Entrechat, Mathias Dingman's profile article

 

A couple of month's ago Mathias called to tell us that he'd be featured in a magazine that Birmingham Royal Ballet produces for members of a special group called "Friends of Birmingham Royal Ballet".  We were excited for him and excited to see this publication.  Of course, it took months before Mathias got the magazine and even longer for him to mail it. 

It was well worth the wait!  In fact, we were floored.  Everything about this magazine is first-rate and the photos are drop-dead gorgeous.  Naturally, we only got three copies:  one for my parents, one for my grandmother (Mathias' great grandma), and one for us.  This meant "sharing" the pages was problematic ... especially since scanning and posting is against copyright regulations.  So, I wrote a message to Rob Lindsay, the media officer for BRB asking for permission to "share" the article. 

Fabulously, Rob wrote back with a link to every page, page by page, and permission to post it!  CLICK HERE to read the words ... which are Mathias' personal account of his work, training, and life in the company!  (It takes a couple seconds for all FIVE pages to upload ... but this, too, is worth the wait!) 

THANK YOU ROB!

An Evening of Music and Ballet, gala performance in Birmingham

(Above:  Principal dancer Nao Sakuma and First Soloist MATHIAS DINGMAN in costume at Symphony Hall in Birmingham, UK.  Click on image to enlarge.)

Gotta love Facebook when you log on and find a photo of your elder son from the evening before ... in costume for the Tchaikovsky Pas de Deux that closed a gala performance called "An Evening of Music and Ballet" in Birmingham's Symphony Hall.  Don't they look wonderful!  Steve and I wish we could have witnessed the performance!  Fortunately, we have friends who did and Facebooked their cyber applause and congratulatory remarks!

Snow in Slippery Rock! Christmas 2012

(Above:  Female Downy Woodpecker.  Click on any image to enlarge.)

On Christmas Day Steve and I got up very early and traveled north through dense fog in West Virginia and all the way to Slippery Rock, Pennsylvania ... in time for Christmas dinner.  It was GREAT!  We opened presents afterwards ... including the one I bought for my sister Sonya and brother-in-law Vipin. 

Okay, I admit it!  This found-object artpiece was really bought for their little pup Lulu ... for this photo op!


(Above:  Lulu and the Christmas crab!)

The next day snow storm Euclid dumped plenty of the "white stuff" and we went for a walk by the ice covered lake and through the woods.  We also spent plenty of time watching the dozens of different types of winter birds eating at the feeders outside my parents' sliding glass doors.  A dozen turkeys wandered by as well.


(Above:  Snow covered cat tail reeds at the side of the lake.)

We are now officially snowbound ... and loving it.  It is an excellent excuse for staying inside and stitching!  I posted 29 photos on a Flickr! account ... HERE or HERE FOR A SLIDESHOW!


(Above:  View to my parent's house from the workshop/garage.)


(Above:  Me in my mother's winter coat ... the one she called Nanook of the North.)


(Above:  Steve ... as we approached the bird feeders ... where I took the photo of the woodpecker at the beginning of this post.)

(Above:  Mathias, age 17.  Summer of 2005.  ABT summer intensive.)

I have a "google alert" on my elder son's name.  Yesterday a message appeared and I found this photo of Mathias.  I knew he looked "young" ... or at least younger than his current age of 24 ... but WHERE was this photo taken.  I emailed Mathias.  His answer:  ABT summer program.  He also told me about a gallery of photos from last week's triple bill.  These great images are on Dance Europe's website.  They're embedded into the site in such a way that I can't "grab" them and post ... but here's the link! 

Mathias as Puck ... from the BRB Facebook Photo Album

Grandpa's Slides, 1953-68

(Above: LoraDell Baker in Atlantic City, 1966. Click on image to enlarge.)

In March 2012 while I was at an art residency in Key West, Steve took digital photographs of slides taken and organized by my grandpa, Connel A. Baker, Jr. I've finally uploaded them to Flickr!, a public site. Using Photoshop, I've "played around" with the two photos in this blog post in order to minimize the look from the slide projector screen.

Suitcase # 1 is HERE or as a slideshow HERE. Total 1,613 images ... all with Grandpa's captions.
Suitecase # 2 is HERE or as a slideshow HERE. Total 1,786 images ... all with Grandpa's captions.


(Above: The seven grandchildren, 1967. Click on image to enlarge.)

Steve's blog post from March 8 reads:

The head mouse, Susan, is spending the whole month of March at The Studios of Key West as one of their artist-in-residence. Today she is teaching her famously "Hot" class to 12 eager students (a class that had 8-10 people on a waiting list). She is spending this month creating faux stain glass fiber pieces and more InBox pieces for an upcoming show in Fredericksburg, VA in June. Needless to say she is having a great time away from me and the business. I will join her on March 29 and we will return on April 2.

One of my duties ( it is actually my pleasure and honor) in her absence is to record and document the hundreds of photographic slides that Susan's grandfather, Connel Baker, created during the years from 1954-1968. I never had the pleasure to meet him because of his untimely death in 1978. The slides contain photographs of his trips (with the love of his life, LoraDell, still alive and kicking at 93) all over the United States and Europe, family photos of his children, grandchildren, immediate family members and friends, and everything else in between. He even took slides of President Lyndon Johnson's Inauguration in 1965. There are no fewer than 95 boxes of slides with 36 slides per box. Every slide was named and dated, and each one was enclosed in a metal case. The metal slides were placed in a Airequipt automatic slide magazine and viewed using a Argus 300 Slide Projector. This was cutting edge technology before the invention of the Carousel projector that most people of my generation would remember.

The vast majority of the slides are in incredibly good shape with crisp colors and clarity. Many have not been seen in 50 years or more, and many of them have never been seen by Susan's family. Before Susan left for Florida, she set up a tripod with my digital camera and movie screen borrowed from her sister, Sonya, in our living room upstairs. We set up the Argus Projector, and I began taking digital photos of each slide as projected on the movie screen. Each container and slide is named using Connel's descriptions and stored on the computer. Although the quality is not as good as the slide itself, one can get a reasonable idea of which ones may need to be scanned for better reproduction (and believe me, there are many that warrant this!).

Lyric Pieces ... a photo I found on-line

(Above: Members of Birmingham Royal Ballet dancing in Lyric Pieces, a new work by choreographer Jessica Lang. I saw this work during my spring trip to England. It is WONDERFUL and Mathias was wonderful in it! Here's a video of Ms. Lang talking about her commission.