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Monday, January 17, 2022
After almost 4 decades, the San Francisco Ballet has a new director
NPR: This week, the San Francisco Ballet announced that Tamara Rojo will be its first new director in almost four decades. Also, she will happen to be its first female director. Tamara Rojo joins us now from London. Thanks so much for being with us.
1 comment:
Katie Sabel
said...
I'm from the bay area, and I never knew that SF Ballet hadn't yet had a female director! I used to do ballet growing up, and I can definitely see what she's saying about the kind of limiting roles for ballerinas, as well. I wonder where new stories for ballets will come from. In order to allow for new roles, they'll likely have to either find older, overlooked ballets or else commission new ones. One ballet I saw a few years ago with neither swans nor fairies was The Great Gatsby. The three female leads- Daisy, Jordan Baker, and Myrtle- all have distinct personalities. More ballets like that could definitely help ballerinas break out of those old archetypes.
Rojo's story about online ballet class also rang true for me. I had scene, and took a few, of an Instagram live ballet class run by Tyler Peck, a ballerina with the New York City Ballet. That was during summer or fall of 2020, though. It was interesting, but I can't imagine it's any great substitute for the real thing, especially for professional ballet dancers accustomed to hours of daily rehearsal.
1 comment:
I'm from the bay area, and I never knew that SF Ballet hadn't yet had a female director! I used to do ballet growing up, and I can definitely see what she's saying about the kind of limiting roles for ballerinas, as well. I wonder where new stories for ballets will come from. In order to allow for new roles, they'll likely have to either find older, overlooked ballets or else commission new ones. One ballet I saw a few years ago with neither swans nor fairies was The Great Gatsby. The three female leads- Daisy, Jordan Baker, and Myrtle- all have distinct personalities. More ballets like that could definitely help ballerinas break out of those old archetypes.
Rojo's story about online ballet class also rang true for me. I had scene, and took a few, of an Instagram live ballet class run by Tyler Peck, a ballerina with the New York City Ballet. That was during summer or fall of 2020, though. It was interesting, but I can't imagine it's any great substitute for the real thing, especially for professional ballet dancers accustomed to hours of daily rehearsal.
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