Explore This Month's E-Resources - School of Dance: November 2024

This video is devoted to examining selected passages of Balanchine's choreography in detail. In a studio setting, Edward Villella coaches Sara Esty, Alex Wong, and Miami City Ballet on Tarantella. The overall goal of the Video Archives Program is to create an original "manuscript" of Balanchine ballets by preserving not only the steps but the nuances of the choreography as conceived and taught to the dancers by Balanchine himself.

Black Ballerina is a story of passion, heartbreak and triumph of the human spirit. Set in the overwhelmingly white world of classical dance, it tells the stories of amazingly talented black ballerinas from several generations who face racism, exclusion and unequal opportunity while pursuing their dreams to dance. Interviews are combined with stunning archival ballet footage and photography to explore how the challenges of the past still exist in the ethereal world of ballet today.

Dunhuang Dance is a form of Chinese dance that draws sources from body movements depicted in artifacts found in Dunhuang Mogao Caves. Located in Gansu Province of China, along the Silk Route, at the crossroads of trade as well as religious, cultural and intellectual influences, the seven hundred and thirty five caves are famous for their statues and fresco paintings, spanning 1,000 year of Buddhist art. Thousand Hand Guan Yin, a representative of Dunhuang Dance featured in this program is a contemporary creation conceived by the renowned Chinese choreographer, ZHANG Jigang, and produced by the China Disabled Performing Art Troupe. In this dance, a group of hearing-impaired dancers effectively utilize their body language to communicate the magic of "thousand hands" and hints at the deep meaning of Buddhism, its luminescence and boundless love.

VAKA, DRUA, AND MOANA were created and produced as a trilogy of films that focus on the art of canoe voyaging in the Pacific. VAKA is about the traditional art of canoe building on Fiji, DRUA is about collaboration in double-hulled canoe building among Fiji, Tonga, Samoa, and Kiribati and the demise of this art form when steam ships arrived in the Pacific, while MOANA is about the symbol of the double-hulled canoe as a hope for rising sea levels and the human effects of climate change on the Pacific Islands. All three originated from the Oceania Center for Arts, Culture, and Pacific Studies (OCACPS) based at the University of the South Pacific and are informed by scholarly research. They were conceived by Vilsoni Hereniko who was the Director of the OCACPS from late 2008-2010 in collaboration with Peter Espiritu, Igelese Ete, and Allan Alo, all well-known artists working in Oceania. All three productions are extraordinary in that they used huge casts and cost a lot of money to stage and film. These films are particularly important because they demonstrate the beauty and power of the performative arts of Oceania (traditional as well as modern and contemporary) at their best in terms of communicating and disseminating important historical and cultural knowledge about the voyaging traditions of the Pacific. These films are multi-disciplinary as well as inter-disciplinary in their approach to research and dissemination of cultural and historical information employing art forms that are rooted in traditional Pacific cultures: music, dance, oral storytelling, chanting, and indigenous aesthetics.

Going to see Nutcracker with the whole family has been a tradition in other countries for many years. Now it is a tradition in the Netherlands as well. It became apparent that the Netherlands had also adopted this tradition in 1996, when the Dutch National Ballet presented its own version of the famous fairytale ballet. It is a magical production that has won the hearts of more than 250,000 people to date. Choreographers Toer van Schayk and Wayne Eagling created a Nutcracker for the children and adults of today. It is more dynamic and exciting, and less sweet than usual. They also chose to give a Dutch twist to their interpretation of the story, with skaters on the canals and a living room that transforms into a snowy forest. Unlike the original story, the production by Eagling and Van Schayk (who also designed the delightful sets and costumes) does not take place on Christmas Eve in a German town, but during St. Nicholas celebrations in Amsterdam, around 1810.