Behind.Oakland.Ballet

Advice from the Dancers

Advice from the Dancers

Four of OBC's dancers, Ashley Thopiah, Lawrence Chen, Marianne Bassing, and Skylar Burson, offer up their best advice. What is the best advice anyone ever gave you about Auditions?Marianne: You will never be the best in the room. You might have the highest legs, or...

After high school, what’s next?

After high school, what’s next?

With graduation on the horizon, high school seniors are planning their future. As dancers, it is not so straightforward. Many battle with the idea of pursuing a dance career knowing the competitiveness, lack of stability, and often times low wages not to mention the...

Getting the most from Class

Getting the most from Class

It’s Spring and as we all look forward to in-person summer programs, fingers crossed. Now is a good time to clean up our class habits. To improve you want to glean the most amount of benefit from the class as possible. Here are some tips to help you do just that. Take...

Choosing a Summer Program

Choosing a Summer Program

You took your young child to ballet but you never expected they would stay engaged so long. Now you find yourself with a serious ballet student trying to navigate the world of summer programs. What to do? Here are some tips any ballet parent must learn in order to...

Auditions

Auditions

There are many misunderstandings about auditions that lead to unnecessary anxiety. Although the audition process can be challenging and disappointing, it can also be exciting and fun. Auditions are possibilities and an opportunity to show what you have but feeling...

Love Yourself

Love Yourself

The study of dance is exciting, challenging, and rewarding. It can also be frustrating and disappointing. As a profession, a lot depends upon qualities over which you have no control. Of course, we can work and improve but proportions or our overall shape are out of...

Academy Student Wins Contest

Academy Student Wins Contest

We’re so proud of Academy at Oakland Ballet student Alexandrea Baker for having won first place in a youth arts competition with her solo choreography! This contest was sponsored by Arts for Oakland Kids, a fantastic organization who aims to ensure that students in...

Voter Resources for the Arts Community and Beyond

Voter Resources for the Arts Community and Beyond

Here at Oakland Ballet we’ve gathered a few resources that we felt might help smooth the voting process. We hope they make casting your ballot easier, and if you want to go beyond the ballot and get more involved in arts advocacy, we’ve got you covered too! Feel free...

Luna Mexicana Stay At Home Soiree

Luna Mexicana Stay At Home Soiree

Join us in a celebration of Día de los Muertos.   Share a meal from Agave, Ballet Folklórico México Danza, Jalisco Harpist Salvadore Vazquez, hear about the elements of an ofrenda with Daniel Camacho, learn to construct paper marigolds, and see excerpts of Oakland...

Celebrating Hispanic Heritage Month

Celebrating Hispanic Heritage Month

Oakland Ballet recognizes the contributions of LatinX Americans and Hispanics in our community. Board members, donors, company dancers, teachers, and choreographers, our organization is strengthened by the addition of their voices, diverse heritage, and perspectives...

Cancellation of Paramount performances

Cancellation of Paramount performances

It is with great regret that we announce the cancellation of the 2020 Paramount Theatre performances of Luna Mexicana and The Nutcracker.  Look for their return in 2021. Our Luna Mexicana Stay At Home Soiree will be October 30, 2020 7PM. Tickets available soon. Mark...

Connecting with the Community

Connecting with the Community

As spring bursts into full bloom, the artists and staff at Oakland Ballet Company are still basking in the success of the company’s newly added, early spring season – this year featuring the premiere of Jangala. This all new program had a modern, urban take on The...

Magic in the Multipurpose Room

Magic in the Multipurpose Room

On a Tuesday morning at ten o’clock, right before holiday vacation, the students of Howard Elementary in east Oakland streamed into the school’s multipurpose room for an assembly. They were excited because it was almost the holiday break. They were excited because it...

Casting for Graham Lustig’s “The Nutcracker”

Casting for Graham Lustig’s “The Nutcracker”

Ramona Kelly and Seyong Kim cast as lead roles in Graham Lustig’s The Nutcracker. Sports legends join the cast for special cameo appearances. Each year, Oakland Ballet Company holds auditions to hire company dancers - all highly trained performers possessing...

Ballet and Baseball: A Match Made in Oakland

Ballet and Baseball: A Match Made in Oakland

Two of the East Bay’s most beloved institutions are teaming up this Fall to bring you two opportunities to appreciate the community’s diverse offerings. Both Oakland Ballet Company and the Oakland A’s each recently celebrated their 50th year of contribution to the...

Ballet Boot Camp Student Reflections

One of the many joys of providing dance and ballet training for young dancers is hearing about the impact that our training programs make on these young artists. Artistic Director Graham Lustig received this lovely, hand-drawn card from a Ballet Boot Camp student...

Making A Dance – Ballet Boot Camp 2017

Making A Dance – Ballet Boot Camp 2017

A few dozen young dancers ages 7-17 gathered for three weeks in July for OBC's annual Ballet Boot Camp summer intensive program at Hayward's Ballet Petit studios. At the end of each week the students presented an “informance” - an informal showcase of what they had...

Baseballet

And stand and squat and leap and jump. And stand and squat and leap and jump. Split squad spring training workout or morning ballet class? The Oakland Athletics and the Oakland Ballet say why not both? There is a reason beyond shared geography that the Oakland...

Announcing The Academy at Oakland Ballet

Announcing The Academy at Oakland Ballet

On September 6th, Oakland Ballet Company will launch its expanded dance training program, The Academy at Oakland Ballet. The Academy at OBC has grown out of an increased interest for ballet classes at a pre-professional level in the East...

