After a busy March season of Romeo and Juliet and The Four Seasons, I had another exciting premiere. “Ballet’s Greatest Hits”, which features me dancing Giselle, opened in over 200 theatres across the United States on March 31st! It will be playing throughout the month of April too and I am so proud to be a part of this extraordinary production. I can’t wait to finally see it on the big screen!
What a treat it was to perform at the Kennedy Center in Washington DC for the past 2 weeks. Fabulous theatre and amazing city. I even had over 70 family and friends in attendance at my last show! Now we are in Ottawa to perform Romeo and Juliet. So excited for my show on Saturday night(Feb 2)! From Red Queen to Juliet in 7 days.
My favorite ballet is back again. It’s been a while since I last danced Giselle, seeing as I was pregnant with my son the time before. It’s truly a dream role for a ballerina and special ballets like this don’t come around often enough. Luckily, on December 5th and 8th at 7:30pm, I’ll get another opportunity to live the dream.
This past week, I went home to Rhode Island to perform for the first time since I was 11 years old. It was so great to be surrounded by family and friends and finally have the amazing opportunity to perform with my husband in front of my hometown crowd. And, as a wonderful added bonus, the Governor of the State of Rhode Island issued me a Citation in recognition of my contribution to the arts. What an honor! All in all, it was a whirlwind couple of days but truly memorable.
After a couple of quick trips to the USA for some fun galas, I’m back getting ready for the upcoming season. Feels like there’s way too much time before our next performances are scheduled in mid October, but once we head out on tour to L.A., we won’t stop all year. It’s a busy and exciting schedule filled with lots of performances at home and abroad. Can’t wait to get started!
After some technical difficulties, I’m now back online! It’s been a whirlwind few months of performances and a new creation with Guillaume Cote but I’m finally enjoying a little vacation with my husband and son. I’ll be returning to work soon though and looking forward to my performances in Anaheim,California on August 11th and Columbus,Ohio on August 18th. Can’t wait to do Onegin again as well as Black Swan and Summer pas de deux!
Now you can follow me on Twitter at @GretaHodgkinson
Sleeping Beauty
March 11@2:00pm, 15@7:30pm and 18@2:00pm
One week til the opening of Sleeping Beauty and I can’t wait. My partner, Evan Mckie, and I have been working every day for the past week and a half and we are definitely ready! I think we have a really nice connection together and I’m looking forward to being on stage with him.
After dancing this ballet countless times, it’s still the ultimate challenge for a dancer and I hope to enjoy every minute.
It’s 2 1/2 weeks until our March season opens and things are in full swing. I’m preparing for The Sleeping Beauty and John Neumeier’s The Seagull. This time around, I’ll be dancing Aurora opposite a guest artist from the Stuttgart Ballet and I’m really looking forward to it. Although the performances are only a few weeks away, we haven’t started our rehearsals together yet. He will arrive in the next week or so and we will start putting it all together. I love the experience of working with new partners. It’s a great learning process and I always discover something new in my own dancing. Can’t wait for the shows!!
This year, I had the privilege of dancing my Sugar Plum Fairy’s with Royal Ballet Principal Dancer Steven McRae. He arrived just a week before our first performance, but he knew the entire ballet through and through. Happily, things went smoothly from the very beginning and he was wonderful, generous partner. On stage, he is a brilliant and charismatic performer which really made this year’s Nutcrackers a pleasure to dance. What a nice treat for the holidays!
This past Friday night, I made my second debut as Juliet. After nearly 4 months of working on this new production it all finally came together at the performance. I couldn’t believe how relaxed I felt as I ran onto the stage for my first entrance. I had such a wonderful time dancing this new version(and boy, there sure is a LOT of dancing!!). Brand new full length ballets are rare, especially one with such an unforgettable story so it was a real pleasure to get to explore Juliet once more. It was kind of like dancing it again for the very first time…….
