Originally from Amherst, MA, Chava graduated from Barnard College with a B.A. in Dance and a minor in English. She has danced in works by Mark Morris, Lucinda Childs, Loni Landon and Joanna Kotze, among others, and continues to perform in the city, most often in collaboration with Debbie Mausner. Chava has held internships at Jacob's Pillow Dance and the Bates Dance Festival, and was a 2017 Junior Fellow in the Music Division of the Library of Congress. She regularly reviews dance for Musical America, and has written for Dance Magazine, Playbill and Tablet. Chava is currently an assistant editor at Pointe.
The Washington Ballet's NEXTsteps program opens this week. Here are company dancers Ashley Murphy-Wilson and Alexandros Papajohn. Procopio Photography, Courtesy The Washington Ballet.
Wonder what's going on in ballet this week? We've rounded up some highlights.
Ballet West in rehearsal for Le Chant du Rossignol. Beau Pearson, Courtesy Ballet West.
Ballet West opens its season October 25–November 2 with a triptych of works from George Balanchine's early choreographic career with Sergei Diaghilev's Ballets Russes. Highlighting the program is Balanchine's 1925 The Song of the Nightingale (Le Chant du Rossignol), never before seen in the U.S. This ballet is not only the first piece that a then-21-year-old Balanchine made for the Ballets Russes; it also marks his first collaboration with Igor Stravinsky, and features costumes by Henri Matisse. To bring it to Salt Lake City, Ballet West is working closely with Millicent Hodson and Kenneth Archer, who reconstructed the work for Les Ballets de Monte-Carlo in 1999.
Herman Cornejo in Don Quixote. Gene Schiavone, Courtesy ABT.
American Ballet Theatre's fall season at Lincoln Center's Koch Theater offers a chance to see the company in shorter works and mixed-repertoire programs. This year's October 16–27 run honors principal Herman Cornejo, who's celebrating his 20th anniversary with the company. Cornejo will be featured in a special celebratory program as well as a new work by Twyla Tharp (her 17th for the company), set to Johannes Brahms' String Quartet No. 2 in G Major, Op. 111. The October 26 program will include Cornejo in a pas de deux with his sister, former ABT dancer Erica Cornejo.
Gray Davis with wife, ABT soloist Cassandra Trenary, after his graduation from the South Carolina Criminal Justice Academy. Courtesy Trenary.
When Gray Davis retired from American Ballet Theatre in July of 2018, he moved home to South Carolina, unsure of what would come next. Last month, just over a year later, Davis graduated from the South Carolina Criminal Justice Academy. Today, he's working as a deputy for the Abbeville County Sheriff's Office.
Though Davis danced in ABT's corps for 11 years and is married to soloist Cassandra Trenary, to many he's best known for saving the life of a man who was pushed onto the subway tracks in New York City in 2017. The heroic effort earned him the New York State Liberty Medal, the highest civilian honor bestowed by a member of the New York State Senate. We caught up with Davis to hear about how the split second decision he made in the subway affected the course of his life, what it's been like starting a second career and what he sees as the similarities between ballet and law enforcement.
Sanjay Saverimuttu with Tiffany Bovard in rehearsal for Alun Jones' The Sleeping Beauty. Courtesy Louisville Ballet.
When Sanjay Saverimuttu graduated from college, he had no idea that a professional ballet career lay in store. After training on a pre-professional ballet track throughout high school, Saverimuttu earned a degree in biology from Stanford University. But college only reignited the 29-year-old Louisville Ballet dancer's love of the art form.
David Hallberg and Natalia Osipova in Romeo and Juliet. Andrej Uspenski, Courtesy ROH.
Yesterday, The Royal Ballet announced that David Hallberg will be joining the company as a principal guest artist for the 2019–20 season.
Hallberg is already a familiar face at The Royal. As a guest last season he danced alongside beloved partner and Royal principal Natalia Osipova in Sir Frederick Ashton's A Month in the Country and Sir Kenneth MacMillan's Romeo and Juliet. This year, Hallberg will continue to take on roles opposite Osipova. They'll perform MacMillan's Manon on October 15 and 19. On November 20, Hallberg will make his Royal Opera House debut as The Sleeping Beauty's Prince Florimund with Osipova as Princess Aurora. In March of 2020, he'll return to star in the company's first revival of Liam Scarlett's new production of Swan Lake.
