Latest news bits - (March 2008)

. . . Here she is, Annie Cannon (r), who is dancing Coppelia with Colorado Ballet.


News bits - (February 2008)

From Melissa Hough: "I wanted to let you know, first of all, that Boston Ballet is performing at the Kennedy Center June 13 and 15. I will definitely be in the piece, so if you're around, I'd love to see you or visit KAB. Also, I wanted to inform you that I was promoted last season to First Soloist ... something I wasn't sure would happen for me and certainly not as soon as it did. So, things are going well in Boston."

Houston, TX – The Houston Ballet kicked off a new season with its 2008 Ballet Ball. The season is named “Gershwin Glam” and is inspired by the musicals and films of the 1940’s. The star of the evening was KAB alum Connor Walsh, who was promoted to Principal last September.

Cheerio from the UK – Mathias Dingman is dancing the role of Benno in Swan Lake in Sunderland, UK, on March 15th at the matinee performance. There is a good chance he will also dance this role in Manchester or Plymouth. Mathias has been learning the solo part in “Take Five” a ‘jazz’ piece and may have the opportunity to dance this role during a tour.



From Ralph Hoffmann:
I believe that there are moments when bragging, if done in all humility, is a good thing. Especially when one is confronted with such a stupendous moment that it seems that bragging isn’t even enough. Be that as it may, there was occasion last week when The American Ballet Theatre was presenting their version of the Sleeping Beauty when one felt like standing up and yelling “Let’s hear it for the Kirov Academy”. Looking at the stage at that moment there would be--before our very own eyes--at one time, seven of our graduates on stage together. Michele Wiles, dancing Lilac Fairy, Maria Bystrova, as Carabosse, Melanie Hamrick, as the Fairy of Sincerity, Hee Seo, as Puss-in-Boots, Karen Uphoff, as Cinderella, Eun Young Ahn and Jessica Saund, in the Corps. Sascha Radetsky, a soloist, was not dancing that night. I’m sorry but a little bragging is appropriate here. Of course there are other graduates all over the world in companies and we are equally proud of them. But to have such a high concentration of dancers in a company as prestigious as ABT is extremely rare. We are so very proud of all of them.

From Mary Catherine West aka Mme. Alumni :
Hello KAB alumni and friends, News from KAB Alums in Stuttgart.... -Evan McKie dances 1st Prince Siegfried in Swan Lake with the Stuttgart Ballet in November. He will then dance the role as a guest in Spain during December. -Elizabeth Mason dances opening night of ‘Lulu’ at the Stuttgart Ballet (Feb 1st). She is the tragic title character in the award winning ballet, exclusive to the Stuttgart Ballet. -Laura O'Malley triumphs at German Ballet Gala dancing ''URLICHT'' pas duex, William Forsythe's FIRST ever choreography originally created in the early 1970's. -Evan McKie receives critical acclaim for portrayal of 'Lenski' in John Cranko's ''Onegin'' after gala performances with Polina Semionova and another opposite Korean ballerina Sue Jin Kang. Fun fact: Dana Genshaft and Rory Hohenstein (SanFran Ballet) reprise roles originally created for Laura O'Malley and Evan McKie (Stuttgart Ballet) in Wayne McGregor's (resident choreographer Royal Ballet) “EDEN/EDEN’’. Stuttgart Ballet and San Francisco Ballet are the only two companies to have exclusive rights to this ballet! KAB “kidz” are using their Kirov knowledge to inspire choreographers the world over! News from Seoul, Korea….. Shih Huai Liang ’06, is now a full member of the corps of Universal Ballet Company! Shih-Huai reports that he has been working with the company for 5 months now. He is starting to learn a little Korean. He misses everyone at KAB and hopes to visit LA later this year with the company. Mary Catherine West aka Mme. Alumni



Weddings update!

November 2007 - News about alumni weddings keep trickling in... Sergey Rayevskiy (class of '98) and Jessica Little (class of '99)
were married on July 6, 2002 (see picture below). Congratulations to all!




Correction.

July 2007 - Dana Genshaft and Peter Volz, theirs was the first alumni wedding! Sorry about the omission.
Dana and Peter, pleeease, send us a family picture! (email to galli@kirovacademydc.org)


Seen in Vienna...

