Currently we’re in LA performing Alexei Ratmansky’s ‘The Bright Stream’ at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion. I am performing this Saturday evening and then the following show on Sunday afternoon. After that we fly to Japan for a marathon of shows. My show of Basilio in Don Quixote on July 23rd will be recorded and then broadcasted on July 30th on national TV Channel NHK, so in case you’re in Japan at that time, tune in.

Anyway, enjoy the pictures! Cheers.

Oh and PS. I was filming an abbreviated version of ‘Les Bourgeois’ for the TV Show ‘So You Think You Can Dance’ yesterday. It was a prerecording and the airing should take place either tonight or at some point in the near future. I’ll keep you up-to-date on my Twitter.

MET_2011_3

25 Photos

So, well, we had a rehearsal period before Moscow, then the tour and then a week off, in which I managed to take a much needed metaphorical breath before we plunged into the current rehearsal period, which lasts for 5 weeks and then adjuncts to our MET season. After the MET season we’ll go straight to Los Angeles to perform for a week at the Dorothy Chandler Pavillion and then for two weeks to Japan.
Exciting new debut and roles this season include Basilio in Don Quixote (first time with ABT), Franz in Coppelia, ‘The Boy with the matted hair’ in Tudor’s Shadowplay, ‘the classical ballet dancer’ in Ratmasky’s Bright Stream and the aforementioned Troika from Millepied. Our opening night at the Metropolitan Opera takes place on May 16th and we perform through July 9th. Check out ABT’s Calendar in case you will be or planning to be in the city during that time.

Speaking of Shadowplay, I’ll be dancing in Mr. Baryshnikov’s costume.
If you missed my twitter posts check these pics out:

Besides all of that I am seriously considering going back to (academic) school and starting the LEAP program to, at some point, achieve a Bachelor’s degree for Performing Arts…oh well, we’ll see.

…And as promised, here are is the Moscow album. Click on the small picture below to go to the page with the pictures. I updated the gallery function of the website, which changed the way the galleries display.

Moscow_2011

19 Photos

And as always cheers.

So here I am sitting on a Sunday night after having watched the Oscars with friends, writing this blog entry and editing the pictures from Taipei this summer. I don’t have much too say except that I’m doing well and trying to live my life as well as it gets. So many things are happening right now that I try to live day by day, moment by moment, task by task…so far, so good…

…damn, this all sounds so self-conscious…almost as much as the Oscars…but oh well.

And as always…I’ll try to post more often.

Cheers and enjoy the photos.

-D.

All is well. After a lot of traveling I’m about at half of my ‘summer break’ from ABT. My shows in Vail, Tokyo and Taipei went very well and 10 out of about 21 flights are done. Currently I’m with my family in Germany to rest and recharge before I’m off to a brief visit back to New York and then Indianapolis, Berlin, Paris and Moscow.

Anyway here is an interview brought to you by Dance Pulp. I kinda sound a bit too egocentric by using I and I and I and I way too much. Besides that I repeat myself about 4 times saying the same thing in the end of the interview, but oh well… enjoy anyway…

I’ll be back with photos from my travels very soon. Stay tuned. Oh… and cheers!

The season at the Metropolitan Opera, which always lasts 2 months in the year in the summer here in the currently hot and humid New York, is on the one side my favorite time of the year… on the other side I feel like all of us dancers at ABT definitely grow a couple of extra gray hairs in the process.

I feel extremely privileged to perform on such a special stage in front of up to 4000 viewers each night. Every week we perform different ballets, which means we rehearse one ballet and perform another one (or even various roles) in the evening (which differs from the usual European system…) To a certain degree there are times when everyone is on edge, physically and of course mentally. To put it in concrete terms, I performed in 11 different things in the course of this season. In the middle of it I suffered a minor ankle injury (from which I am still slightly recovering). I cried… I laughed… and I felt every and anything in between.

Nevertheless it is a special kind of sensation (and I’m trying now not  to be too clichée ) to be finished with the season. When it begins it seems it’s never-ending. When it ends, it seems like the time flew by like nothing.

To be honest I feel I cannot express myself in words well enough. I’m not a words person. I appreciate the written word, but am incapable of creating something worth of what I am trying to say.  I better stop and go to sleep. Enjoy the pictures. They hopefully capture a teeny-tiny-little bit of my life.
No more, no less.

