The Sacramento Ballet’s second annual Tapas and Tutus fundraiser was a great mix of music , dance and food. It all took place at the Center at Twenty Three Hundred on Wednesday. Great food, drinks and a terrific atmosphere helped with the fundraising and auctioning event to benefit the Sacramento Ballet. The organization is coming to the end of its 57th season and continues to entertain, educate and inspire young and old alike. The Sacramento Ballet continues to bring notoriety to the city as they have become a nationally renowned dance company. The Sacramento community was invited to participate in raising needed funds that bring the wonderful world of dance to various venues and sta

The Sacramento Ballet is giving local audiences a rare opportunity to experience some of the work of the greatest choreographer of the 20th century: George Balanchine. "Genius" is the first all-Balanchine program ever performed by the troupe here (although it did present such a program when it was invited to perform in the People's Republic of  China in 2007).  Excerpts from six dances created between 1941 and 1964 are on the program, which will be presented at 2 p.m. today, 7 p.m. next Friday and Saturday and 2 p.m. April 29 at the Ballet Company's Studio at 17th and K streets. Each program contains the same six dances but the order of performance and the featured dancers changes from sh

Ron Cunningham, Artistic Director for the Sacramento Ballet, welcomed the audience to the Sacramento Ballet studios, thanking the Stewart brothers, Alex and Tim, for putting on the fundraising event. A packed house eagerly awaited the start of the year’s last performance of “At the Ballet II.” The few audience members in the house that were expecting a ballet performance were quickly made aware that this was going to be a musical extravaganza. The Found Space Theatre Production presented “At the Ballet II: Louder, Faster, Funnier!” to benefit the Sacramento Ballet. Alex and his brother Tim began to formulate a musical somewhat like a Broadway revue. The result of the Stewart brothers’ v

Photographs by Barry Wisdom   Whether you’re continuing a lifelong Christmastime tradition or you’re a new “Black Swan” fan who’s come late to the ballet-appreciation party, there is something for everyone in Sacramento Ballet’s alternatingly funny and passionate, but always mesmerizing and magical “The Nutcracker,” which opened Friday evening at the Sacramento Community Center Theater. Blessed with live accompaniment of Tchaikovsky’s familiar score by the spectacular Sacramento Philharmonic Orchestra, there is much that can be considered divine about this delicious holiday chestnut. In addition to philharmonic director Henrik Jul Hansen’s sure baton, reasons to leap for joy include Sa

Christmas is back and so is another season of "The Nutcracker". Sacramento Ballet co-art directors, Ron Cunningham and Carinne Binda outdid themselves during the opening performance. In celebration of Cunningham’s 500th "Nutcracker" showing, there were guest performances from Cunningham himself as well as Melissa Sandvig from “So You Think You Can Dance” and former company dancer Nina Baratova, who shared the sugar plum fairly role with company dancer Amanda Peet. But where was the finest sugar plum fairy of them all? Kirsten Bloom, prima ballerina, was sitting in Row J watching the performance in a lovely red dress with her long-time boyfriend. Bloom is expected her first child and i

The Sacramento Ballet opened its 55th season with the First Annual Capital Choreography Competition at the Crest Theatre Oct. 17 and 24. Both days consisted of three dances choreographed by Viktor Kabaniaev, Amy Seiwert and Matthew Neenan, who competed for a cash prize as well as a Tiffany & Co. star. Neenan’s dance, The Ration, took the judges award, while Seiwert’s On Frail Wings won the peoples choice award during both showings. Pepper Von, international fitness instructor and choreographer and a judge for the Oct. 24 performance, said Neenan and Seiwert used the theater beautifully. “The two who exhibited (the use of space) best, in my perspective, were Amy and Matthew,” Von said.