sunday.

[sunfright]

Woke up to the news of the Royal Danish Ballet having got a new principal dancer, Stephanie Chen Gundorph, shown here in the Russian Dance from Hübbe's Swan Lake. I am extremely pleased with these news, as I've been following Stephanie for years, almost since I started attending the ballet. She is an outspoken feminist and anti-racism agent, a tall, striking, mimically extremely strong dancer and has danced some of my favourite soloist parts - Olympia in The Lady of the Camellias, the Russian Dance as seen above, a role which she originated, a lot of modern work, Teresina in Napoli... She has always been that strong supporting lady who brought depth and intensity to anything she was in. I hope I'll get the chance to see her grow more and maybe catch her in some of the repertory coming up. She would be a perfect Odette/Odile, maybe one of the few who would excel as much as the white swan as the black swan. I'll have to catch her in it, if she is cast this spring. Anyway, congrats Stephanie! Much deserved.

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FRACTURE - Kristian Lever, feat. Alba Nadal and Stephanie Chen Gundorph

The second dancer in focus is Stephanie. Found this little gem when looking her up on YouTube to see if there should be any footage left from her performance of the Russian Dance in Swan Lake, but alas. Nothing. Instead, I found this and having never seen it before, I took a moment to just enjoy how much I absolutely love modern choreography. It always hits me much more viscerally than classical choreography does, although I love both. And this is a nice little thing that made me happy on a morning when I've had too little sleep and feel worn out from a couple of days of emotional acclimatization.