Happy Holidays and New Years!

Here is some close-up footage from the Nutcracker tech rehearsal on December 18th. How many dancers can you recognize? Hope everyone's holidays are going well. Much love from everyone at The Joffrey!




Bonus holiday video! Enjoy some footage from the studios and performances! This video was made for an event at Joffrey Tower early this December and during the event dancers Mauro Villanueva, Suzanne Lopez and Raul Casasola spoke about their experiences at The Joffrey. The above video focuses on them, as well as other dancers in the company. Peace!

The Nutcracker!

Opening night at The Auditorium Theatre is tomorrow! It's going to be awesome.

Hour call!! Let's go perform!

Hello again, blog'n as promised from D.C. We are in the midst of our wonderful run at the Kennedy Center. Some exciting news, we have sold out every performance! Including some standing room in the back of the theater, cheers to those and thank you for coming and standing through our show. Also this means that all our blog reading friends should get out and get those tickets when we come home if you have not yet! We are on a limited engagement in Chicago.

So down to business. Our performance schedule is pretty intense right now, since we are performing to shows three to four days in a row. (depends how you count that dress rehersal!) With that in mind, as mentioned, the Kennedy Center is one of a kind. To be honest it is very exciting and fulfilling to come to the theater and also leaving after, once you have performed. I showed the backstage, now lets look at what a path typically is for a dancer. Before hour call we head to the theater.......(I am not sure if you can get an idea of how grand and spectacular the theater is, but it really is an honor!)



Once through the stage door, we come to a call board, and head to the dressing rooms, before you get there, our travel gear is spread through the lower level.



The dressing rooms are filled with costumes, theater cases, makeup, and how can I forget......dancers (not pictured)



Most dancers also spend a little time, well at least long enough to grab their wig or hair, and even have it done for them!! Then finally to the stage...


The Nutcracker is a major production that includes a lot of people to help us the dancers perform our best.....we will take a peek next time!!

The Nutcracker at the Kennedy Center! WOOT!

All right, so lets get back on track with our blog. Hello everyone, it has been a while since I have posted a blog and with the help and love of the company, and of course all of our beautiful fans and supporters here we go.
I cannot lie but it has been a rough year for a number of reasons, but it is the holidays now, and we need as a community, country and world to find some happiness and something to laugh about. So this might not have too many giggles, but the future should!

A lot of people ask, "what is it like preforming at different theaters?" and hands down one of the greatest is the Kennedy Center in our nations capital, Washington, D.C. So I thought I would show what the behind the scenes are in this amazing theater. It is one of the few theaters that is styled in a "wagon" form. This really deals with the way opera theaters function. It is not uncommon to have a hard time moving sets and scenes and lights, people, kids, costumes around. Oh no, not here. This theater is almost like having three wagons. Picture this, you have the stage wagon parked in the center. Then a "black giant garage door" on three of it's sides, the right, left, and behind it, with the audience in front. On the other side of each "giant black garage door" is another wagon, or space to park a wagon. So you start with Set 1, on stage then push it to the right side of the open wagon parking spot, and bring on Set 2 wagon from the left. After that scene, you open the back garage door, or the "upstage" door and bring on the last Set. It really is pretty cool, and huge! So when you don't have wagons to park in these giant parking spots, you get other things, like in the pictures....



So now that we have an idea of the backstage, lets take a look at what rehearsal looks like from the wings....



And how can one forget the beauty of the house, these pictures do not give it full justice, but an idea of the richness and sparkle of this stunning theater!!


Check in again when I go underground into our dressing rooms....and more!

How do I say this...?

Nick G., the Joffrey Sound Guy, tries to write:

This post has been very difficult. It feels a little bit like when David Letterman did his first broadcast from NYC after 9/11. How do you begin again to entertain people after that? How do you get back to normal?

We, the Joffrey Ballet "family", have all been terribly saddened by the loss of Gerald Arpino, even as we continue our season of dance. A look at the previous posts here will tell you all you need to know, and that's what's been showing on this page for the last month. A blog is supposed to give you all the latest updates, supposed to be informative or entertaining, it's supposed to be about what's current. And what's been on the mind of your j-Pointe team for some time now, every time we look at this page, is Mr. A.

Every posting here pushes the previous one down the page, into the past, and I've felt that, somehow, making new entries will eventually make Mr. A.'s passing less important, as the news disappears off the front page and into the archives. But, Mr. Arpino always said that The Joffrey is about now, it's about today.

Respect the past, he said, "but you also look forward to the future, and what you can bring to life, and to each other... That's what the Joffrey's about."

So here we are at j-Pointe, trying to figure out how to go on doing what we are meant to do on these pages: keeping you informed, amused, edified, current. Trying to respect our history; trying to reconcile our grief and our mission. Trying to get back to normal.

Mr. Arpino once told me - probably told all of us, at some point - "Don't try. DO."

On with the show.

---

We're in Detroit this week, having just opened our Nutcracker season last night at the Detroit Opera House. It was beautiful, as always.
Pictures of the dancers? Maybe later. First meet this guy.

You all know him, even if you've never seen him up close. He's kinda goofy-looking when he's not onstage, eh? But this is the guy, the one and only original Joffrey Nutcracker.
Fun Fact 1: Prop Master Jeff Kolack named him Douglas.
Fun Fact 2: A couple years ago, Jeff re-painted ol' Douglas, fixing him up after being beat up so much by Fritz over the years. And, (I don't know if this is what Jeff intended at the time,) he added a little inside joke that the audience would never, could never see.
Here's Douglas's bottom half: check out his shoes.

It's a tiny little Nike Swoosh.
You remember Nike's slogan?
"Just do it."

Bravo!
Bravo!