Take me to Church by Hozier and danced by Sergei Polunin Directed by David LaChapelle

I Thought this was Adorable

I remember playing this game with my sisters but I was never this good.

rag & bone and Kyle Abraham

Need another reason to love the Rag & Bone Brand even more?  Check out their Fall 2014 womenswear campaign.  The company commissioned a series of three films and one of them is with Mr. Abrahaminmotion himself.  We reached out to the company and here's what rag & bone managing partners David Neville and Marcus Wainwright had to say about the project.

“For FW14, rag & bone commissioned esteemed creative director Dilly Gent (Radiohead, Tina Turner, Jack White) to produce three diverse films depicting their FW 2014 women’s runway show and collection. Gent acquired the talents of directors Colin Rich, Wendy Morgan and Vern Moen for the project.

“For FW 14, we wanted to explore our womenswear show and collection from different focuses and perspectives. Engaging imagery is a big part of our DNA and to venture further into the medium of film and see these three different points of view was pretty cool.”– Marcus Wainwright, Managing Partner

“Each director delivered a very unique interpretation and while the styles and content are diverse, they all in some way capture the spirit of the brand,” David Neville, Managing Partner.  

"Award-winning cinematographer and director Colin Rich harnessed his famed time-lapse photography in his color-saturated film.  Playing with time and motion against the backdrop of a pulsating soundtrack, Rich juxtaposed the runway show with the sensory intensity of New York City.  Wendy Morgan’s abstract take on rag & bone’s FW 14 collection sees the director draw upon her critically-acclaimed music video pedigree.  Choreographed by Kyle Abraham, Morgan’s sensual film explores the beauty found in dance and flight.  Renowned for his prowess in capturing real-life narrative, director and recurring Gent collaborator Vern Moen’s film is a documentary at core." - Marcus Wainwright, Managing Partner

Attending BuzzFeed LA Opening Party

So Dope!! We attended the BuzzFeed Opening party in LA last night.  Yes, BuzzFeed just opened a LA office right near Television City.  If you drive down Beverly Blvd you won't miss it.  BuzzFeed is in between LaBrea and Fairfax on the North side of the street.  Check em out when you can and don't forget to grab some swag. Beach towels for those weekends at Zuma beach or Malibu or hoodies for when u gotta go to San Francisco for the weekend or for early mornings in Santa Monica. LOL.  Here's our pics from the Photo Booth.  First as a Gif then as Jpeg.  Mmmm.... the catering was Delish last night!! This is one of my favorite viral posts on BuzzFeed.  What's yours and who's your favorite BuzzFeed editor?  We're dying to know.  Email us or post your comments below!  Enjoy

First Pitch at the Cincinnati Reds Game

Cincinnati Ballet's Cervilio Miguel Amador throws the first pitch at the Great American Ballbark last Friday. 

Ballet dancer Cervilio Miguel Amador throws out the first pitch in Cincinnati.

Rudolf Noureev's Resting Place

Here's a picture of me in Paris in front of Rudolf Noureev's final resting place. 

MEMBER THIS SCENE FROM BLACK SWAN???

SAVE $ - BUY TICKETS AT THE DOOR

We've all been there.  You're all set to buy tickets online and then next thing - BOOM! Hidden charges everywhere like processing and ticketing fees.  I should have known better.  Maybe you can learn from me.  Here's what to look out for so you don't get worked in 3 fast clicks.

CLICK ONE - $35.  Im all in.  I've wanted to see this company for quite some time

CLICK TWO - $10.75 in ticketing fees?  I guess I'll still go.  Someone has to get paid for administration.  Right?

