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WEEK OF OCTOBER 5, 2023
VOLUME 96 | ISSUE 44
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Dancers explore the depths of ‘Swan Lake’
Denver’s mayor makes progress on homelessness But advocates call for more state leadership BY LUCAS BRADY WOODS KUNC
ebrated score, runs Oct. 6-15 at the Ellie Caulkins Opera House in Denver. Colorado Ballet’s 2023-24 season also includes the company’s award-winning “Nutcracker,” the Gothic horror tale of “Jekyll & Hyde;” “Coppélia,” a comedy about a seductive mechanical doll; and the contemporary showcase, “Ballet Masterworks.” “Swan Lake” famously flopped at its premiere at the Bolshoi Theatre in Moscow in 1877. Critics savaged the story, choreography and high drama of Tchaikovsky’s music. That early
On a late August morning in downtown Denver, cleanup crews and police moved along a tree-lined street, shoving tents, furniture, bedding and other household items into garbage trucks as they cleared out an encampment of unhoused people. “I’m trying to help people salvage things,” Sarah Glade, one of the people living in the encampment, said. Glade has learned from experience to keep everything in a suitcase, ready to move. But that’s not the case for everyone. “A lot of people are just ditching things that they need just because they can’t carry it or don’t have a place for it right away,” Glade said. “They’re putting the pressure on us right now, so I’m just trying to help everybody get their stuff out.” The cleanup was scheduled to start at 10 a.m., but police and city workers showed up two hours early. The people living there scrambled to collect their belongings while cleanup crews moved through the
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Principal dancer Jennifer Grace darns a new pair of pointe shoes during downtime between rehearsals for Colorado Ballet’s “Swan Lake.” PHOTO BY TIM COLLINS Darning strengthens the delicate satin shoes and creates a more stable platform while the dancer is on her toes.
Colorado Ballet commences its 2023-2024 season BY KIRSTEN DAHL COLLINS SPECIAL TO COLORADO COMMUNITY MEDIA
“I’m working on expressing more contempt and sarcasm,” said ballerina Jennifer Grace recently, as she prepared for the demanding dual role of Odette/Odile in Colorado Ballet’s October production of “Swan Lake.” That is quite a leap for Grace, a willowy blond with a ready smile, who
said she is “not an overly feisty person.” Never-the-less she expected the role of evil sorceress Odile to be “great fun.” “It pushes you to expand your facial expressions,” Grace said during a rehearsal break at Colorado Ballet’s headquarters in the Art District on Santa Fe. Grace is also depicting the far gentler Odette, an enchanted princess doomed to spend her days as a swan gliding on a lake – until true love breaks the spell. The classical ballet, a dark fairytale set to Pyotr IlyichTchaikovsky’s cel-
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SPECTRAL ECHOS
Tours offer a glimpse of state’s haunted history
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