News coverage of Bridget Breiner being named new director of the Karlsruhe Ballet company

Metropol News

Bridget with Birgit Keil, whom she is replacing.

Interview with Bridget.  Here is the Google Translation

KARLSRUHE - Bridget Breiner, currently ballet director in Gelsenkirchen, succeeds Professor Birgit Keil and will take over the direction of the STAATSBALLET KARLSRUHE beginning in the season 2019/20. She will continue the line of classical ballet, combined with her own artistic style and the promotion of aspiring choreographers.

"It is a great honor for me to succeed Birgit Keil. I love working with a company and look forward to choreographing myself, "says Breiner.  

General Manager Peter Spuhler is proud to announce that an internationally acclaimed dancer and award-winning choreographer is coming to Karlsruhe: "With Bridget Breiner, we are getting a new ballet director who will continue Birgit Keil's career in Karlsruhe and redesign it with her own personality." Karlsruhe ballet director Brigit Keil attended the press conference.Theresia Bauer, Minister of Science, Research and the Arts of the State of Baden-Württemberg, was particularly pleased that Bridget Breiner, who danced for many years as the first soloist for the Stuttgart Ballet, is now back in the Baden-region. She called it "the return of a great artist to the Baden-Württemberg region."

Latin dancing in Germany, Cologne cathedral and Berlin

We spent two weeks over Christmas visiting daughter Bridget in Northwest Germany, specifically Gelsenkirchen (green marker). Took a trip to visit the fantastic Cologne cathedral (yellow marker) and spent three days in freezing Berlin (red marker). (You can zoom in on the map for more detail).

The most fun was getting to see her dance "Swan Lake" (above) in a choreography that she created, and to meet some of the dancers and colleagues.

After the New Year's Eve performance of "Swan Lake", Bridget had a party at her apartment. The Brazilians and the Cubans from the dance company, and their compatriots, got things moving on the dance floor.

Coal mining and ballet in the industrial heart of Germany

From the top of the Ruhr Museum, you can still see some smokestack industry nearby.

Cindy and I went to the Ruhr Museum in Essen yesterday, which is housed in a huge former coal-processing and mining complex.

The Ruhr region (Ruhrgebiet) includes a vast area in the Rhine and Ruhr river valleys that has been the industrial heart of Germany.

The Allies bombed the heck out of the Ruhr in World War II, and three-fourths of Gelsenkirchen, where Bridget's dance company has its home, was destroyed. The town of Essen next door housed the huge Krupp armaments and steel factories and was also heavily bombed.

Still, after the war, this area was rebuilt and continued to be a major industrial center focused on production of coal, coke and steel. The MusikTheater (photos here) where our daughter Bridget's ballet company performs, was completed in 1959 and was viewed as a symbol of the area's reconstruction.