by OBT historian Linda Besant I’m the ballet historian at OBT, and many people know me as a total ballet geek. When they ask me, as they often do, “What’s your favorite ballet?” I’m stymied, because I love so many. But I do have a “must see list.” If a ballet on this list is… Read More
In 2004, after taking adult absolute beginner and beginning ballet class at OBT for four years, OBT’s Dance Historian & Lecturer Linda Besant wrote an essay called “Ballet in Bifocals” that was published in “Open Spaces,” a regional quarterly magazine. It’s both a humorous and thoughtful look at the rewards and perils of attempting ballet… Read More
by Linda Besant“More steps per minute than any other show in town,” said dance writer Nancy Reynolds of Square Dance. For fifty years, audiences have been wowed by this non-stop ballet: “Tempos that could only be called lickety-split.” (Manchester, 1958) “Filigree footwork that requires the most astonishing technical dexterity.” (Kaplan, 1988) “The speed of the… Read More
By OBT Historian Linda Besant Are Locusts and Downward Facing Dogs a regular part of your life? If so, then you won’t want to miss seeing Left Unsaid in OBT’s “Song and Dance” program that opens April 21st. Choreographer Nicolo Fonte is a devoted practitioner of Iyengar yoga, and his ballet is rich with artistically… Read More
Gents go ‘round, come right back, Make your feet go wickety-wack . . . Crackerjack square dance caller Elisha Keeler was profiled in The New York Times and The New Yorker in 1957. Next thing you know, George Balanchine was making a new dance to the music of Baroque composers, prancing his City Ballet dancers… Read More
