“Ballerinas in the church hall”—Virginia Taylor’s thesis online
Joyce Kilmer thought she would never see a poem as lovely as a tree; well, I’m pretty sure I will never see a thesis as lovely as Virginia Taylor’s “Ballerinas…
Judith Espinosa, the fishermen’s wives and the waltz
As allegro was about to begin during a ballet class yesterday, I started to smirk thinking about something I’d read in Derek Parker’s fascinating book, The First 75 Years of…
Ballet pianists on film
Film clips of ballet pianists playing for class are so rare. There are films (such as the World Ballet Day online classes) where pianists play for a class that is…
Do marches really have to have dotted rhythms?
Nice to see an article about marching music, one of the weird, esoteric topics that perplex ballet pianists like me: a 2018 conference paper byNiels Hansen, Nicholas Shea & David…
Black Swan, the design of everyday things, and the extended mind
I’ve been very nervous of trying out the orchestral reduction I made in January 2015 of the Black Swan female variation for real-life principals in companies in case I became too distracted…
10 fabulous ballet women for International Women’s Day 2018
One of the reasons I started blogging was because I was frustrated that journalists and historians tended to focus only on the big names: the stars, the directors, the choreographers,…