{"id":57277,"date":"2021-02-26T09:36:52","date_gmt":"2021-02-26T15:36:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/?p=57277"},"modified":"2021-03-04T09:44:44","modified_gmt":"2021-03-04T15:44:44","slug":"ballet-wests-winter-streaming-series-a-welcome-treat","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/ballet-wests-winter-streaming-series-a-welcome-treat\/","title":{"rendered":"Ballet West’s Winter Streaming Series a Welcome Treat"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>

Beckanne Sisk and Hadriel Diniz in George Balanchine’s Rubies<\/p><\/div>\n

On Thursday night, around 9 pm, I sat down to watch Ballet West\u2019s latest in their Winter Streaming series \u2014 Balanchine\u2019s Rubies<\/em>. At just over 20 minutes in length, an excavated chunk like this is exactly <\/em>how much televised ballet I want to watch after staring at my other, smaller, screens all day. Selecting shorter one-acts and breaking up full-length evening works like Jewels<\/em> may be helping BW stretch their pre-Covid filmed content, but it\u2019s also a really welcome choice from a viewer\u2019s perspective.<\/h4>\n

I watched the three-minute Director\u2019s Pointe introduction video first. There\u2019s a little background history, a little setting the tone, a crackling fire \u2014 Adam Sklute is having a great time. Although each week\u2019s selection for the series is only up for seven days, these introductory snippets remain posted on the BW YouTube channel \u2014 if you\u2019ve missed one you can still watch the highlight reel.<\/h4>\n

In Rubies<\/em>, all the Ballet West dancers are predictably gorgeous. The two leads, Katlyn Addison and Beckanne Sisk, carry the piece confidently. Addison shines, sharp and hypnotic. Sisk\u2019s natural, jubilant snakiness makes her an obvious and perfect fit for her role.<\/h4>\n

Rubies<\/em> isn\u2019t my favorite. It\u2019s sassy, it\u2019s silly, it\u2019s impressive, but it\u2019s just not quite my thing. I think perhaps when I first saw it as a young teen just discovering Balanchine and neoclassical ballet I appreciated its flashiness a little more, but as an adult who\u2019s seen a lot more neoclassical work, been out of the professional game a few years and shed a few layers of loaded associations, I\u2019m more drawn to the serene elegance of Emeralds<\/em> and the effervescent precision of Diamonds<\/em>. But, that being said, this was the perfect way to revisit it.<\/h4>\n

Short enough to hold my attention and gently release it; available on demand from my couch, dog in lap; the ability to pause to refill a beverage, text a friend back, rewind to watch a particularly stunning moment from Katlyn Addison \u2014 all together an infinitely more accessible format that prompted me to give a moment of my time to rewatching something I might not have opted to otherwise.<\/h4>\n

It\u2019s been said a few times over the last year, but I think it\u2019s an ask that bears continual amplification \u2014 all the accessible, low-cost to free-streaming options in performances and classes that have popped up in response to the pandemic are a good thing<\/em> for ballet. It\u2019s a development I hope we hold onto even once theaters are back open in full. It\u2019s not going to dim the brightness of live performance. It won\u2019t make those who are already regular ballet-lovers skip the ticket line or the class punch-card. What it could do is allow us to keep sharing more and more of our art with anyone and everyone who doesn’t want to or can\u2019t make it to us in person. If we\u2019re serious when we say we want to bring in as many people as possible, and make ballet a more relevant part of mainstream culture \u2014 with all the attendant benefits that come with that \u2014 it would be foolish to think we can achieve it without allowing ballet to exist in the places and forms where it can be most widely transmitted.<\/h4>\n

Catch Rubies<\/em> through tonight (Friday), and be on the lookout for Diamonds<\/em> later this season.<\/h4>\n

For more information on Ballet West’s programming this season, visit balletwest.org<\/a>.<\/p>\n

This article is published in collaboration with loveDANCEmore.org<\/a><\/em>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

On Thursday night, around 9 pm, I sat down to watch Ballet West\u2019s latest in their Winter Streaming series \u2014 Balanchine\u2019s Rubies. At just over 20 minutes in length, an excavated chunk like this is exactly how much televised ballet I want to watch after staring at my […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1661,"featured_media":57278,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_piecal_is_event":false,"_piecal_start_date":"","_piecal_end_date":"","_piecal_is_allday":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[1450],"class_list":["post-57277","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-dance","tag-ballet-west"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/03\/Ballet-West-Rubies.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-07-15 22:06:36","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57277","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1661"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=57277"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57277\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":57280,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57277\/revisions\/57280"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/57278"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=57277"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=57277"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=57277"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}