........
April 2007 -Our teacher Mme Achmedova took students Bryn Gilbert and Philip Slocki to compete in the Austrian OTR ballet competiton (they did very well, but no medals this time), and look who dropped by...! Alumni Ian Lindeman and Shane Wuerthner are doing great at the Vienna Ballet!



Adrienne Canterna & Rasta Thomas, first (actually, the second, see above!) alumni wedding!

........
April 2007 - On March 31 Adrienne and Rasta were married. "It was like a fairy tale wedding", writes Adrienne. "My bridal party was filled with KAB alumni... my sister and sister in law, Ashley and Alicia Canterna, Allyson Kelly and Rachel Hamrick!" Congratulations and best wishes from all of us!



Hee Seo visits UBA, shares with senior class.


February 2006 - It is always so nice to have our alumni stop by for a visit! Hee Seo spent a couple of days here at the Academy, and found some time to share with the seniors about her professonal experience since graduating from UBA. She is now with ABT, and collecting more and more positive reviews from critics and public alike. We expect to hear great things about her in the future!



Universal Ballet Academy student and graduates perform in the gala and take awards at the International Ballet Competition in Helsinki, Finland!

June 2005 - Mathias Lenz Dingman placed third in the junior men's category. He will perform Joe Istre's "Hunter" in the gala. Brooklyn Mack received one of the Encouragement Awards. He will perform Terrace Henderson/Brooklyn Mack's choreography piece called "Bouncin' Back". Melissa Hough placed third in the senior women's category. She will also perform in the gala.
Out of about 155 competitors, all of our students participating in the competition made it to the semi-finals!


Sasha Radetsky at UBA.


Sasha visited our school and shared about his professional experiences and career since training at UBA in 1994-5 (he has starred in the motion picture Center Stage, and he is now soloist with ABT). Afterwards he was promptly mobbed by the crowd asking for his autograph !


Introducing ... Mme Alumni !


Here is your very own Mary Catherine West (aka "Mme Alumni") posing with visiting alumni Danny Tidwell and Melanie Hamrick. Danny and Melanie were taking a break from performing at the Kennedy Center with ABT.


... and the winner is ... see below

Announcing the first ever UBA "Name That Performance Contest" !

THIS CONTEST IS "TEMPORARILY PUT ON HOLD". Every month or so we will post an image from UBA's past performances.
We are asking you to "name that performance" and send us the date of the performance (e.g., Spring 1999).
If you are in the picture, that will give you a great big hint!

To win a prize, you must send in the correct answer AND send us the contact information (name/email or home address) of a former student/grad of UBA/KAB. Email your answer to west@ubacademy.org .

PRIZES. Everyone who sends the correct answer AND information for a fellow alumnus will receive the coveted,
beautifully embossed KIROV ACADEMY OF BALLET pen.
A “Grand Prize” (a beautiful Universal Ballet Academy t-shirt) will be awarded to the person who sends in information for the most number of alumni (and the correct answer!) In case of a tie, the correct answer received first will win. Don't forget to include the mailing address where you want to receive your prize!

Here is the third image. Deadline to receive your answer is February 23 !


The image is from the June 1995 performance. Congratulations to Danee Pontious for sending in the correct answer !


Messages & Tidbits from recent graduates...

