Tag archives: dance
It was a scene worthy of Degas as 130 guests arrived at the Santa Barbara home of board member Gary Dorfman for the State Street Ballet gala honoring founder Rodney Gustafson and the Gail Towbes Center for Dance. Dancers, beautifully dressed in full ballet attire, graced the entrance to the boffo bash, which was co-chaired […]
State Street Ballet founder Rodney Gustafson is transitioning to founding director, with appointments of Megan Philipp as artistic director and Cecily MacDougall as executive director. “As we approach our 30th year, I am focused on evolving our repertoire toward a new generation of artistic vision,” says Gustafson, a former dancer with American Ballet Theatre in […]
Social gridlock reigned when society gadabout Rick Oshay hosted a boffo birthday beano at his Montecito home for his longtime companion Teresa Kuskey, founder of the colorful and energized La Boheme dance troupe. Nearly 70 guests turned out for the sunset soirée when Rick and Teresa returned to our rarefied enclave after catching Les Misérables […]
After nearly a decade, Santa Barbara’s Momentum Dance Company celebrated with an energized, colorful show at the historic Lobero Theatre. The company marked the occasion with a Glow Gala, lighting up the stage with more than 100 dancers, premiering two hours of dance fun. The entertaining ninth anniversary performance combined tap, ballet, jazz, hip hop, […]
Credit Covid as an uninvited collaborator for Ninette Paloma in creating her new evening-length aerial dance work making its debut this weekend. That’s because La Escalada (The Climb) grew out of both the restrictions and the sense of isolation engendered by the pandemic – as well as Paloma’s Santa Barbara Centre for Aerial Dance’s new […]
UCSB Dance Company’s 2023 company consists entirely of female or non-binary dancers, which wasn’t a conscious choice but simply the result of having no male senior dance majors on campus this year. But rather than fighting against what is, Artistic Director Delila Moseley decided to double down. “I just decided to go with it, and […]
State Street Ballet’s (SSB) spring show, which has a single performance on Saturday, March 4, at The Granada, is drawn entirely from its existing repertory. But nobody should think the dance concert will be anything less than thrilling. That’s because co-artistic directors Rodney Gustafson and William Soleau have put together a program that covers the […]
Dana Lawton has admitted to being obsessed with the Farallon Islands and the swarthy keepers and families who served as lighthouse keepers there back in the mid-1800s, working the Fresnel lens that warned ships approaching San Francisco to stay away from the fog-shrouded rocky islands. Fortunately, Lawton is a choreographer who also runs a Bay […]
Santa Barbara Dance Theater, which in its association with the UCSB Department of Theater/Dance is the only professional dance company that is in residence in the entire UC system, presents its 2023 season, Intimacy & Autonomy, next week at the Hatlen Theater on campus. The second season under new artistic director Brandon Whited, who is […]
Dancing is arguably one of the oldest and most expressive art forms – one that transcends cultures and history with every area of the world having their own styles of the ancient art. Even if you’re not one to don the dancing shoes, just watching the wonder of a Waltz or rhythmic Rumba can get […]
Jumping from high school to college, and from a harrowing drama to an absurdist comedy, there’s also UCSB Theater’s offering of a long weekend of The Government Inspector at the Hatlen Theater on campus November 16-20. UCSB faculty member Michael Bernard, whose tenure in town following 10 years as Associate Artistic Director of the 52nd […]
“Thrill the World” is a global event that happens each year on the Saturday before Halloween, when thousands of enthusiastic zombies gather to perform “Thriller” – unleashing their inner zombie for fun and for charity. From Arizona to West Virginia, Austria to Taiwan, people of all ages will rise from the undead at the same […]
Thanks largely to Jonathan & Sylvia, who taught lessons and hosted biweekly swing dances at the Carrillo Ballroom for decades before the pandemic paused presentations, Santa Barbara locals have a thriving swing dance scene that features several styles in the partnered dance, including the Lindy Hop. The pair even brought the late Lindy co-founder Frankie […]
It’s no accident that Rodney Gustafson landed in Santa Barbara to launch his State Street Ballet dance company almost three decades ago. The company’s executive and artistic director had targeted returning to town ever since he’d performed as a dancer with the famed American Ballet Theatre (ABT) at the Arlington Theatre many years before. “I […]
Fiesta isn’t only about music, food, dance, and arts and entertainment reflecting Santa Barbara’s Spanish cultural past and present, there’s also a pretty healthy dose of rock and roll, pop, and more in outdoor locations around town. Most notable are the twin Mercados at De La Guerra Plaza and Mackenzie Park, both returning for the […]
Arianna Hartanov, who moved to Santa Barbara to join State Street Ballet (SSB) in 2016, has danced lead roles in the company’s productions of Sleeping Beauty and The Nutcracker, among others. But ballet isn’t her only bailiwick. As a choreographer for SSB’s Evenings and Modern Masters events, she indulged her contemporary side back in 2019 […]
Grand opera is returning to the Granada Theatre. After Opera Santa Barbara’s (OSB) two-plus years filled with ways to creatively cope with the COVID pandemic that ranged from virtual performances, to two Concerts in Your Car outdoor staged adaptations (that included, appropriately, a version of Carmen) and a season of smaller, shorter one-acts, reworkings, and […]
Back in 2019, veteran UCSB dance professor Valerie Huston and Arizona State University’s dance faculty member Carley Conder teamed up to create Avian for UCSB’s dance students. This casual piece was inspired by Huston overhearing two students talking about a class they were taking called The Mathematics of Origami and featured nine-foot origami birds above […]
Chicago’s Joffrey Ballet mesmerized at the Granada when they performed for two consecutive nights as part of UCSB’s Arts & Lectures program. The magnificent company under Scottish artistic director Ashley Wheater kicked off the first night with Liam Scarlett’s “Vespertine,” originally created for the Norwegian National Ballet in 2015 and premiering with the Joffrey three […]
Choreographer Gerald Arpino, the co-founder of the Joffrey Ballet who succeeded Robert Joffrey as its artistic director from 1988 to 2007 and composed nearly 50 ballets for the company, would have turned 100 next January. So, it’s fitting that Arpino’s 1986 work Birthday Variations forms the centerpiece of the Joffrey’s two-day, eight-work pair of performances […]