To keep dance alive amid lockdowns, a free streaming of ballet favourites has Romeo and Juliet and The Nutcracker excerpts, and more
- Former ballerina Melanie Hamrick and friends treat ballet-starved fans to performances by dancers from top American companies of excerpts from classical ballets
- Hamrick has spent most of the pandemic in Europe with her partner, Mick Jagger of The Rolling Stones, and their four-year-old son
Of all the artists whose livelihoods have been devastated by the coronavirus pandemic, dancers have been among those hit hardest.
They depend on a live audience to do their work, of course, and most live pay cheque to pay cheque. As the months have gone by, dancers have worked hard to stay relevant, busy, in shape – and ready to jump back in when it’s safe again.
Enter Melanie Hamrick. The former ballerina at American Ballet Theatre (ABT) – she retired in 2019 after 15 years in the company – has spent most of the year in Europe with her partner, Mick Jagger, and their four-year-old son, Devereaux.
She made a video in June featuring Royal Ballet dancers performing in empty streets to the recent Rolling Stones song Living in a Ghost Town. But she wanted to find a project that would employ not only dancers but the crews and technical staff that work with them.
The result is A Night at the Ballet, a free streaming event that premieres on Thursday and was produced by Live Arts Global, founded by Hamrick and her partners, Christine Shevchenko (a principal dancer at ABT) and Joanna DeFelice.