Update on Jennica Bramble, she has taken a year off from American University to dance with the Donetsk Ballet of Ukraine. They will tour England with Cinderella, Nutcracker, and Swan Lake. After that, they may tour China or Greece... She writes, "please tell all the students good luck and to always keep their minds open to ballet no matter how rough it may be because there are so many wonderful opportunities all over the world for them." Lily Peck is going to be dancing with The Aspen/Santa Fe Ballet for their Nutcracker this year (in Santa Fe on Dec. 9-10-11, and in Aspen on Dec. 16-17-18.) This will be her first professional performance! She gets paid very well and she opens in her home town where she has not performed since she was ten years old. Ian Lindemann has won the Gold Medal at the Premio Roma International Ballet Competition in Rome, Italy. Ian graduated last year from UBA, and will soon join the Vienna Ballet. Maxim Clefos was unable to get a visa into the US in order to meet his contract with Boston Ballet II, so he responded to an ad in Dance Europe magazine for an audition with a Denmark ballet company. They happily offered him a contract on the spot for their season commencing on Dec 1 2004. Jennica Bramble is doing well and enjoying AU (American University). She is taking the advanced ballet classes which are offered in the graduate program and has begun taking classes also at Maryland Youth Ballet. Samantha Livingston attended the San Diego Ballet summer program and was offered a spot with them. She decided to defer attending UCLA and is now dancing with San Diego! They will be in Colorado performing during Thanksgiving. Emily Bicks is at NYU having a great time. She's in the top ballet class, preparing for their winter program. Joanna DeFelice is at the Debbie Allen Dance Academy in Los Angeles, where she studies ballet, pointe, partnering, modern, jazz, Dunham technique, hip-hop, salsa, African, flamenco, character, acting, and "silk". This last class involves working with silk ropes that are hung from the rafters. Only about a fourth of the kids auditioning for the class were accepted, because one has to be strong enough to perform while suspended in the air, holding oneself in Cirque du Soleil type poses. Joanna was just cast in Ms. Allen's L.A. production of "Dreams", with performances scheduled for the month of December. Stephanie Pedlow is back at home (Vancouver, Canada) attending The Goh Ballet Academy's professional program. (The Goh is the school which produced, Alex Wong, the gold medal winner at 2004 Prix Lausanne). She has been complemented many times on her "beautiful russian training" , thanks to UBA. The Goh, also teaches the Vagonova method, and they are thrilled to have Stephanie join them this year. Academically, Steph is attending one of BC's most highly acclaimed high schools, Sentinnel Secondary, as a "Super Achiever", which means her program is organized in a half day format so she can dance in the afternoons. The only downside is the travel to and from different schools, but so far we have arranged car pooling, so I'm not relgated to the driver's seat 24/6! The best part-she is back at home! Steph loved UBA but really never got over missing home...now she has it all! Carolyn Taconi is dancing with Universal Ballet in Seoul. She left August 29 on her great adventure. She says, "Korea is nice so far...everything is working out well with the company and I fit in well". She also said, "they put up a schedule of the shows we're doing...apparently we're doing 10 shows in 4 different cities for Shimchung, and then 23 shows in I think around 6 or 7 cities for Nutcracker"; "also we're doing Swan Lake for the start of next season, and some company in China wants to host us to have us do it over there in a few cities...it's not definite yet though, Julia is giving the co until mid sept I think to finalize everything". Alexis Englehart's mom writes: "Over the summer we spent a week in Ocean City, MD for Starpower Nationals. This is the competition that Danny Tidwell, Ashley Canterna, and Melissa Hogue all won during their beginning careers as dancers. Well in keeping this tradition I'm happy to announce Alexis won top soloist for 2004! I have posted some of her pix. to the UBAPTSO groups under pictures. We were so excited for her. There were 140 routines she competed against. It was great, best part she won $500.00. We had a great summer! Alexis is taking ballet at MYB and still dancing at Dancensations. She will probably travel with the American Dance Company to Italy to compete for the cup in June. We'll see how things go. I do know she misses everyone from UBA." And this from Ashlee Dupre: "Hello UBA !! welcome back. Just wanted to write a little hello to everyone. I am in Colorado Ballet now and its such a change from school. We have crazy amounts of rehearsals and by the end of the day you just want to sleep! I am now getting used to it so it hasn't been all that bad this past week. I must say that UBA's training did help me tremendously. So I want to say thank you to all that got me through all 4 years of school and have a fantastic year! "


... and from older ones !