By the way I have good news for my Mexican followers and friends. As it is planned I will be very probably performing in Guadalajara on September 26. Stay tuned for updates and news concerning that show.

Anyway I’ll write again, I just don’t know when

Bye and wish me a good flight!

Another flight. A lot of time to spend as useful as possible.
Well, I am in the plane from Franfurt to Korea and actually I kinda get really used to fly these days lol. Some twenty hours ago I was in St. Petersburg Russia dancing Les Bourgeois in an Openair gala performance. Performance went fine, but for the first time I experienced what the people call the white nights in Russia.

White Nights

First what comes to my mind is of course the infamous hollywood-cold war-anti-soviet-kitchy-love story-movie ‚White Nights‘ with our beloved Mikhail Baryshnikov, which probably saw a lot of people not because of the wonderful story, but because of the actors playing in it.
Anyway here is the probably most famous excerpt of the movie:

When it’s bright in the night the night(-life) itself feels different, more alive (I know this sounds weird). But anyway I think I just got a small ‚touch‘ what the White nights are about.
Anyway of course this night I didn’t sleep due to the fact that I was picked up at 3:30 in the morning which was 1:30am in Frankfurt (where I travelled from the day before.) I flied back to Frankfurt, where I slept and repacked my things. And now I am back in the plane flying to Seoul where I will be performing in two Galas and staying almost for a week.

Somehow flying becomes for me to be something special, something more and more useful. I can feel how I can use my time every time better and better with things I still have to do or want to do. I learn how to keep my efficiency up on a high level and it feels good therefore.
This is one thing I admire flying for and what brings me to talk about dance.
The same thing happens with my dancing. Every time I perform a step, every time I execute an exercise, or I perform a variation or an excerpt, it leads my body to heighten its efficiency. Well of course not every time. I was a little exaggerating. There are days the body cannot improve anything, some days it just has to keep the current status of shape, of control, of efficiency. I don’t think any dancers likes these days, since these days are unproductive.

Anyway I’m gone to watch another episode of House M.D. … anyway I’ll write again soon!

I am sorry again that I was gone from blogging for some time. Last weeks have been nice. I was working on La Spectre with my mother and sorting out a lot in my life besides ballet. One thing is sure now. I am leaving Vienna as my residence and the ballet company as of May.
…
Here is a list of my performances in the months of May and June:

• May 04th – Stars of the 21st Century in Toronto, Canada
• May 14th – Hommage a Rudolf Nureyev Gala in Malaga, Spain
• May 20th – Full Don Quixote in Kasan, Russia
• May 23rd & 24th – Gala in honor of Rudolf Nureyev in Kasan, Russia
• June 1st – Full Don Quixote in St. Peterburg, Russia at the Mikhailovsky Theatre (Maly Opera)
• June 4th & 5th – World Ballet Stars in Seoul, Korea
• June 20th & 21st – World Ballet Star Gala in Taipei, Taiwan (premiere of ‘La Spectre de la Rose’)

I am preparing another post about ‘La Spectre de la Rose’ in the moment. Stay tuned!

Anyway I was reading an article some days ago I found on the another dancers’ blog, TheWinger.com . It’s a great blog from contributors around the globe.

David Hallberg, Principal with ABT (who I’ve met recently in NY for the first time at the gala) mentioned and presented this article in Newsweek , which was written by his collegue Sascha Radetsky. I would like to share it especially with my male readers:

© Nathan Perkel for Newsweek

My business attire is a pair of tights. All right, there it is. I wear makeup onstage, and some of my colleagues are gay. Can we move on now? Can we leave behind the tired male-ballet-dancer stigma—that ballet is not a masculine pursuit—in order to move toward an appreciation of the athleticism and artistry involved in this line of work?

On an average day at the job, I handle lithe, lovely women, engage in duels and delight in the experience of an exotic locale. I move like a gymnast or martial artist and embody the vilest of pimps or the most chivalrous and passionate of lovers. I constantly expand the borders of my physical capabilities, and I hone my mind to a quick-learning, focused edge. Come 8 p.m., I’ll fuse dynamic movement and storytelling with the grandeur of a full live orchestra.

