The Beauty of Dance, Part Five: Samantha Barczak, Pennsylvania Ballet, Philadelphia, PA

Samantha Barczak is a member of the Pennsylvania Ballet's corps de ballet.

She joined the company with a great deal of experience as a guest artist with numerous American companies, such as the Dayton Ballet, the Northeast Ballet Company, and the Contrast Dance Theatre. Ms. Barczak was also a principal for the Rebecca Davis Dance Company, where she remained through the company's final performance.

Ms. Barczak's repertoire includes roles in Raymonda Variations, The Four Temperaments, and George Balanchine's The Nutcracker.  She; has also taught dance across the United States, and she was a founder of the Philadelphia Ballet School.  

The Beauty of Dance, Part Five: Chelsea Lynn Acree, Mark Morris Dance Company, New York, NY

Chelsea Lynn Acree has been a member of Mark Morris Dance Company, a modern dance troupe in New York, since 2011, both as a dancer and as a teacher.

She's part of the The School at the Mark Morris Dance Center, where she teaches both children and adults how to move through space. 

Ms. Acree worked with numerous artists and companies, and she began working with the Morris troupe in 2007, four years before she joined the company.

The Beauty of Dance: Part Five!

It's December, it's an even-numbered year, and that can only mean one thing - I'm bringing you my fifth series of beautiful dancers this month!

Although I seem to have focused  heavily on ballet dancers, based on the women I've chosen for this go-around - hey, it's Nutcracker season, right? - I have been able  to throw in a few modern dancers here and there.  Some of choices this time are quite relevant; Misty Copeland of the American Ballet Theatre in New York has generated a lot of buzz as the third black soloist and first such soloist in two decades for that company, and Patricia McBride, a New York City Ballet alumna who now helps coordinate the Charlotte Ballet, is a 2014 Kennedy Center honoree.

It's been said that high-art dance (ballet, modern), like any other form of high art, is in trouble in America's increasingly middlebrow culture, but based on my own cursory observations, I'd say it's doing just fine.  And I have sixteen women here to prove it. :-)  So let's get started! :-D 

Correction Of an Earlier Post

Nearly two years to ago to the day, November 29, 2012,  I featured a photograph from the Danskin leotard ad campaign depicting three models, each of a different race, to show how beauty comes in all races, creeds and colors.  But while I correctly identified the models on the left and right as Beverly Lee and Beverly Johnson, respectively, I misidentified the woman in the center as a model named Saki. She is, I have since learned, Barbara Minty, the widow of Steve McQueen.  The original error, which I regret, has been corrected.

The original post is here.  

The Beauty of Retrosepct, November Actress Edition: Rachel Weisz

I last featured British actress Rachel Weisz in November 2006. It's been way too long since then!

So what has Rachel Weisz been doing all this time?  Wow, where do I begin?

In 2010 she appeared in the The Whistleblower, the true story of Kathryn Bolkovac, an American police investigator who was a force monitor for the United Nations Police. Bolkovac caused a stir when, after losing her job - which involved an effort expose sex trafficking in Bosnia - she sued her former employers for wrongful dismissal. 

  

She also starred in the 2011 British romantic drama The Deep Blue Sea, a movie based on a Terence Rattigan play about the wife of a judge who has an affair with a Royal Air Force veteran troubled by his memories of World War II. Ms. Weisz's performance as Hester Collyer won her Best Actress awards from both New York Film Critics Circle and the Toronto Film Critics Association.

She's also appeared in the spy thrillers Page Eight and The Bourne Legacy.

Oh yes, her personal life.  Well, she was engaged to American director Darren Aronofsky, but they broke up before getting married.  Instead, she married James Bond actor Daniel Craig.

And although she's been known to have a negative opinion of Americans, at least for their lack of geographical knowledge (see my original post of Rachel Weisz for more about that), she became an American citizen herself in 2011.

That;s it for my look back at actresses for November.  Coming for December - a month of dancers! :-)  

The Beauty of Retrospect, November Actress Edition: Charlize Theron

I last featured Charlize Theron in December 2011.

Since then, she's appeared in Snow White and the Huntsman as the wicked Queen Ravenna, and she has also tried her hand at comedy in Seth MacFarlane's A Million Ways to Die in the West.  She's currently, at this writing, filming the first Mad Max movie to be released since 1985, Mad Max: Fury Road.      

She's also filming a drama, The Last Face, directed by her new boyfriend . . . Sean Penn.  :-D      

The Beauty of Retorspect, November Actress Edition: Tracee Ellis Ross

So, what has Tracee Ellis Ross, daughter of music icon Diana Ross and music manager Robert Silberstein, been up to lately?

A lot, actually. She now stars in the ABC sitcom "black-ish," about a black suburban family that tries to be more black than suburban, least they fall into the trap of being "like everyone else" in the suburbs. 

At this writing, "black-ish" has been picked up for a full season.  As it follows "Modern Family" (Wednesdays at 9:30 ET), this can only be good news.  Because no sitcom following "Modern Family" has ever succeeded, "black-ish" may end up breaking the curse.

This is the first time I've featured Tracee Ellis Ross since August 2009 . . . which actually precedes the premiere of "Modern Family."  I'm sorry I took so long in returning to her.