T.J. Milne (2003) is still dancing up north... check out this website: www.kitchener.com Elizabeth Mason has been promoted to Soloist with the Stuttgart Ballet. She recently performed the lead in “Romeo & Juliet”. Maria Bystrova was at the White House on December 7 to dance for President and Mrs. Bush. The show was broacasted on HGTV. Danny Tidwell and Adrienne Canterna are now dancing with Complexions, a contemporary ballet company in NYC. And they have also been asked to return to Jackson, Mississippi this summer to perform at the Opening Ceremonies of the IBC! Hans Nelson is now a substitute teacher at Washington School of Ballet. Micki Kolberg ('02), is still dancing in England (most recently with a small company in London called Ballet Black), and she writes that she is "having a wonderful time!" Jessica Thomson Saund ('96), was just visiting here at the Academy, and shared with the senior class her experience and professional career. After dancing for the last five years with the English National Ballet, she is now going to join her lifelong dream, ABT! Dragos Mihalcea ('96), a principal dancer with the Royal Swedish Ballet, is taking a leave of absence for the '05-'06 to dance as a principal dancer with the Dutch National Ballet, joining J'aime Crandall, (00), who has been at Dutch National since 2003. Aeri Kim got 2nd prize, Junior women division at the 2nd Seoul Intenational Ballet Competiton. Hye-Min Hwang ('96) and Jae-Yong Ohm ('99) will be dancing Sleeping Beauty Pas de Deux and Moonlight Pas de Deux from Shim Chung at the World Ballet Stars Gala at the Budapest Opera House, Hungary on September 17. Also, they will be dancing the lead roles in Don Quixote at the Donetsk State Opera Ukraine on October 8. And in the International Festival "World Ballet Stars" in Donetsk, Ukraine on October 7 & 10, in Lvov, Ukraine on October 11, and in Kiev, Ukraine on October 12. In the Festival, they will be dancing the pas de duex from Nacho Duato's Duende, and Moonlight Pas de Deux from Shim Chung. Michele Wiles has been promoted to Principal Dancer at ABT. Barry Kerollis just finished his first season with Pacific Northwest Ballet, "and it was quite an amazing season" he writes. Lisa Oberman will be dancing with USA Ballet starting in Sept05. T.J. Milne is also dancing there! The company is in Normal, Illinois, just outside Chicago. Just heard that J'Amie Crandall is with the Dutch National Ballet! Elizabeth Mason is with the Stuttgard Ballet, she will be performing the roll of Bianca in The Taming of the Shrew on March 8 and March 12. She is also rehearsing for the Peasant Pas in Giselle (3rd cast). Jashua Brooksher and his wife Natasha have started their very own International Ballet Academy in Mesa, Az. "As Artistic Director," he writes, "I find that the depth and breadth of my training and experiences at KAB/UBA has provided me with everything I need to help my own students". See the website! (www.I-B-A.com) Danee Pontious just passed the Alaska Bar exam, she writes "the same skills of performance and artistry requisite in ballet are applicable in the Courtroom, and I hope to have a successful career as a trial lawyer". She would love to hear from old friends (email her to dpontiou@student.law.du.edu). Sascha Radetsky is on the cover, and is the cover story, in the December 2004 issue of Dance Spirit magazine. In the interview, Sascha remembers his two years at UBA as "very influential on my dancing. I learned a lot and really grew up there. It really sticks in my mind, that experience." The November 2004 issue of Dance Europe magazine mentions Vanessa Zahorian, performing with San Francisco Ballet's London Season. She danced Petipa's Paquita, along with Frances Chung and Guennadi Nedviguine. She also danced Ballanchine's Ballo della Regina with Gonzalo Garcia. Matthew Golding and Hee Seo will be performing at the Skirball Theater December 3 & 4th in NYC. Connor Walsh graduated from the Houston Ballet School program and now has a contract with Houston Ballet. Hans Nelson performed in the Act I Pas de Trois in Swan Lake with Loudoun Ballet on March 27 and 28 and currently attends Goucher College as a Music (vocal) major. Ian Poulis writes: "Well, I have taken it upon myself to let the world know that it is ok for a boy to dance. After being involved in a discussion on the BalletTalk message board about little boys in ballet, I felt it to be my duty to write a book on the matter. Being a male dancer, I can relate. And at one time I was a little boy in ballet so I can relate even more. Whether or not this book gets published, I will sell it through a third party that I am already selling stuff through at the moment. So it will be available to you all when I am finally done with it. It may be a lengthy process, but I think it will be well worth it. In the book I will be talking about how I got started, what pain and anger of both emotional and physical I had to go through, what it takes to me a male dancer and I hope to tell some fun and exciting stories that I have experienced on my way up the ranks and the ones I am still climbing. It should hopefully be a good read for everyone and I think you will enjoy it." Jinny Campbell attended UBA (when it was known as KAB) from 1995-1996. She is a corps de ballet dancer with Ballet Internationale in Indianapolis, IN. She graduated with honors from Butler University in 2004 with a B.S. in Arts Administration / Dance. And did you know that Adrienne Canterna has her very own company? They are having a Fall Dance Festival October 16-17. Her sisters Ashley and Alicia are part of the company. So is our former student Allyson Kelly. Ceck out their website at www.americandanceartists.com