World Ballet Day 2018 is Tuesday October 2nd!
I’ve been waiting for this announcement for weeks, and I couldn’t be more excited. I’ve already booked the day off!
World Ballet Day is an international celebration of ballet, where anyone who has Facebook can watch major companies across the world during their warm up classes and rehearsals for upcoming shows during the 25 hour-long livestream.
This is the 5th year of this event, and previously the main companies, or The Big 5 as I like to call them, have been The Australian Ballet, The Bolshoi Ballet, The Royal Ballet, The National Ballet of Canada and The San Francisco Ballet. This year, only the first three have so far confirmed. Hopefully, the latter two will be involved this year, as I especially love to watch The National Ballet of Canada.
As a brief overview, each of The Big 5, or for now The Big 3, will livestream their morning company class, and rehearsals for any upcoming performances. They will also have other big and regional companies in the area join in on the livestream. Sometimes we see them during company class, sometimes for a specific show’s rehearsal. It’s an excellent way to be introduced to other companies.
A specific schedule of the day usually comes out around 2 weeks before. For now, here’s a general breakdown:
The day starts at 3am EST – you read that correctly – with The Australian Ballet in company class. Going to bed early and making sure your coffee or tea is set up so all you have to do is boil and pour, is key. Then, 3 to 5 hours later, the Bolshoi Ballet starts their livestream. We’re welcomed every year by Katya Novikova, and it’s always lovely to see a familiar face. We also see company class and rehearsals with them, but their style and livestream are noticeably different than the rest of the day, mostly because of the different ballet technique and that the livestream is in Russian with English translation.
After their rehearsals, we move on to The Royal Ballet in London. I particularly love The Royal Ballet, and follow them and many of their dancers across social media. This is always a portion of the livestream that I absolutely look forward to, and I make sure not to miss a moment. The Royal Ballet also do it really well. Their host, usually a company dancer, asks good questions and gives informative answers, and their filming and camera angles are clear. At this point, I’ve usually been sat watching for 6-10 hours, so I like to follow along with their barre in company class, and move a bit. They are performing Mayerling early in their season, so I’m hoping to see rehearsals for that, with Steven McRae especially.
From there, traditionally we’ve moved on to The National Ballet of Canada. They have not yet confirmed, and are on tour. So, I’m unsure of what will happen after The Royal Ballet. The National Ballet of Canada have done a livestream on tour in the past. Two years ago they did their livestream in Montreal, and last year they filmed with the dancers not on tour in Toronto. So, we’ll just have to see if they confirm for this year or not. Following them, we usually go over to The San Francisco Ballet, who are also not confirmed yet. I do hope they come back as well. They are a really interesting company, and usually the discussions during the livestreams are really informative. They are on tour for October and November in New York, with a very large programming which you can check out here. If they join in the livestream, I’m sure we will be seeing rehearsals for these ballets which are more neoclassical and contemporary works.
Outside of watching the main livestream for World Ballet Day, many companies will upload their own livestreams on their YouTube channels. I’ll be accumulating these into a post after October 2nd, so make sure to look out for that.
The livestream will be on the World Ballet Day 2018 Facebook Event. Make sure to go on over and “attend” the event. The companies involved will be posting updates, and the livestream itself, there.
For now, I’ve listed below the video footage from last year that is still available on Youtube. Enjoy!
World Ballet Day 2018 Trailer – https://youtu.be/EvHMfQNHOlg
The Australian Ballet World Ballet Day 2017 highlights – https://youtu.be/J7CH3CxJ20c
The Bolshoi Ballet 2017 company class – https://youtu.be/Zsz6YPFtq9g
The Royal Ballet 2017 company class – https://youtu.be/7pMXTTAJ3I4
The National Ballet of Canada 2016 highlights – https://youtu.be/iPijXoKcgPk
The San Francisco Ballet 2017 highlights – https://youtu.be/mGHs6vc__Pw
What are you looking forwards to this year? Let the conversation begin!