Yes, I’m proud of my profession. Yet I find myself slightly guarded when I tell people what I do. Like some sort of incurable blight, the male-dancer stereotype has taken root and metastasized in our cultural consciousness. Pioneers like Baryshnikov or Nureyev might have opened some minds, but their days have long passed, and despite the noble efforts of a handful of current ballet leaders to expose fresh audiences to our art form, a whole new generation looks at male dancing with skewed vision. Some of my peers are foreigners; in many other countries male dancers are held in higher esteem. I studied in Russia for a year and always marveled at the way Russians celebrated their artists, whether their medium was dance, music or the written word. But I’m American, and I want to live in my own country, as a dancer, with some respect.

The most irritating aspect of the male-dancer stereotype is the underlying insinuation that we in some way lack strength of character or a courageous spirit. Male and female, all dancers undergo strenuous training from a very young age, and constantly wrestle with injuries and fatigue. But male dancers must possess a special type of will and fortitude if they are to become professionals, for, like fish swimming upstream, we have to fight through the current of thinly veiled contempt that much of society harbors for our chosen path. In our culture, girls are encouraged to take ballet; boys receive no such endorsement, except of course from ballet teachers or exceptionally supportive parents. The boy who perseveres in dance must have a genuine hunger for it, must be uniquely motivated and dedicated, and must develop a truly thick skin.

I started taking ballet when I was 5. My open-minded parents thought it was a good way to channel my rambunctious behavior. A few years later I was hooked. I loved the physicality and, of course, the girls, but I also learned that not everyone recognized the value of dance the way I did. I don’t remember the first fight I got into for being a kid who took ballet, but I remember fighting a lot before I realized that maybe I should keep my extracurricular activities to myself. But ballet was rewarding enough to be worth a fat lip or a black eye, and I emerged from my years of dance training more focused than ever. My background is not unusual among my American colleagues—they share similar stories of discouragement, harassment and even violence. But these experiences served to harden resolve and develop courage, and I know I can always count on several of my dancer buddies for steadfast support—they got my back! Ironically, the stereotype of the sissy male dancer has given rise to a male dancer who is anything but.

It’s frustrating that I feel obliged to extol the virtues and describe the rigors of my profession. I’d just like to make it known that the path of the male dancer isn’t necessarily easy—as with any truly worthwhile endeavor—but the rewards can be limitless. I feel lucky to have discovered a vocation that has allowed me to glimpse the great depth of human potential, both physical and mental, and has given me the opportunity to bring joy to so many people in so many places. I feel there is honor in the arts, in the world of dance, in the realm of male ballet dancing.

Exposure to ballet is all that is needed to open minds, for the combination of athletic movement, ardent drama and beautiful music can instill a profound appreciation in an audience. But for you out there who still feel compelled to malign male dancers with half-truths and petty stereotypes, well, maybe we need to step outside. I’ll leave my tights on.

Radetsky lives in New York City.

© 2008

I find the article both interesting to read and enlightening about the situation of a (young) male dancer in our society.
Luckily I was not in such a demanding situation. I had the luck of being trained and supported fully by my parents and surroundings. I never got into a fight in school with someone because I do ballet. Maybe it was because almost no one in my academic school (untill the very end) knew I did ballet. I rather kept quiet about my other activities out of school. In the very end it was just too obvious since I missed weeks being on ballet competitions, so slowly most of my friends knew about that. By this time most of the people around me were pretty much grown up and open minded, so there were practically no conflicts.
In my childhood I somehow didn’t mind not speaking or mentioning ballet to other people. Why should I bother them, making problems, letting them have prejudices? As Sascha has put it, ‘Yes, I’m proud of my profession.’ That’s pretty much it. It gives me so much personally, that I don’t have the urge to force it to people. If you like it, great! If you don’t, I really don’t mind, since people and therefore tastes are different.
In the end you cannot and will not be able to please all.

New York

(All of the following pictures are from the courtesy of Mr. Gene Schiavone)

To sum it up, everything went pretty well and accordingly to the critics pretty successful.

“Even in distinguished company, certain artists seem to rise to the surface. This time it was Vienna Opera Ballet’s Daniil Simkin, a compact dancer of amazing agility and range. In his first solo, Moorhuhn, to messed-about Mussorgsky – parts of Pictures at an Exhibition mixed with sounds of clucking chickens, tweeting birds, etc – Simkin gave quirky choreography an impish twist and acrobatic prowess. His comedic versatility looked even better in Les Bourgeois to Jacques Brel in a solo epitomising a cheeky garçon at large in Paris.

