World Ballet Day 2017 is October 5th!

October 5th was World Ballet Day — let’s celebrate all month! Off Balance, Book 1 of the Ballet Theatre Chronicles is $0.99 HERE and Outside the Limelight, Book 2, is $1.99 HERE

                             

Three cheers for World Ballet Day, which made its return for the fourth consecutive year on Thursday, October 5, 2017! Did you have to miss it? Here are links to archives; just click on the company’s name.

The Royal Ballet   (Part I; the link for Part II is HERE)

San Francisco Ballet

The Australian Ballet (only until Nov 10th, so enjoy now!)

National Ballet of Canada  (they were on tour in Paris, so pre-taped feed was only 2 hrs)

2015 coverage for Bolshoi Ballet (note: doesn’t look like 2017 is available)

 

And now here is the original post, from August…

On this auspicious day, you’re being treated to 22 hours of live, behind-the-scenes footage from five of the world’s leading ballet companies (plus taped footage from guest companies). Same as last year. And, like last year, you can watch this live-stream broadcast as it links the ballet world, literally and figuratively. On the big day, you can find that link embedded here, or head over to your favorite company’s website, or check out the Facebook live stream.

Here are the Big Five. You can find a schedule of who dances when at the bottom of this post. (New this year: most segments are five hours long — National Ballet of Canada’s is the exception, with only two hours, as they are on tour in Paris, live-streaming from there.)

  • The Australian Ballet
  • Bolshoi Ballet
  • The Royal Ballet
  • The National Ballet of Canada
  • San Francisco Ballet

Ahh… Watching  that got you hungry to watch more ballet now, didn’t it? Here you go! Following is the class portion of The Royal Ballet’s live stream from 2016. One of my favorite companies watching one of my favorite portions of the coverage. Enjoy!

Are you new to the World Ballet Day experience? You should plan on seeing all sorts of fun stuff, including company class (my personal favorite), rehearsal footage, interviews with choreographers and leading dancers, and pre-recorded vignettes from another dozen companies around the world.

New information will be forthcoming as we approach the date. I’ll stay on top of things for you, so stop by this spot regularly between now and October 5th.

Updates…

  • SAN FRANCISCO, Oct. 4, 2017 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ — The fourth annual World Ballet Day LIVE, will be broadcast in China for the first time. Tencent‘s digital channels offer a combined reach of many millions, bringing the joy of dance to new audiences. The full broadcast will be streamed on sfballet.org/WBD.
  • From the World Ballet Day website: All five companies have invited a wide range of regional dance organizations geographically close to their location to be part of World Ballet Day LIVE. The companies included are: The National Ballet of Japan, Singapore Dance Theatre, The National Ballet of China, Ballets du Monte Carlo, Birmingham Royal Ballet, English National Ballet, Scottish Ballet, Northern Ballet, Houston Ballet and Ballet West.
  • From National Ballet of Canada’s website: “The National Ballet of Canada will be on tour in Paris on World Ballet Day and will be an active participant via a video transmission featuring the company in rehearsal for Nijinsky, Paz de la Jolla and The Winter’s Tale, which opens the 17/18 season in November.”
  • From The Australian Ballet’s website: “Rehearsals will be for upcoming shows including Swan Lake, Nijinsky, Spartacus and Coppélia. The broadcast will include guest appearances from Queensland Ballet and West Australian Ballet and Hong Kong Ballet.
  • Schedule of events from The Royal Ballet’s website: 12pm: Company class; 1.15pm: Robert Binet’s The Dreamers Ever Leave You (rehearsal); 1.45pm: Christopher Wheeldon’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland (rehearsal); 2.50pm:; MacMillan Anniversary Hour: Jeux, The Judas Tree, Elite Syncopations (rehearsal); 4.05pm: Arthur Pita’s new ballet The Wind (rehearsal); 4.35pm: The Cards from Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland (rehearsal) 
  • During Bolshoi Ballet coverage, Les Ballet de Monte Carlo will contribute a guest segment.
  • San Francisco Ballet reports that their coverage will include “rehearsals of classical works [see below], a sneak peek into  Unbound: A Festival of New Works , artist interviews and more. Our final hour, from 3-4pm will incorporate pre-recorded segments from guest companies Houston Ballet and Ballet West.
  • Rehearsals planned for San Francisco Ballet:
    *Opus 19/The Dreamer – Composer: Sergei Prokofiev – Choreographer: Jerome Robbins
    *New Work for Unbound: A Festival of New Works – Composer: TBA – Choreographer: Annabelle Lopez Ochoa
    *New Work for Unbound: A Festival of New Works – Composer: Philip Glass – Choreographer: Dwight Rhoden
    *New Work for Unbound: A Festival of New Works – Composer: Elio Bosso – Choreographer: David Dawson
    *The Sleeping Beauty – Composer: Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky – Choreographer: Helgi Thomasson after Petipa
    *Serenade – Composer: Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky – Choreographer: George Balanchine

PS: check out my coverage of 2016’s World Ballet Day HERE and 2015’s coverage HERE, which also includes detail on the day’s scheduling at each location – just scroll down.

PPS: That schedule I mentioned? Here it is!

My own time zone gets to go first. If you live in California, on the West Coast, or elsewhere that employs Pacific Time, here you go!

  • The Australian Ballet (Melbourne) – 6pm -11p on Oct 4th, 18 hours ahead of San Francisco  
  • The Bolshoi (Moscow) – 11p – 4a, Oct 4-5th, 10 hours ahead
  • The Royal Ballet (London) – 4a – 9a, 8 hours ahead
  • National Ballet of Canada (Toronto) – 9a – 11a, 3 hours ahead
  • San Francisco Ballet – 11a – 4p, local time
San Francisco Ballet

Now here’s a chart for everyone, showing *Greenwich Mean Time, Eastern Time and local time (*Note that London is currently GMT+1 because of British Summer Time)

  • The Australian Ballet: 1am GMT on 10/5, 9pm Eastern Time on 10/4, 12 noon local time (*head’s up: this is 1pm AEST time, but currently they are observing AEDT – Daylight Savings Time) 
  • The Bolshoi: 6am GMT, 2am Eastern, 9am local time
  • The Royal Ballet: 11am GMT, 7am Eastern, 12 noon local time
  • National Ballet of Canada: 4pm GMT, 12 noon Eastern, 12 noon local time
  • San Francisco Ballet: 6pm GMT, 2pm Eastern, 11am local time

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