This week's Spotlight Saturday features Russian choreographer and dancer Leonide Massine. Leonid Fyodorovich Myasin, better known in the French transliteration Leonide Massine, was born in Moscow, Russia, on August 9 1895. His mother was a soprano in the Bolshoi Theatre Chorus and his father played the French Horn in the Bolshoi Theatre Orchestra. Massine had three brothers, Mikhail, Gregori, and Konstantin, and one sister, Raissa. In 1904, Massine auditioned for the Moscow I

This week's #ThrowbackThursday features Balanchine's short ballet Stars and Stripes. Performed in five 'campaigns' and lasting approximately 28 minutes, Stars and Stripes is one of several ballets Balanchine choreographed as a salute to his adoptive country. The ballet recalls American Independence Day parades, and involves the entire company with marching, baton-twirling, and rifle-bearing. It being Balanchine, there is no limit to challenging choreography, particularly in t

Get excited: the Royal New Zealand Ballet and The Australian Ballet have announced their 2018 seasons! The Royal New Zealand Ballet will be starting their year with the world premiere of The Piano, a new full-length ballet by Jiri Bubenicek. Though Piano was originally a short work for the Dortmund Ballet, the choreographer has expanded the work specially for the Royal New Zealand Ballet. Next on the bill is Dancing with Mozart, 2018's triple bill. Jiri Kylian's Petite Mort,

Today's Tutu Tuesday is a signed photograph of ballerina Anna Pavlova, possibly in La Sylphide. - Selene

This week's Spotlight Saturday concludes the Baby Ballerina feature with Tatiana Riabouchinska. Tatiana, known as Tania, was born May 23 1917, in Moscow, Russia, just a few months before the Russian Revolution. Her father was a banker for the Tsar, Nicholas II, and as a consequence after the Imperial family's downfall Tania's family was put under house arrest by the revolutionaries. Helped by servants, Tania, her mother, and her three siblings escaped through the Caucasus to

This week's #Throwback Thursday features recent ballet Anna Karenina. Based on the iconic novel of the same name by Russian author Leo Tolstoy, first appearing as a serial in 1873, the ballet starts with a prologue. Count Vronsky stands at the railway station, where there has evidently been an accident; a woman has thrown herself in front of a train and died. He is in mourning, though it is not yet explained why. Act I then commences as a flashback. Princess Anna Karenina is

It's Tutu Tuesday! Here's Natalia Osipova in the Bolshoi Ballet's Le Corsaire. - Selene

This week's Spotlight Saturday continues the Baby Ballerina feature with Tamara Toumanova. Tamara Toumanova was born in Tyumen, Siberia on March 2 1919. Her mother was Princess Yevgenia Dmitrievna Toumanova, a half-Armenian (on her father, Prince Dmitri Toumanov's side). She was born while her mother was fleeing Georgia in search of her husband; they had become separated after the 1917 Russian Revolution. Tamara was almost two years old before the family reunited, fleeing to

This week's #ThrowbackThursday features the 19th century ballet three act ballet La Source. Painting showing Eugenie Fiocre as Nouredda in 'La Source', Edgar Degas, c. 1868 The ballet, set in Persia, begins with the procession of the beautiful Circassian princess Nouredda and her companions, who are travelling to her wedding to the Khan of Ghendijb. They come to rest by a stream in the rocky desert. Nouredda admires a flower growing on the inaccessible heights of a rock, and

It's Tutu Tuesday! Here's Misa Kuranaga and Jeffrey Cirio of the Boston Ballet in Act III of Don Quixote. - Selene