#lorena feijoo

[danceoftheday]

Performed by: Lorena Feijoo and Lorna Feijoo

Number: “Lambarena”

Choreographer: Val Caniparoli

Style: Ballet

From: Sesame Street (2013)

[harmonicthemes]

A Cinderella Story - Lorena Feijoo and Vitor Luiz.  Photo by Erik Tomasson

[books0977]

Lorena Feijoo and Luke Ingham in Scarlett’s Fearful Symmetries, San Francisco Ballet, January 2016. © Erik Tomasson.

The most uncomfortable instance was a duet for Feijoo and Ingham: their groping and grinding eventually led to Ingham on all fours, with Feijoo riding on his back as he crawled downstage. He finally stood, lifted her overhead and reached a hand up and over her breast.

[books0977]

Lorena Feijoo and Vitor Luiz in Caniparoli’s A Cinderella Story, San Francisco Ballet, January 2015. © Erik Tomasson.

The music provides the backdrop for Feijoo and Luiz to portray a romantic couple in this mid-20th-century-style take on the fairy tale. Feijoo, now in her early forties, is still at the top of her artistry and doesn’t appear in danger of losing her crisp technique or emotional nuance any time soon. Luiz is excellent and matches her on every level.

[ocd-kenobi]

I would love to know your ballet fancasts! When I was a kid my parents used to take me to this ballet show every year and since then I've always been fascinated with the beauty and the strength and the hardship of it all so I am so!!! excited to read what you have in store for your ballet au.

Aw that sounds magical! I tried to see a Nutcracker production every year as a kid and I'm so excited to be able to revive that tradition with some friends and loved ones this year. And I'm so glad you're excited to read more in this AU! I couldn't stop thinking about parallels between the Jedi and pre-professional ballet schools. I know ballet isn't a religious order or a justice institution, but there's so much to think about: the strictness of the lifestyle/code, the ways different personalities can fit in relation to that strictness, the isolation away from biological family and the emphasis on mentor figures, the way it's a way-of-life and not a hobby for the right obsessive pre-teen who can't imagine doing anything else with her life, and, I think, a belief that you're improving the world with your work by bringing beauty/harmony into it.

Anyways, fan casts below! And this is strictly for dancing style/physical appearance purposes only. I highly doubt these dancers' personalities are anything like the characters I hope to build.

Anakin: Lorena Feijoo

Her dancing style is incredibly emotionally expressive. Her movement is fueled by emotion. You can see emotion in every inch of her body. Her movements are sharp and fluid at the same time. Beautiful natural long extensions, great turning momentum. On the taller side, broad shoulders, long legs, narrowish hips. In this video, people remark on her giving 200% all the time, being inspiringly emotive, and being that one-of-a-kind special that you notice the second she walks into the room. So she's my Anakin! Here's a video compilation of her dancing. Notice how freely and expressively her head moves to finish the thought of what her body is doing. You can't teach that.

Obi-Wan: Gillian Murphy

She's the kind of "perfect" you can only achieve by working your ass off to eliminate your "flaws". She never does anything technically wrong, but, to me, there's an off-putting rigidness to her movement, like she's trying too hard to be perfect. Even in her moments of softness, there's something forced about it. Look at how tense her neck is in all of these. Her shoulders and arms seem incredibly stiff to me all the time. She's pretty muscular; I suspect that if she didn't build muscle, she would be considered too "soft," so she has "corrected" that. She doesn't carry herself like someone with the confidence of natural talent. She's not an extreme of anything: not particularly ethereal or particularly grounded or particularly soft or particularly strong--just "perfect." Strawberry blonde, bustier than your average professional ballet dancer, compact, and tidy. She's always seemed to me to be the kind of dancer who wouldn't stand out if she wasn't in a leading role, yet somehow she worked her way into leading roles, and that's awesome for her! But her perfectionism and coldness would drive young Anakin crazy. Here she is dancing as the Sugarplum Fairy, and yes, I envision a bit about Anakin as Clara with Obi-Wan as the Sugarplum Fairy.

Gillian Murphy Sugar Plum Fairy Variation.

The Nutcracker.

Qui-Gon: Muriel Maffre

I hate this because I don't even like Qui-Gon and she's one of my favorite dancers I've ever seen, but I'm choosing her because she's classically trained but experimental, very tall, weird, and just kind of aloof-seeming. I don't know, I can just picture it so well. There aren't many videos of her online, but here's one of a dance I can imagine Qui-Gon doing lol.

I could go on and on and on haha. Thank you for sending me this ask!

[tybe]

I’ve missed out sorely and doubly:

1. Classical ballet can be awesome; all this time I’ve avoided it.

2. Lorena Feijoo has retired, and I won’t ever be able to see her expertise and particularly  her luminous charisma in Don Quixote.

[books0977]

Lorena Feijoo and Joseph Walsh in Caniparoli’s Lambarena, San Francisco Ballet, January 2015. © Erik Tomasson.

Dressed in Sandra Woodall’s African fabric sheath, Feijoo devours her solos, adhering to that beat, sweeping her arms and manipulating her torso and shoulders in a way that no other woman on the roster can do. Kimberly Braylock and Ellen Rose Hummel were her confident lieutenants.

[benitah]

San Francisco Ballet Principal, Lorena Feijoo and her sister, Boston Ballet Principal, Lorna Fejoo teach Grover what the word 'pirouette' means. You will note that Grover is wearing real ballet slippers.