Despite performing four school shows, a corporate viewing show and three regular shows in Ogden, tonight is opening night!  The company spent last week, minus Thanksgiving day, in Ogden.  There, we performed our annual Ogden Nutcracker shows for packed crowds.  From my view on stage I didn’t see many empty seats, which is great!  This week in Salt Lake has been dedicated to performing school shows and readying less experienced casts.  I will update more next week from DC!  Oh, by the way, we’re performing The Nutcracker at The Kennedy Center next week, woo hoo!

Beckanne Sisk, Katie Critchlow & Adrian Fry in Spanish

Thomas Mattingly in the Grande Pas De Deux

Chase O’Connell as a mouse in the battle scene

Tyler Gum with the men of Russian

-Beau

The Lottery program closed Saturday night and the Nutcracker will be on stage before you can say, “IT’S NOT FAIR!”  I wanted to give But Never Doubt I Love (Hellen Pickett), The Lottery (Val Caniparoli), and Bolero (Nicolo Fonte) a proper farewell (for now) with a post of pictures.  So, here are pictures I took from the wings to capture the dancers up close and personal.

Arolyn Williams & Christopher Sellars in BUT NEVER DOUBT I LOVE

Katherine Lawrence & Ronnie Underwood in BUT NEVER DOUBT I LOVE

Arolyn Williams & Christopher Sellars in BUT NEVER DOUBT I LOVE

Emily Adams in THE LOTTERY

Owen Gaj & Company in THE LOTTERY

Emily Adams & Company in THE LOTTERY

Jenna Rae Herrera & Rex Tilton in THE LOTTERY

Emily Adams & Christopher Ruud in THE LOTTERY

Jacqueline Straughan in THE LOTTERY

Emily Adams in THE LOTTERY

Christiana Bennett & Adrian Fry in THE LOTTERY

Emily Adams & Christopher Ruud in THE LOTTERY

Katie Critchlow & Thomas Mattingly in THE LOTTERY

Allison DeBona & Trevor Naumann in THE LOTTERY

Katherine Lawrence in BOLERO

Alex MacFarlan & Company in BOLERO

Christiana Bennett in BOLERO

-Beau

Hello everyone,

This is Peter Christie giving you a short update on our Education activities going on this past week.
Ballet West II and Ballet West Academy Trainees have hit the road this past week bringing a newly costumed Ballet West for Children.  A huge thank you goes out to David Heuvel, Cindy Farrimond and the Ballet West costume shop for the beautiful costumes.  This year’s production of Ballet and The Nutcracker has begun its first week visiting elementary schools throughout the state of Utah.

Jeff Rogers, Cati Snarr and I are leading groups that are spanning from Vernal to Grouse Creek!  My group on Wednesday drove nearly 400 miles in one day, leaving from Salt Lake City at 5:45 in the morning.  We visited three schools in north-eastern Utah, with Grouse Creek Elementary only having 6 students and 2 teachers! You can see the group performing in the picture below.  What a great school! … and so appreciative of us driving all the way to visit them in their school.  We were treated to one of the students (Heston) performing on the piano for us afterwards, sharing his talent with us as well.  Our group has also hit Morgan, North Summit, Nebo and Tooele Districts.

Artists of Ballet West II and the Ballet West Academy

Cati Snarr has been visiting schools up and down the Wasatch front with great reactions from the schools.  Jeff traveled with his group to Uintah, Duchesne and Daggett Districts as well and has been reporting in with great responses from the students and teachers as well.

In this one week alone, we’ve visited 15 different districts, 40 elementary schools and nearly 18,000 students and teachers … and had a great time along the way.  We’ll be going out again in the second week of January, and the last week of February.  Our goal is to bring our program to 120-125 schools this year!

Paige Adams & Chase O’Connell

I’m blogging from my dressing room before getting ready to go on stage.  After all the preparation, The Lottery is finally here!  I thought the ballet came together really well as I watched the dress rehearsal last night.  One thing that is cool about the ballet is that as the audience watches in anticipation for who will draw the mark, so do all the dancers back stage who aren’t in The Lottery that show.  We all cheer on the dancer who is about to be stoned to death because the stamina heavy solo you have to dance makes you feel like you’re actually going to die by the end of it.  The ballet is beautiful and creepy and intense and emotional … Val Caniparoli hit this one right on the mark (get it? “the mark”).  The Lottery is getting a lot of attention because it is a world premiere but the ballet is paired with Helen Pickett’s, But Never Doubt I Love; and Nicolo Fonte’s, Bolero – both really nice ballets.  This is a great way to start off the season with an entertaining triple bill.  I took some pictures from the last couple tech and dress rehearsals on stage.

Arolyn Williams & Christopher Sellars in BUT NEVER DOUBT I LOVE

Christiana Bennett in BUT NEVER DOUBT I LOVE

Christiana Bennett & Christopher Anderson in BUT NEVER DOUBT I LOVE

Beckanne Sisk & Christopher Sellars in BOLERO

Thomas Mattingly & company in BOLERO

Christopher Ruud in THE LOTTERY

Katie Critchlow & Thomas Mattingly in THE LOTTERY

Sayaka Ohtaki & Owen Gaj in THE LOTTERY

The company in THE LOTTERY

Katie Critchlow & Thomas Mattingly in THE LOTTERY

Emily Adams & Christopher Ruud in THE LOTTERY

Owen Gaj & company in THE LOTTERY

I should have captioned that picture, “Owen Gaj is about to die” because it rhymes … and it’s true, look at their faces!

-Beau