Monday, November 22, 2010

Tulsa Ballet Center for Dance Education Students Sweep Regional Competition



Tulsa Ballet Center for Dance Education students represented Tulsa Ballet at the Youth America Grand Prix Regional Semi-Finals held in Houston, Texas November 5th – 7th, where top students from ballet schools throughout the region vied for medals, honors, and the chance to compete the YAGP Finals in New York this spring. The Pre-Professional students performed in the ensemble category and each student also performed a solo variation.

The Tulsa Ballet students are: Grace Chanslor (15), Joy Chen (17), Reagan Collins (16), Nikolas Gaifullin (15), Michaela Harrington (14), Brittan Jenkins (17), Bobbie Lynn Kandravi (15), Hana Lethen (16), Madison Pride (15), Calley Skalnik (15), and Rachel Wells (17). All students are currently in level 6 in TBCDE and train 6 days per week.

And the results are in:
1st place ensemble ~ Tulsa Ballet ensemble &
Bobbie Lynn Kandravi and Nikolas Gaifullin, pas de deux



2nd place Senior Classical ~ Calley Skalnik



Top 12 Senior Classical ~ Calley Skalnik, Madison Pride,
Nikolas Gaifullin
Top 12 Senior Contemporary ~ Nikolas Gaifullin
Top 12 Junior Classical ~ Michaela Harrington




Outstanding School ~ Tulsa Ballet Center for Dance Education

And the top prize of the competition…
Grand Prix ~ Nikolas Gaifullin






The first place ranking of the ensemble, along with an overall score of over 95 points, awarded all participating TBCDE students a bid to compete at the International Finals held in New York, March 17 – 22, 2011. These accolades were made possible through the highly qualified and skilled instruction and coaching of the TBCDE faculty: Liudmila Polonskaya, School Principal; Stephanie Murrish, CDE faculty; and Daniil Gaifullin, CDE faculty. The instructors spent countless hours setting choreography and coaching each dancer and will accompany them to New York.

Way to go team!!

Thursday, November 11, 2010

Ballet Russe Exhibit at the V and A

The Victoria and Albert Museum in London has a special exhibit on the Ballet Russe, on display through January.

Read all about it here: http://www.vam.ac.uk/collections/theatre_performance/diaghilev-ballet-russes/exhibition/index.html



Tulsa Ballet founder Roman Jasinski in The Prodigal Son, created for The Ballet Russe by George Balanchine

Tuesday, November 2, 2010

The Nutcracker: Past, Present and Future


On December 16, 1956, Georgia Lloyd Jones, a ballet student, took the stage in Tulsa’s first performance of The Nutcracker. She and seventeen other young students danced the Snow Scene, with Moscelyne Larkin and Roman Jasinski, newly retired from dancing with the Ballet Russe, performing the lead roles. That night marked the first performance of the company that would become Tulsa Ballet.

In the 1970's , after years away, Georgia, now Snoke, moved back to Tulsa with her family, now including a husband and two daughters, and returned to the studio. Her eldest daughter became, at age five, the first 'Baby Angel' in The Nutcracker; her youngest daughter moved through the ranks and the years into the coveted role of 'Clara', and year in and year out Georgia performed with them as 'Frau Silberhaus,' the mother.

Fast forward to today: Georgia continues her involvement with the Nutcracker through her roles as the Ballet Mistress and Queen in Marcello Angelini’s production, but also behind the scenes. Georgia, along with Mackie Sutton (also a former dancer), and Merry Lahti (whose daughter was a mouse in the late 1980’s), volunteer their time to audition and train all of the children.

While the current version of The Nutcracker, choreographed in 2002 by Marcello Angelini, uses fewer children than the traditional Jasinski version (although still more than 100 are cast), the young performers are asked to “do more,” including dance and act. In order to ensure that the product maintains the excellence audience members expect from Tulsa Ballet productions, the children must prove their talent for performing as well as willingness and ability to learn quickly.





An elementary school teacher, Merry begins her work during summer so that she can focus only on her teaching when school starts. She prepares the audition notice in July so that it can appear in August publications and she, Mackie and Georgia recruit volunteers to help with the September auditions. At the auditions, there are three major character groups--mice (the smallest), soldiers and Ballet School students. Some of the latter are in soft shoes, the older girls en pointe, and several are boys (with serious ballet training behind them) who provide the antics in the ballet class scene.








“Auditions are hard,” says Georgia. “ Children are auditioned as much by how attentive they can be when watching others as by how they perform. We are picky because we want children who can focus throughout multiple rehearsals, and then confidently appear on stage with professional dancers in front of an audience that has paid good money to see a gorgeous ballet. This is not a recital. It is serious business.

“On the other hand, it is great fun, too, and our goal is to have each child leave his or her "Nutcracker" experience knowing that he is better than he began and has contributed to the success of a thoroughly professional production. That and that alone is our pay...our reward...for hours of effort and energy.”