WEEK THREE: “L Is For Legs” (Friday)

August 26, 2011

WEEK #3: Friday

It’s 3:00 on the last Friday of August, when the minds of office workers everywhere turn to thoughts of barbecues, farmers’ markets, naps in the sunshine, and their warm-weather libations of choice (beer, margaritas, iced tea, strawberry lemonade . . .) To get you through the last few hours until you can go have fun in the sun, we’ve got another Coffee Break With the Ballet for you with a Friday Dance Break and another pop quiz!

Friday Dance Break

These youngsters in a Russian ballet class make some very challenging leg movements look easy! Watch for grand plié (deep knee-bends), demi-plié (same as grand plié but not as low) and battement relevé lent (leg slowly raised and lowered).

Pop Quiz

#1. In Monday’s webisode, what celebrity starlet’s shoes is Pat in love with?

#2. What snazzy royal accessory inspired the creation of the five basic ballet positions we know today?

#3. OBT purchases custom-made shoes for our dancers from the world’s largest pointe shoe distributor, which also happened to be the preferred brand of Balanchine himself. What’s the name of the company?

#4. Which do the young dancers in the video do first – grand plié or demi- plié?

#5. OBT.org Trivia: For how many years did Artistic Director Christopher Stowell dance for San Francisco Ballet?

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About Claire

Writer Claire Willett is the Grants & Content Manager for Oregon Ballet Theatre. She is the 2011 Oregon Literary Fellow for Drama and was the Summer 2011 Writer-in-Residence at the I-Park Artists Colony in East Haddam, CT. Three of her plays have been produced as staged readings in Portland’s annual Fertile Ground Festival of New Works. Her fourth, entitled "Dear Galileo," will be produced as a staged reading in January 2012 by Artists Repertory Theatre, funded by a Career Opportunity Grant from the Oregon Arts Commission. Her next project is a chamber opera based on Norse mythology co-written with Los Angeles composer Evan Lewis. Claire has a B.A. in Theatre from Whitman College in Washington and attended the Paul A. Kaplan Theatre Management Program at Manhattan Theatre Club in New York City. She is obsessed with coffee, Watergate, vintage dishes, English mystery novels, Leonard Cohen, "Star Wars," afternoon naps, obscure Catholic saint lore, dinosaurs and Christmas.

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