8 replies to this topic

[scottnilsson]

(apologies for a blatantly proud-husband moment...)

My wife, Kristina (Kristy Nilsson), is a full time ballet choreographer and teacher. She danced with the Houston Repertoire Ballet, Charleston Ballet (where I shot for years) and Atlanta Ballet - all 10+ years ago, and has now choreographed more than eighty concert works, that have been performed by twenty-two companies in ten states and two countries - but March is a special month: she is opening two new, full-length works (her forth and fifth) - "Rapunzel" and a Jazz Age "Alice in Wonderland" by two different companies (Atlanta Dance Theatre and Gainesville Ballet) on the same weekend. Last month, I did some promo shots for Alice, and this week - she has billboards up around metro Atlanta for both ballets. I told her, "Enjoy it - it is probably the only time in your life you'll have two billboards up for two different ballets at the same time!' (and she is...) but she, as a lot of us, is always concerned about what she will be doing next...!


 Kristy Nilsson Alice in Wonderland Gainesville Ballet Billboard.jpg   775.53K   0 downloads

Edited by scottnilsson, 29 February 2012 - 19:34 .

[scottnilsson]

(poster)

Attached Files

•  Kristy Nilsson Alice in Wonderland Gainesville Ballet Poster Proof - sm.jpg   498.08K   0 downloads

Edited by scottnilsson, 29 February 2012 - 18:40 .

[Erik Lund]

Well done both of you! Great

[Ann]

Congratulations: the billboard and the poster are most imaginative and will, almost certainly, be extremely effective.

Edited by Ann, 29 February 2012 - 21:01 .

[wildoat]

Congrats to you and your wife Scott,
you obviously make a great team

Hope the productions go well, break a leg so to speak

[stenrasmussen]

You have both worked hard and the reward is nothing but well earned Scott. Good on ya!

[scottnilsson]

Thanks, folks -

I appreciate and will share your kind words: I am very proud of her in general, more even for who she is as much as what she accomplishes - but she is having a banner year (she set a new Rhapsody in Blue in Houston last spring, sends another new short piece to an international festival in Montreal next month, and she returns to teach master classes at her home studio in June, so she's really hopping right now. We both work 12/6 or more, so it was nice to see her having so much accumulated success this year. And it is nice that some of our work overlaps from time to time.

Keiko & I head into our super busy season (two weeks off total between this coming Saturday and mid-June), but I'm taking two nights out to go shoot both of Kristy's new ballets - and another Swan Lake that same week... it's a part of the soul-food of this - and it's great that although we don't work together often (Kristy second-guns, quite well I might add, for me on weddings and events, and 3rd guns for Keiko & I on occasion), we share a lot between our shared focus areas in dance, photography and the performing arts.

It's a good life. A wee bit hectic, but that's also our nature...

Hugs to all, and thanks again: she'll appreciate it (as do I) -


Scott


BTW: Keiko is in Washington, DC, this week - giving congressional testimony to support enhancing cruise ship safety, after her harrowing experience on the Concordia last month. Through the losses and efforts of many, future good will undoubtedly emerge.

[Ann]

I had no idea Keiko had been on the Concordia: what a terrifying ordeal that must have been!

And now the same cruise line has had another one of their fleet adrift in the Indian Ocean with total loss of electric power.

I have seen these gigantic "floating cities" at dock in Bergen and in Miami and have always wondered how they can possibly hope to get 4,000 people off them safely in an emergency and if we actually learned anything from the tragedy of the Titanic.

[scottnilsson]

Wholly agreed, Ann: I suspect there will be renewed oversight, and a plethora of new regs implemented from the brine (required evacuation training before departing port, more than sufficient life vests available above the quarter decks, emergency notification for both passengers and the appropriate coast guard/authorities, and emergency response plans (in each country of port - both for the cruise/merchant marine company, and for the country), etc.

Kristy and I have cruised before (I enjoyed it a great deal more than I had thought I would in advance), and we'll cruise again: the next five years may be the very safest time to cruise - until the next disaster (unfortunately, that is how it works: people pay more attention after a calamity - until they lose focus again...)