It was not until Simkin partnered the Royal Ballet’s Roberta Marquez in the obligatory gala pas de deux from Don Quixote that his classical line, soaring elevation and attentive partnering came through. He was nicely matched with Marquez, a piquant whiz of a technician, and they gave this occasion an appropriately high-spirited finale.”

- Financial Times

“…We saw 13 dancers in 13 pieces plus a stage-crossing finale. The occasion’s discovery was Daniil Simkin, a 20 year old currently in the Ballet of the Vienna Staatsoper and Vienna Volksoper but the product of Soviet training via his parents, Dmitrij Simkin and Olga Aleksandrova.
Looking boyish still, Simkin’s bravura stems from an airy technique and a light-boned, smooth-muscled physique. With Puckish charm he carried off two overly cute solos, his father’s “Moore Hen” which calls for him to lay an egg (supposedly to Mussorgsky music) and Ben Van Cauwenbergh’s “Les Bourgeois” in which he swaggers and smokes accompanied by a Jacques Brel song. What really put Simkin over was the “Don Quixote” pas de deux with Roberta Marquez. He had the clean classical elegance and full range of standard steps for this “Petipa” showpiece plus the ample strength to add extra turns on the ground and twists in the air. Simkin lifted Marquez high and partnered her attentively…”

“…Next year, let’s have several new talents like Simkin this year! ”

- DanceViewTimes

“And a “Don Quixote” pas de deux, danced by Roberta Marquez of the British Royal Ballet and Daniil Simkin of the Vienna Opera Ballet. But Mr. Simkin was oddly subdued. Only in the finale did he and Mr. Matvienko tear up the night in feats of fast, stage-crossing, bravura dancing. ”
(You cannot please all, or can you ?)

- NY Times

“Newcomer Daniil Simkin of the Vienna Opera Ballet also made three appearances Monday night. Mr. Simkin exemplifies the current vogue for very young dancers who look even younger. To some extent it’s a perennial vogue, and ballet perpetually capitalizes on the thrills of the prodigy. According to the program, Mr. Simkin was born in 1987, but he’s very childlike: small, slight, and cute in an urchin-like fashion. He performed a solo in each half of the program. One was created by his father, Dmitrij Simkin, and one was by Ben Van Cauwenbergh. Both blended acrobatic ballet stunts with actual acrobatics, and left no doubt about his hypertechnical and hyper-flexible capacities. He closed the program by partnering the Royal Ballet’s Roberta Marquez in the “Don Quixote” pas de deux, which had been the final number on last year’s program as well.”

- NY Sun

” The irrepressible Daniil Simkin (above), who performed two humorous solos in addition to closing the evening in the Don Quixote pas de deux, was a favorite of the audience, which liked the quirky solos and applauded his high leaps and multiple turns in the pas de deux.”

- Dance Magazine

“…and one of the evening’s favorites Daniil Simkin, Vienna Opera Ballet.

A winner of the several ballet competitions including Varna in 2004, D. Simkin won the audience over as much with his personality as with his craft. In the twitch and tangy “Moorhuhn” by Dmitrij Simkin, D. Simkin moved with the fluency of Tharp dancer—boneless and razor sharp and once again in “Les Bourgeois” by Ben Van Cauwenbergh, Simkin proved a beguiling guide through the music of Jacques Brel…”

- Eye on Dance and Arts

” Stealing the show, undoubtedly, was Daniil Simkin, a dancer with the Vienna Opera Ballet. Daniil took the stage three times last night–twice in solos and once in a Don Quixote Pas de Deux with Roberta Marquez of the Royal Ballet. Daniil’s charismatic stage presence almost overshadowed his bounding leaps and perfectly solid turns. You never worried that Daniil might miss a beat or lose his spot. He was flawless the entire evening and each time he took the stage he was welcomed with resounding yells of “bravo!” from the audience.”

- Dance Spirit

Well what else can I say…not much for the moment actually. There is a gala coming up in St. Petersburg, Russia. Actually it’s my first gala in Russia and it was funny to obtain a russian visa at the embassy (since I am a German citizen).

As you saw I added a facebook button at my networks. You can add me if you want.

In the next days and weeks I am going to try to set up the calendar/schedule on the right side of this page so you can see my following performances. and maybe recode some of my videos. Beside this I’ll have a photoshoot soon and it may be you will see some photos of that soon on this site…a lot to do.

But as I said I have some news concerning my future, but in the moment I am unable to make them official. Please be patient and understandable.