Interview with Patience Gordon, OBC Apprentice

Interview with Patience Gordon, OBC Apprentice

Patience Gordon is a young, Bay Area-raised, dancer trained at Ballet Petit in Hayward, CA. Following her participation in last year's summer intensive workshop, "Ballet Boot Camp,"  Artistic Director Graham Lustig presented her with the opportunity to join our 2013...

Backstage for “Diaghilev Imagery”

Backstage for “Diaghilev Imagery”

OBC is abuzz backstage as the company prepares for the premiere of Diaghilev Imagery this weekend at the Malonga Casquelourd Center for the Arts Theater. Here’s what some of the artists are saying about working on Oakland Ballet Company’s latest work. Connie Strayer,...

OBC celebrates third annual gala

OBC celebrates third annual gala

Oakland Mayor Jean Quan may have said it best: “Oakland’s art community does it like no one else.” Mayor Quan spoke at Oakland Ballet Company’s third annual spring gala, joining OBC friends and supporters as the event’s Honorary Chair, Saturday, April 27, at the...

A bow to the past to build the company’s future

A bow to the past to build the company’s future

As Oakland Ballet Company looks ahead to its annual gala this Saturday, officially launching its spring season, much has gone into making this a landmark year – and start of a new era – for the 48-year-old institution. For signs that the company is turning a new page,...

Students get back-to-basics approach with OBC

Students get back-to-basics approach with OBC

If plie is the first step learned, and the last one mastered, then there is no escaping the simplest concepts in ballet. Connecting body and mind is every dancer’s challenge, and making sense of the feeling behind a picture-perfect pose is every teacher’s task....

At the heart of every Nutcracker, Tchaikovsky’s music

At the heart of every Nutcracker, Tchaikovsky’s music

As Music Director and Conductor of Oakland East Bay Symphony, Michael Morgan has become a staple in OBC’s tradition of the The Nutcracker. Morgan has held the baton for the production for more than a decade, and even with years of intimacy with the ballet, the power...

Mastering the roles of Marie and Uncle Drosselmeyer

Mastering the roles of Marie and Uncle Drosselmeyer

Something as classic and traditional as The Nutcracker may seem well known to audiences, but staging for the ballet leaves plenty of room for artistic interpretation. For OBC dancers Stephanie Salts and Damon Mahoney, their roles as Marie and Uncle Drosselmeyer in...

OBC kicks off 40th Nutcracker season

OBC kicks off 40th Nutcracker season

A little ballet can make the holidays a whole lot brighter. Skies cleared just in time for OBC this past weekend, a small and early bit of holiday good fortune, as the company kicked off its 40th Nutcracker season with the start of an extended schedule of community...

Finding a community made for dancers

Finding a community made for dancers

Edward McPherson was in Helena last year, on contract with Ballet Montana, when he followed up on a lead for performance opportunities with Graham Lustig’s The Nutcracker. This year, OBC’s production of the ballet was marked on his calendar. The Cavalier in 2011,...

Student dancers go for encore performance

Student dancers go for encore performance

When auditions started for this year’s production of Graham Lustig’s The Nutcracker, Oakland Ballet Company saw many familiar faces in the studio. More than half of the student dancers from last year’s performance returned to be part of the ballet in 2012, looking to...

A Sneak Peek Inside Rehearsals

A Sneak Peek Inside Rehearsals

It's winding down to performance time! Here at the OBC studios, we've been busy with rehearsals in preparation for our opening night--which is only a week away! Here are some great rehearsal shots taken by our very own OBC dancer Rachael Jensen (read her interview...

Meet Our Dancers: DuRron Chambers

Meet Our Dancers: DuRron Chambers

When did you start dancing ballet?  I started ballet at the age of 16 when my aunt took me to Stanford University to see Dance Theatre of Harlem and the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theatre. Seeing African American dancers doing classical ballet and neo-classical styles...

Meet Our Dancers: Rachael Jensen!

Meet Our Dancers: Rachael Jensen!

When did you start dancing? I started at around 2 1/2. The class was for 3 year olds and older, but I was so well behaved that they let me take the class before I was 3. My parents got me into ballet, but I stuck with it because I love to perform and be on stage....

The OBC Needs Your Vote!

Oakland Ballet Company is competing with charities nationwide for donations ranging from $25,000 to $250,000 through the Chase Community Giving program, and we need your help! You can help ensure your favorite charity’s success by simply voting through the program...

For Our Readers in Colorado…

Hello, from California! Just a short little blurb for today, but it's an important one! We wanted to share with our readers a wonderful project that OBC dancer Private Freeman (read his interview from our "Meet Our Dancers" series here) has been a part of:  Dance for...

Meet Our Dancers: Brandon “Private” Freeman

Meet Our Dancers: Brandon “Private” Freeman

We're delighted to bring you another "Meet Our Dancers" interview! For today, we interviewed Brandon Freeman (or, "Private" as he's better known around the studios). Before we show you the interview with Private though, we have to share you the joyous news with our...

Meet Our Dancers: Mari Takahashi!

Meet Our Dancers: Mari Takahashi!

Meet Mari, an OBC dancer who is also a signed model with CITY Model Management and a well-recognized YouTube personality! She has previously danced with OBC, and we are delighted that she is rejoining us this year for a wonderful season! Enjoy her interview! What's...

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