Dance Magazine: Courtney Elizabeth Technique My Way

“The idea of ‘Technique My Way’ really tickled me,” says San Francisco Ballet soloist Courtney Elizabeth with disarming candidness. “I never thought of myself as a technical dancer.”

Elizabeth may be modest, but her performances reveal not only a steadiness—born of early Cecchetti and RAD training at Charlotte School of Ballet, followed by guidance from Patricia McBride and Jean-Pierre Bonnefoux at North Carolina Dance Theatre—but also the spark of a quick mind. After a stint as a company apprentice, Elizabeth joined SFB’s corps in 2003. Her versatility and maturity led to her promotion to soloist last year. Dance Magazine talked with Elizabeth about the daily discipline behind her liveliness and ease—including the discipline of letting go when the workday is done.

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Dance Magazine: Madison Keesler On the Rise

Onstage or off, Madison Keesler has riveting eyes. A bewitching intensity shines from their depths, which are set in a pretty, delicate face. At 21, Keesler, a San Francisco Ballet corps member, has already drawn notice in soloist roles. In Helgi Tomasson’s Giselle, her engaging glances lent a girlish appeal to her strong technique in the demanding peasant pas de cinq. And as a demi-soloist in Symphony in C, Keesler stood out for a sensitivity and expressiveness in her dancing, for ports de bras that seem to unfurl endlessly, for her fluid transitions, and that piercing focus that connects her with her partners as well as the audience.

Though born in California, Keesler moved around as a child. When she was 6, she started tap, jazz, and ballet, but within two years she had zeroed in on ballet. She began studying at the International Ballet School in Colorado Springs with Mark Carlson and Vaganova-trained German Zamuel. When she turned 10, her family moved to Carlisle, Pennsylvania, and she enrolled in Central Pennsylvania Youth Ballet under Marcia Dale Weary.

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Dance Magazine: The Turning Point

You’re about to graduate from high school and know you want to keep dancing. But how, where, and in what environment? Is your goal to dance professionally? And how much of the college experience do you want?

From the intensive training of a conservatory to the broad-based academics of dance programs in liberal arts colleges, a plethora of choices is available to dancers nowadays. Making a decision that could affect not only your next four years but also your whole career is intimidating, to say the least.

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Dance Magazine – Vanessa Zahorian

It’s been a long rehearsal day at San Francisco Ballet. Vanessa Zahorian walks into the company’s conference room apologizing for looking tired and for the informality of the loose rehearsal clothes she’s thrown over her lanky limbs. But there’s no need; her bright blue eyes sparkle with the all-American girl freshness that serves her so well onstage.

Trained at Central Pennsylvania Youth Ballet and the Kirov Academy, Zahorian is one of SFB’s most reliable principals—rarely injured and gifted with a solid technical facility that was evident from the time she joined the corps in 1997. She stays in top form through a mix of common sense and lessons learned over the years about what works best for her body.

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