CLICK THREE - $4.40 in Processing fees?  Darn you Ticketmaster  

EEKS

Check out this image courtesy of Christian Louboutin

NO SILLY NOT MASSIVE ATTACK. ACID ATTACK

Dancer accused in Bolshoi attack denies ordering use of acid

'It's not true that I ordered him to throw acid at Filin,' Pavel Dmitrichenko tells court

The Associated Press 

Pavel Dmitrichenko looks out from the defendant's holding cell during a court hearing in Moscow on Thursday. Dmitrichenko, a Bolshoi Ballet dancer accused of organising an attack that nearly blinded the Russian theatre's artistic director, said in court that he did not intend for the victim to be splashed with acid. (Maxim Shemetov/Reuters)

The star dancer accused of masterminding the attack on the Bolshoi ballet chief acknowledged Thursday that he gave the go-ahead for the attack, but told a Moscow court that he did not order anyone to throw acid on the artistic director's face.

The judge, however, refused to release Bolshoi soloist Pavel Dmitrichenko on bail and ordered him and his two co-defendants held until at least April 18 while the investigation continued.

Ballet chief Sergei Filin's face and eyes suffered severe burns in the Jan. 17 attack, which exposed a culture of deep intrigue and infighting at the famed theater celebrated for its grand, classical ballets.

Dmitrichenko said he had complained about the ballet chief to an acquaintance, who offered to "beat him up."

Sergei Filin, artistic director of Russia's Bolshoi Ballet, suffered burns to the face and eyes after the January attack.(Vselovod Kutznestov/Reuters)

"It's not true that I ordered him to throw acid at Filin," the 29-year-old dancer told the court, speaking from a cage. He said he had never intended for the attack to cause such bodily harm.

Moscow police said Thursday that Dmitrichenko had paid 50,000 rubles (about $1,600 US) to the man, Yuri Zarutsky, accused of throwing the jar of acid in the ballet chief's face as he returned home late at night. The third defendant, Andrei Lipatov, drove the getaway car, but said in video provided by police that he did not know the purpose of his mission.

Dmitrichenko said he was angered by Filin's decisions on how money was allocated to dancers at the theatre.

"I told Yuri Zarutsky about the policies of the Bolshoi Theater, about the bad things going on, the corruption. When he said: `OK, let me beat him up, hit him upside the head,' I agreed, but that is all that I admit to doing," he said in court.

Acid purchased at auto shop, police say

Police said they had determined that Zarutsky had purchased acid at an auto shop and believe he then heated it to make it more concentrated.

State television has suggested that the dancer was motivated by Filin's refusal to cast his girlfriend, also a Bolshoi soloist, in a starring role.

Filin's lawyer and wife, however, both cautioned against focusing too much attention on the ballerina and said the circle of people involved in the attack was wider than the three men detained this week.

"We believe that investigators still have a lot of work to do to establish all of the facts," Filin's lawyer Tatyana Stukalova said in an interview on Rossiya state television.

The Bolshoi's general director, Anatoly Iksanov, has accused veteran principal dancer Nikolai Tsiskaridze of inspiring the attack. Tsiskaridze, a long-time critic of the theatre's management, has denied the allegation.

Dmitrichenko's girlfriend, Anzhelina Vorontsova, is coached by Tsiskaridze.

Dmitrichenko and Tsiskaridze are both followers of legendary choreographer Yuri Grigorovich, who led the Bolshoi dance company for three decades. He was forced out in 1995, but remains on the Bolshoi staff.

A string of successive artistic directors tried to bring new energy and a more modern repertoire to the Moscow theatre, only to face opposition from dancers and teachers who remained devoted to Grigorovich and his ballets.

Filin, who took up his post in March 2011, was seen as capable of bridging the gap. He was a veteran of the Bolshoi, where he danced from 1989 until 2007, and later served as artistic director of the Stanislavsky and Nemirovich Theater, Moscow's second ballet company.

Filin was instrumental in bringing a young Vorontsova to Moscow to study and had hoped she would stay to dance for him at the Stanislavsky. Instead, she joined the Bolshoi.

SEQUESTRATION

​Well, its inevitable.  Sequestration will affect the arts..  How am I not surprised!!  Here's an informative article in the Washington Post about the impact of Sequestration and the arts. 

