Thank you to Muriel Maffre, Galina Alexandrova and Ken Patsel for inviting me to present "First Position" during a program featuring Muriel's performance of works by Nicolas Blanc on Friday, September 21, 2007 at City Ballet in San Francisco. The potluck-enhanced event was attended by students and their parents and members of the faculty. I signed so many books that Jim decided to make a run home for another box! Just mention of the dancers in the book and some of the pre-pub dance commentators stirred recollections among the dancers and their parents when they visited the table. Muriel conducted a q&a following her performance and the audience participation was unstinting! It was a moving experience for me--to introduce "First Position" in the studio built at great sacrifice by Galina's mother, Svetlana Afanasieva, Galina and Ken, completed just weeks before Svetlana's untimely death. The energy at City Ballet is high and welcoming, and the teachers, including Galina, Lupe Calzadilla and Yuri Zukhov, are accessible and interactive with the students and parents. Ken, who gallantly stewards the whole process, points with pride to the number of students who are going from the school's professional program into advanced study at major ballet schools such as the Kirov in Washington, D.C. and Pacific Northwest Ballet School, as well as university dance programs. Congratulations City Ballet! [Below are photos of Muriel Maffre, Toba Singer, Lupe Calzadilla, the audience, and the signing before and after the engrossing performance by Muriel]
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