snuck him into ballet class behind his father’s back and he did it for six months before his dad found out. Dayton was winning competitions after only six months, so his father could see there was something there,” Ms Vassallo said.

Dayton joined the Sydney production of Billy Elliot halfway through its run and starred on the opening night in Melbourne earlier this year. His proud father spent much of that performance in tears.

The youngster could not believe he had scored a role in the Broadway production, which won 10 Tony Awards this year. ”I had my last show in Melbourne and I thought that was it for Billy and then all of a sudden we got this big call saying, ‘We want you to go to New York,’ and it all just went from there,” he said.

He was ”a bit nervous” but was sure he would be fine for the demanding role.

Dayton is one of two new faces for the part, a 14-year-old from Canada also getting the call. Because of the role’s physical demands, with Billy on stage for most of the performance, four boys play him during a season.

Ms Vassallo said she had a very close relationship with Dayton – another echo of the Billy Elliot story, in which Billy forms a bond with his teacher. ”Dayton and I have a rare bond. I have closeness with all my students but with him, I don’t know – it’s just a respect that goes both ways.”

So much so that she has booked her flight to see him perform in January. ”I’m so excited. I really can’t believe it.”

Boys at the barre: Peabody adds new young dancers

Boysballet — Sat, 07 Nov 2009 01:37:16 +0000

By Greg Rienzi
The John Hopkins Gazette
November 2, 2009

Producing Peadody Dance’s end-of-season student performances requires creative planning when it comes to filling boys’ roles, says Carol Bartlett, artistic director of Peabody Dance.

The Peabody Institute is not alone. The Baltimore area, Bartlett says, has produced glaringly few male dance students in recent years. “There is a big void in male student enrollment in local training programs,” Bartlett says, “and we figured that we needed to create a new incentive for local boys to study ballet.”

In an effort to encourage boys to pursue dance and the arts, Peabody Dance approached the Estelle Dennis Trust Fund this past spring to support the launching of a scholarship program that allows boys ages 9 to 15 to study at the Preparatory one day a week. The Estelle Dennis Dance Scholarship Program for Boys, which debuted in September, is open to those who live in Baltimore City or County.

In its efforts to reach out to the dance community, Peabody Dance offers master classes and teachers’ seminars on an annual basis. About a dozen of these boys will participate in Peabody’s ninth annual Day of Master Classes and Ballet Teachers’ Seminar from 9 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. on Sunday, Nov. 8, in the dance studios of the Peabody Preparatory’s Mount Vernon campus. This year’s seminar includes a new session called Training the Male Student.

The new scholarship program draws inspiration from the 2000 movie Billy Elliot, which was later turned into a Tony Award–winning musical. Billy Elliot is the story of an 11-year-old boy from a working-class British family who discovers a passion for dance. On his way to boxing lessons, Billy stumbles upon a ballet class that he later secretly joins. Under the guidance of his teacher, Billy’s raw talent takes flight. Bartlett says that the program similarly wants to awaken talents in these Baltimore boys.

Students selected to participate receive full tuition and free dancing shoes to attend Saturday classes during Peabody Dance’s 32-week fall/spring season.

The program focuses on ballet, recognized as the building block for all theatrical dance forms. Participants are also introduced to other forms of dance, such as contemporary and hip-hop. In addition to classes, the boys attend dance performances and visit with professional dancers, both active and retired.

The Peabody program builds upon the Estelle Dennis Dance Scholarship, established in 2005 with the intent of continuing the work and legacy of the local dance legend. The scholarship is awarded to an advanced male ballet student who resides in the mid-Atlantic region and is preparing for a career with a major ballet company. Peabody hosts the annual auditions.

A leader in the contemporary American dance scene, Estelle Dennis dedicated her life and career to creating training and performance opportunities for young dancers in both the amateur and professional arenas. In 1934, the Roland Park native and former Denishawn dancer opened her Dance Theatre in a converted carriage house at 100 E. Monument St. in Baltimore. The Estelle Dennis Dance Group blended modern dance and ballet choreography with ethnic music and dance traditions, creating an entirely new American style. Dennis remained active at the Dance Theatre until 1986. She died in 1996 at the age of 87.

This past April, Bartlett, artistic adviser Barbara Weisberger and others at Peabody approached those overseeing the Estelle Dennis Trust Fund to support an effort to establish a dance program for boys at Peabody. The response was enthusiastic.

Peabody hired former Pennsylvania Ballet dancer Meredith Rainey to teach the students, along with Peabody faculty member Tim Rinko-Gay.

To help recruit the boys, Peabody reached out to leaders at Baltimore City and County public schools and at various cultural organizations, including the Heritage Theater Artists and the Arena Players Youth Theater.

Peabody held a marathon set of auditions on May 18 at Roland Park Elementary and Middle School, Mount Royal School and Peabody. The sessions drew nearly 60 applicants. Twenty-four were selected.

“The response was magnificent and a real energy booster to the Peabody team,” Bartlett says. “I don’t think Barbara and I will ever forget that day of effervescent human response. We wanted to take them all, and it was as if they could not get enough of the opportunity to move. It truly was a testimony to the obvious need out here for a much more driven focus on dance training.”

Weisberger, founding artistic director of the Pennsylvania Ballet, says that the auditions were a revelation. “[The boys] were so joyous and excited,” Weisberger says. “Some of them could hardly do some of the steps and positions, but they laughed and enjoyed it. Then we had them do their own thing, and they were marvelous. You could just see the raw talent that wanted to come to the surface.”

Bartlett says that in addition to designing and implementing the program, Peabody seeks to nurture the boys and families on a one-to-one basis. “In offering this opportunity for city and county boys to study ballet, we realize that much more is at issue than merely asking them to step over to a classical art form that on the surface is not exactly relevant to their daily lives or culture,” she says. “The effort to make it relevant to them is equally, if not more, a challenge than the actual training.”

Bartlett and Weisberger are now in the process of writing a proposal seeking funding to extend the scholarship program. The plan is to add an intensive training program for the boys currently in the program, as well as to offer classes for new recruits and begin a class focused on boys ages 8 to 10.

“There is obviously a need to offer more,” she says. “It’s not enough to whet their appetites with one class per week. We need to keep their interest peaked and find ways to give context to serious dance training in their lives.”

Weisberger agrees that Peabody needs to build upon the early momentum. “For too long we have been faced with the loss of serious male students in all dance forms,” Weisberger says. “This program has caught on, and it’s nothing short of life giving.”

The next auditions will take place in late spring 2010.