Wednesday 12 November 2014

Like Us, Follow Us, Tag Us!

Like us, Follow us, tag us, The CBYE wants to connect with you online! Did you know that the Canadian Ballet Youth Ensemble is now live on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram?

 
 
We love keeping in touch with our Hamilton community and the artists that make this city unique! Keep tuned in to our Twitter for information about upcoming shows and festivals. We love using our Twitter for informing and inspiring our followers. We love talking dance and connecting you with words of wisdom that will motivate and inspire you to love the art of dance just as much as we do! Follow us @thecbye


We would also love to connect with you on Facebook. Our Facebook account is another great way to keep in touch with the CBYE and be in the know about all our current and upcoming events and shows! We love sharing photographs of our talented dancers and sharing news and inspiration from the dance community. If you love dance, and can’t wait to learn about upcoming shows and festivals happening in the Hamilton community, than look no further than our Facebook page to stay on “pointe!”


The CBYE is also proud to be a new member of the Instagram community! We love sharing images of our talented dancers. See photographs from our rehearsals, as we prepare for our annual holiday presentation of The Nutcracker. Be on the lookout for upcoming videos and words of inspiration you might just see a talented young dancer you know featured! You can follow us @the_cbye


Keep visiting our blog for the latest news on rehearsals and performances as we prepare for our highly acclaimed production of The Nutcracker starring the world renowned National Ballet of Cuba, dancing alongside some of our talented, home-grown youth. We’ll be providing you with behind the scenes access to our production’s rehearsals and preparations as we look forward to continuing the longstanding Hamilton tradition and bringing our love of dance to the stage this December.


On all of our social media we hope to motivate and inspire young dancers in the Hamilton community to love and appreciate the art form just as much as we do. So what are you waiting for? Come talk dance with us!

Monday 10 November 2014

Rehearsal Recap + Social Media Updates

37 Days until the Nutcracker!

We're getting pretty excited at the CBYE. Our dancers are beginning to see visions of the show dancing in their heads; while parents, guardians, brothers, sisters, mentors, and friends are imagining their loved ones on stage. With Christmas decorations starting to appear, the show is slowly becoming a reality.


So real in fact, that this weekend our Clara got to try on her costume for the first time! We did some promotional shots, so please stay tuned to the blog for those.

Ensemble means to perform together, and that's what we focused on this past Saturday. Moving and dancing as a group is just as important as dancing individually. Everyone must appear to be in unison.


Perhaps the most critical part of dance is our stage presence though. We must not only dance but act. Our passion and excitement for ballet, and the story we are telling comes through our physical expression of dance. We're learning about that too!


 

Be sure you're following all our social media accounts! We post pictures and real time reminders. Maybe you'll even see yourself or family member featured!!

Find us on...

Facebook Canadian Ballet Youth Ensemble

Twitter @theCBYE 

Instagram @the_CBYE 

Like, follow, & tag us!

Friday 7 November 2014

5 Ways to Enjoy the Nutcracker

The original 1892 performance of the Nutcracker was not an indication of how famous the ballet would eventually be. Initially unpopular in Russia, it wasn’t until the ballet was introduced to a North American audience in 1940 that the music gained popularity. Now the Nutcracker is the most popular ballet in the world.
Image from Wikipedia


Our Candies & Mice on November 1 2014
Here are 5 ways you can enjoy the story, music, and dancing of the Nutcracker Ballet today, on and off stage.

The Nutcracker Ballet

Image from NYCBallet.com
Every year around Christmas you've got many opportunities to witness the Nutcracker Ballet on stage. From National Ballet Ensembles, to schools and community centres, you can be sure the Nutcracker Ballet will be performed.

The Canadian Ballet Youth Ensemble puts on our version of the production ever year, and we are excited to share our progress, highlights, and some special sneak peeks with you on this blog, and our other social media channels as we get closer and closer to show time.

Our Clara on November 1 2014

Fantasia – 1940


The production that brought the music of the Nutcracker to a North American audience didn’t even have a vision of the Nutcracker, or Clara. Instead Disney gave us animated fairies, flowers, and mushrooms dancing to pieces of the Nutcracker Suite.

The Nutcracker Prince – 1990


The 1990 animated version of The Nutcracker Prince is what I remember being my first exposure to the world of dancing candies and fighting mice. With Kiefer Sutherland as the voice of the Nutcracker, this animated film could be found around Christmas time on the T.V of many children who grew up in the 90’s.

Barbie in the Nutcracker - 2001


"If you're kind, clever, brave and true, anything is possible" - Barbie in the Nutcracker
North America's most popular doll stars as herself and Clara in what many see as Barbie's first full length feature film.

The Nutcracker on Ice - Various

If ballet isn't your style, you can still see a live performance of the Nutcracker at Christmas. Just as dancing and performing can be done one stage, it can also be done on skates!

Stay tuned to the blog for a new Rehearsal Recap on Monday!

November 1 2014
 

Monday 3 November 2014

Rehearsal Recap - Hello November!

Can you believe we are only 45 days away from our 2014 Nutcracker performance?!

Over October, we finalized our cast list, got everyone into slippers, tights and leotards, and really started to see our dance numbers take shape.

Here’s a special look at some of our Saturday November 1st rehearsal.


We started Saturday with Clara.


Clara (and her understudy) have been dancing with the Nutcracker for a few weeks now, and this past Saturday they got to start rehearsals with skirts! We saw lots of focus on inclinations.


Here you can see Isabel Beatriz Cortina Alegre, our resident Ballet Master since 2009 with our Clara.
Arm positions are so important. If one incline is off from the rest, it can drag the audience’s eye away from the point of focus. But if our inclinations are just right, we can create a pleasing line for the eye to follow and direct our audience’s focus anywhere we like!

After Clara rehearses, our Candies and Mice take over!


Like all learning, our rehearsals consist of lots of repetition and Saturday was no different. Ms. Isabel is not afraid to make our dancers repeat and repeat and repeat some more until she is pleased! The hard work is definitely showing, our dancers are getting a bit better every week.


Ms. Isabel had our dancers individually perform a section of what is usually a group number so she could evaluate. At first, our dancers simply waited on the sidelines for their turn to perform.


But when Ms. Isabel told them this was an excellent opportunity to learn from one another… well as you can see they started dancing in the wings!

Rehearsals can be hard, yet we still see our dancers trying to be the best they can be. Watching them get a little bit better with each passing week is really amazing.

 November is going to be busy, but we’re ready!