Dance Education

If you don't follow ballet, you probably have no idea how athletic it is, how competitive, how all-encompassing. The recent documentary First Position took viewers behind the scenes as kids trained for Youth America Grand Prix, a prestigious ballet competition. And now Breaking Pointe , which premieres at 8 Thursday night on CW57, goes backstage at Ballet West in Salt Lake City, one of the best companies in the country. It explores the dancers' drive, intense preparations, uncertainties, and jealousies.

A night to remember Nearly 25 members of the Philadelphia Orchestra were among the 200 guests who attended its Perfect Harmony benefit, held Thursday at the Philadelphia Museum of Art's Perelman Building. The evening featured cocktails, a buffet supper, and musical performances by members of the orchestra. The live auction, which raised nearly $30,000, included lunch with music director designate Yannick Nézet-Séguin and a home recital by concertmaster David Kim and first associate concertmaster Juliette Kang followed by dinner for 10. The benefit, cochaired by Elizabeth Crowell, Esther Schwartz, and Lisa Weber-Yakulis, raised $85,000 for the orchestra.

Marianne Carrano Raphaely, 74, of Cherry Hill, an award-winning fund-raiser for nonprofit organizations in the Philadelphia region, died of ovarian cancer on Sunday, Feb. 5, at Penn Hospice at Rittenhouse in Center City. Besides her fund-raising, Mrs. Raphaely was vice president of the board of the Technical Schools of Camden County from 1999 to 2003 and a member of the Cherry Hill Board of Education for nine years. And as chairperson from 2004 to 2008 of Art in City Hall, she organized the works of local artists throughout Philadelphia City Hall.

The 11th annual East Coast Black Age of Comics Convention celebrates the African American experience in comic books Friday and Saturday. The convention will offer an awards ceremony, film screenings, youth workshops, a parade, a comic-book marketplace, and other events at the African American Museum in Philadelphia and the Enterprise Center in West Philadelphia. Convention activities begin at 6:30 p.m. Friday at the museum, with a free reception and ceremonies for the Pioneer and Glyph comic awards.

An international business lawyer has been charged with two counts of sex tourism for engaging in an eight-year sexual relationship with a young ballet dancer he met in Russia, federal authorities announced yesterday. Kenneth Schneider, 45, who maintains a home in Paoli, was arrested Saturday in Cyprus, where he had allegedly fled to avoid prosecution. The indictment was returned Jan. 14 and unsealed yesterday. Schneider is president and chief executive officer of Aurience Ltd., a mergers and acquisitions firm based in London.

A South Philadelphia teenager will get to dance her dream this summer - and then some. Hoang Jessica Tang, the talented and hard-working young dancer profiled in The Inquirer a month ago, will be able to attend two prestigious ballet summer programs because of donations from readers. The Children's Ballet Theatre, the South Philadelphia dance school Tang attends, has been deluged with calls from private individuals and organizations wanting to help her. At last count, the donations were up to a little more than $8,900, according to Linda Verrecchia, the theater's program development coordinator.

On Mother's Day, far from Bucks County, activist and artist Peter Tinsman shot to death his 3-year-old daughter, Poppy, then ended his own life with the same gun. Five months later, Poppy's mother, artist Pam Gruno, is still coming to terms with the loss of her only child. She has chosen to cope with her grief in a most creative way - through a theater piece called Fire Journey, which will be performed Friday and Saturday at the Community Education Center in Philadelphia. Gruno and a friend, performance artist Rocky Wilson, who knew Poppy only a few months but grew close to the lively little girl, have woven dance, music, poetry and storytelling into a work that is full of love and healing.

LOOKS LIKE Ed Rendell is being hired at NBC News, though in what capacity is not yet clear, sources say. Politico.com reported yesterday that Rendell was close to signing with MSNBC, for which he would become a "regular political contributor for the 2012 campaign cycle," according to Politico's David Catanese . We're told Rendell could be used on other NBC News broadcasts, too. An NBC News spokeswoman declined comment yesterday. "I'm doing it mostly because I want to continue to participate in the public dialogue and speeches and television are the best venues to do that," the former governor told Catanese.

A HUGE PORTRAIT of Polina Kadiyska keeps watch over Washington Avenue near Broad from the window of the Rock School for Dance Education, her lithe dancer's body frozen in midair in the rhythms of a routine. The picture overlooks the street where the young ballerina moved for the last time. A Rock School student from Bulgaria - who also apparently worked on the side as hired eye-candy for parties - Kadiyska, 22, died yesterday after being run down Sunday allegedly by a drunken teenage driver.

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times for the 20 ballet students from the Rock School for Dance Education who competed in the New York finals of the Youth America Grand Prix last weekend. There were nerves, slips and two major falls. There were also some excellent performances. In the end, the students won only two medals, which for the Rock meant a slow year. But one of them was gold. Esteban Hernandez, a 13-year-old phenom from Mexico, won top honors among men in the junior division, for dancers ages 12 to 14. Hernandez was fresh off another gold medal win, that one in the junior division of the International Student Ballet Competition in Havana, Cuba.