Cultural institutions preparing for federal budget cuts

By Katherine Boyle and Lonnae O’Neal Parker,February 28, 2013

Patrons walk through the National Gallery of Art in Washington, Friday,… (Alex Brandon/ASSOCIATED…)

Federally funded cultural institutions are preparing for the $85 billion in automatic spending cuts known as the sequester that are scheduled to take effect Friday. Most institutions have anticipated the cuts and will meet budget constraints through delaying maintenance and repairs to their facilities. Others, including the Library of Congress andthe National Gallery of Art, are preparing for furlough days in the coming months, and the staff reductions would force the gallery to close for up to seven additional days.

The gallery’s furloughs would begin in June and take place on up to seven Mondays, spokeswoman Deborah Ziska said Thursday. The furloughs would force the gallery, which is open every day except Christmas and New Year’s Day, to close its doors to the public for those days. The gallery is likely to have over $5.7 million cut from its $128.4 million budget for the fiscal year.

At a House appropriations subcommittee hearing Wednesday, Librarian of Congress James H. Billington testified that the library’s budget will be reduced by 5.3 percent, or more than $31 million. Seventeen percent of that reduction would come from four furlough days through the end of the year. Other library cuts include reductions in bookbinding and book preservation and a reduction in acquisition amounting to more than 400,000 collection items. There will be delays for information requests from the Congressional Research Service, an increase in the backlog of claims to the U.S. Copyright Office and cutbacks in basic operational services such as security, cleaning and food service, according to Billington. There will also be a reduction in the availability of reading material provided to the blind and physically disabled.

VODKA AND BALLET

Part of the tool kit for Royal New Zealand Ballet is a bottle filled with vodka. The cheaper and nastier the better.

Touring wardrobe manager Hank Cubitt has been with the Wellington-based ballet company for five years. He's also working on the men's costumes for the ballet's Made to Move showcase at St James Theatre.

Part of his job is the upkeep of costumes on tour. And that's where the spray bottle of vodka comes in.

Because of the materials used, some costumes, including silk and velvet, are unable to be washed after every performance.

"Obviously you can't throw a silk dress in the washing machine, so we maintain it with vodka," he said. "It gets rid of the perspiration smell."

He was taught the trick by a Russian ballet company.

"I thought they carried it in their kit so they could drink it, but they sprayed it on the costumes.

"One day I asked them if I could use some and it worked a treat. We use it all the time now. The cheaper the better. You don't need 42 Below Feijoa stuff, just really bad vodka.

"You spray it straight on and it disappears, and so does any smell. I used to use Febreze, but it has a slight oil base in it, so it can stain and was more of a masking agent. The vodka just kills it all."

For the three ballets in Made to Move there are 15 people in the wardrobe department creating 80 costumes.

Before opening night they will each put in more than 400 hours.

The costumes for The Anatomy of a Passing Cloud, choreographed and designed by Javier De Frutos, and Of Days, choreographed and designed by Andrew Simmons, are made from lycra.

The costumes for Bier Halle, designed by Allan Lees (choreographed by Ethan Stiefel), are made from silks, velvet, cotton and chiffon.

Dancers are responsible for their own shoes. The wardrobe department dyes them the right colour, but it is the dancers' job to maintain them.

"We have to allow for total movement of the dancers. We do a lot of things like putting in invisible gussets so they can get their arms or legs to full extension.

"We also use materials with a bit of give in them."

Three trucks are used to transport the equipment.

"On tour we carry everything - washing machines, driers, sewing machines, buttons, everything. All our lights, floors, ballet bars and tool kits.

"We are a travelling circus. We are self-sufficient. So we know that whatever happens, wherever we are, we can fix it."

Cubitt said a lot of time went into making sure the costumes fit the time period.

"We really have to make sure we get the right look. The skirts and jackets and shirts were all special lengths for each period.

"Getting that right is important because a lot of people look for that detail and want to see the full period pieces."

Of Days is a classic ballet inspired by New Zealand landscapes.

The Anatomy of a Passing Cloud is a contemporary ballet influenced by the Pacific.

Bier Halle, the first work by new artistic director Ethan Stiefel, is a comedy set in a Bavarian beer hall.

Made to Move, three new ballets, St James Theatre, February 27 till March 24.

- The Wellingtonian