{"id":3038,"date":"2011-10-17T15:21:51","date_gmt":"2011-10-17T19:21:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.irasperipheralvisions.com\/WetPaint\/?p=3038"},"modified":"2011-10-17T15:21:51","modified_gmt":"2011-10-17T19:21:51","slug":"dancer-chat-with-new-york-city-ballets-emily-kikta","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/irasperipheralvisions.com\/WetPaint\/dancer-chat-with-new-york-city-ballets-emily-kikta.htm","title":{"rendered":"Dancer Chat with New York City Ballet’s Emily Kikta"},"content":{"rendered":"

New York City Ballet<\/a>
\nDancer Chat with Emily Kikta
\nSchool of American Ballet
\nSeptember 30, 2011
\nPhoto by Paul Kolnik<\/p>\n

\"Emily<\/a><\/p>\n

I can\u2019t say enough good things about the Dancer Chat events that New York City Ballet hosts on selected Friday evenings before performances.\u00a0 They are small scale informal conversations which take place among the artists, management, teachers and audiences of New York City Ballet.\u00a0 Typically, a dancer is interviewed and a Q&A session follows.\u00a0 I have been around the dance world for more than three decades, but every time that I attend one of these events, I always come away with a greater appreciation for the dancers and the company, and I always learn something new.\u00a0 Joan Quatrano has moderated the sessions that I\u2019ve seen.\u00a0 She is welcoming, she raises great questions and she knows how to keep the conversation moving.<\/p>\n

Those who attended last Friday\u2019s Chat were introduced to Emily Kikta, who has recently joined the corps de ballet.\u00a0 Though this is her first season in the corps, she\u2019s already had the opportunity to originate a featured role in Paul McCartney and Peter Martins\u2019 Ocean\u2019s Kingdom<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Early on during the chat, it struck me that Ms. Kikta is not your average eighteen year old.\u00a0 She appears to be sharply intelligent, poised, easygoing, confident and obviously very happy to be dancing with NYCB.\u00a0 Again and again, she talked about how much fun she was having.\u00a0 Suki Schorer, her teacher at School of the American Ballet (the official school of New York City Ballet) was in attendance at the chat and when asked to speak about Ms. Kikta, she called her \u201cmature and steady, not emotionally fragile\u201d, as some young dancers can become if they start their intense training too early.\u00a0 I haven\u2019t yet had the opportunity to see Ms. Kikta dance, but knowing that she will bring all these qualities to the stage, I\u2019m really looking forward to seeing her.\u00a0 She is tall and as Ms. Schorer said, \u201cShe\u2019s gorgeous to look at.\u201d<\/p>\n

She gave us a little behind-the-scenes peek into the process of creating Ocean\u2019s Kingdom<\/em>, for which she originated the role of an Amazon.\u00a0 She told a wonderful story about Paul McCartney working with the dancers in the studio, suggesting movement and expression, and even demonstrating steps and having the dancers lift him.\u00a0 Her costume for the piece was starfish shaped, and she gave us insight and anecdotes about Stella McCartney\u2019s process for perfecting their designs.\u00a0 She said that when Savannah Lowery first tried on the prototype costume and kicked her leg, the entire costume ripped.\u00a0 She emphasized that there were many subsequent fittings to perfect the costume and to get it to work with the movement, and that it always goes this way when a new costume is being created.<\/p>\n

This lead to a conversation about the different aesthetics upon which different ballet companies focus.\u00a0 Balanchine wanted his dancers to be \u201cincredibly glamorous\u201d and he labored over every detail of a costume and a ballet, down to the height of the dancer\u2019s bun and the choice of her earrings.\u00a0 They also discussed the quick and exciting attack that became the signature of a Balanchine dance.\u00a0 \u201cIt\u2019s not sleepy ballet.\u201d<\/p>\n

I was surprised to learn that Ms. Kikta wasn\u2019t on a solid ballet track from a very young age.\u00a0 Ms. Schorer went on to say that there isn\u2019t necessarily an optimal age for a girl to decide that she\u2019s going to pursue a career in ballet \u2013 it can vary from one dancer to the next.\u00a0 Ms. Kikta trained at her mother\u2019s studio in Pittsburgh, where she had a varied background which included jazz and contemporary dancing.\u00a0 She was in her teens when she decided to focus on ballet.\u00a0 She began by doing summer intensives with SAB.\u00a0 She was in high school when she decided to stay on throughout the year.\u00a0 In 2010 she became an apprentice to NYCB, dancing in Snowflakes and Flowers every night during Nutcracker<\/em> season.\u00a0 In 2011 she was invited to join the corps and she began to learn many ballets.<\/p>\n

When asked how she retains all the choreography for so many different ballets, she talked about learning them in phrases, and she explained that during last week\u2019s performance of Diamonds<\/em>, she was singing the steps to herself in her head as she was dancing.\u00a0 She said that the music gives her the references that she needs to remember the choreography.\u00a0 Ms. Quatrano elaborated, saying that composers have remarked that SAB students and NYCB dancers are very attuned to music.\u00a0 I also found it interesting that Ms. Kikta said she prepares to learn choreography by working with videos first.<\/p>\n

Looking ahead, Ms. Kikta said she aspired to dance Emeralds<\/em> or Rubies<\/em>, or Wheeldon\u2019s After the Rain<\/em>.\u00a0 Now that I\u2019ve become completely charmed by her, I hope that it comes to pass.<\/p>\n

If you are purchasing tickets to a Friday evening performance, check to see if there\u2019s a Dancer Chat scheduled before the curtain.\u00a0 They usually start at around 6:45 p.m. in the Rose Building, across the street from the Koch Theatre.\u00a0 No matter how much time you\u2019ve spent at the ballet or in the studio, you will come away from a Dancer Chat with renewed respect for the artist and the company.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

New York City Ballet Dancer Chat with Emily Kikta School of American Ballet September 30, 2011 Photo by Paul Kolnik I can\u2019t say enough good things about the Dancer Chat events that New York City Ballet hosts on selected Friday … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":3043,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[26,20],"tags":[329,80,330],"class_list":["post-3038","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-dance","category-karen","tag-emily-kikta","tag-new-york-city-ballet","tag-oceans-kingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/irasperipheralvisions.com\/WetPaint\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3038","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/irasperipheralvisions.com\/WetPaint\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/irasperipheralvisions.com\/WetPaint\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/irasperipheralvisions.com\/WetPaint\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/irasperipheralvisions.com\/WetPaint\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3038"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/irasperipheralvisions.com\/WetPaint\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3038\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3052,"href":"https:\/\/irasperipheralvisions.com\/WetPaint\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3038\/revisions\/3052"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/irasperipheralvisions.com\/WetPaint\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3043"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/irasperipheralvisions.com\/WetPaint\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3038"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/irasperipheralvisions.com\/WetPaint\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3038"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/irasperipheralvisions.com\/WetPaint\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3038"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}