Smartphone photos linked onto a tweet are a great way to let Twitter followers get a glimpse of where you are and what you're up to. Everyone's at it from Hollywood stars to football louts. Ballet dancers, creative by nature, are often clicking away and sometimes the results are shared.
Now boys love toys, so most of the tweet-pics are from male dancers. In fact most ballet twitterers are male. The American Ballet Theatre's David Hallberg (@DavidHallberg) looks reflectively in the mirror (pun intended):
The National Ballet of Canada's Guillaume Coté (@guillaume__cote) and Leonid Sarafanov, now with the Mikhailovsky Ballet, down a pint after Jewels at La Scala:
ABT's Daniil Simkin (@daniil) is shyly reflected by the glass:
The Royal Ballet's Lauren Cuthbertson (@LondonBallerina) shows her romantic side:
While San Francisco Ballet's Maria Kochetkova (@balletrusse) has an interval fag – or maybe it's a stage ciggie:
Some prefer to snap their colleagues. The Royal's Bennet Gartside (@Bennet76) captures Federico Bonelli (@federicouk) in the rehearsal studio:
and Gary Avis (@balletboy09) in the dressing room:
Of course there are plenty of tweeted photos of feet and costumes, auditoria and make-up, backstage corridors and views from the wings; and touring photos of planes and trains, hotels and cityscapes. But there's also life outside the theatre world and here it seems that more than boyfriends or wives it's our four-legged friends that are the most photographed. Here's Ashley Bouder's (@ashleybouder) dog Scout:
and Evan McKie's (@EVANMcKIE) cat Muffin:
My favourite? David Hallberg's evocative picture of a rehearsal studio at the Ballet Nacional de Cuba:
Of course it's all fun: sometimes silly, sometimes beautiful but often also quite often revealing. Thank you ballet twitterers everywhere…
Graham Spicer is a writer, director and photographer in Milan, blogging (under the name ‘Gramilano') about dance, opera, music and photography for people “who are a bit like me and like some of the things I like”. He was a regular columnist for Opera Now magazine and wrote for the BBC until transferring to Italy.
His scribblings have appeared in various publications from Woman's Weekly to Gay Times, and he wrote the ‘Danza in Italia' column for Dancing Times magazine.
