Latest news with #Salomons
NBC News
01-04-2025
- Lifestyle
- NBC News
I can't stop spotting these La Sportiva outdoor hiking sneakers everywhere
There is something inherently wrong about wearing hiking sneakers in the city. I'm not hiking through rugged marshlands, clogging up the soles of my sneakers with thick layers of mud and dirt. I'm more likely to commute to work via the subway and fire off emails and Slack messages. Wearing Salomons to walk your dog around the corner is like wearing ballet flats to do some construction work. Hiking sneakers are meant for hiking, but that hasn't stopped them from becoming incredibly popular in recent years. I like it when a sneaker's original purpose completely folds onto itself, becoming something new and more interesting. The fun and frankly bizarre colors of the Salomon XT6 have propelled it from an obscure French hiking brand to an international sneaker sensation. But a new sneaker has caught my eye in recent months: the La Sportiva TX3. It's also been designed for hiking, but that hasn't stopped people from slowly lacing them up to hit the city streets, like they did with their Salomons. Below, I've highlighted some of my favorite hiking shoes and the brands you need to look out for to upgrade your shoe collection. Want more from NBC Select? Sign up for our newsletter, The Selection, and shop smarter. How I picked my favorite hiking shoes The La Sportiva has a slim profile, and the heel isn't quite as chunky as the Salomon XT6 sneakers, but they have that outdoorsy look that I have been drawn to. I've also seen other brands produce stylish and functional hiking sneakers: Keen has a similar low-profile sneaker called the Jasper and Hoka created the Tor Summit. This large shoe borrows design elements from classic hiking boots. I spotted the La Sportiva in a small lookbook for the Aaron Levine brand. A model sits slouched on a chair with the La Sportiva TX3 unlaced. The shoes' vibrant color and low profile caught my eye. Sometimes you're drawn to a shoe's simplicity or design, and sometimes you just like how it's styled — this time, it was a bit of all three. I immediately had to do a deep dive to try and find the shoe. I scoured the internet and eventually landed on the La Sportiva site. But I also spotted other La Sportiva hiking sneakers in the streets and on Instagram in the last few months. My favorite hiking sneakers of 2025 Sneaker culture is constantly shifting; the ebb and flow is impossible to predict, but when I notice a shoe style bubbling up, I can't ignore it. Here's a breakdown of all the brands making some of my favorite hiking sneakers, including the classic Salomon XT6 and the La Sportiva TX3. It's easy to be dismissive of these shoes. They look funky with its aptly named spicy orange colorway and bizarre lacing system. But the same could be said for other hiking sneakers. The TX3 has a mesh upper, which is great for warmer months, thanks to its breathability. It also has an ortho-lite insole for comfort, a vibram outsole for traction, and a 'climbing zone' toe for added grip if you decide to take these shoes on the trail. I also think these are incredibly easy to style; you can pair them with hiking pants, shorts or denim. Salomon XT6 The Salomon XT6 is one of the first major shoes to break out of the outdoors gorpcore (short for 'good ol' raisins and peanuts') trend. As people started zipping up Arcteryx jackets, they also started drifting towards the Salomon's classic design and vibrant color options. I've owned a pair of XT6s for about two years. They are incredibly comfortable and easy to wear. They have even kept my feet dry during torrential downpours. The XT6 is also incredibly lightweight and has EVA cushioning for added cushioning and comfort. Salomon also updates the XT6 line every few months with new color options. The TX4 EVO has a leather upper, Vibram outsole and a wide forefoot fit for more comfort around the toe box of the shoe. I also love the yellow and tropical blue laces, which can quickly add color to any outfit you decide to slap together with these on. You can also resole the TX4 EVO at La Sportiva-approved cobblers. La Sportiva has such interesting design elements that make the shoe stand out in a sea of more basic designs: it's a bit rugged but also functional and unique. Don't be surprised to see more of the Keen Jasper shoe over the next few months. It comes in six color options, but I like the simplicity of the Mink option, with its beige outer, black sole and red multi-colored laces. The Jasper has a contour fit that easily fits the shape of your foot for added comfort. Keen's iconic toe bumper at the front of the shoe is meant to protect your feet from debris or rocks as you hit the trail. If you're a fan of Hoka's and want to dip your toe into the hiking sneaker trend, the Tor Summit is your best bet. It borrows from Hoka's classic design language with the thick rubber sole but also nods to classic hiking boots. The Tor has a luxe nubuck leather upper, a rubber mudguard, zig-zag stitching, and metal eyelet hardware, according to the brand. Merrell's Moab 2 Mesa Eco model has webbing, breathable mesh lining and a mesh footbed cover. It has classic Moab hiking boot elements but with a more sneaker-forward design. Merrell designed the Moab 2 Mesa for all terrains, and they still have hiking elements that offer grip, shock stability and durability. I was personally drawn to the classic alloy/ graphite color option but Merrell has four other colorways to choose from. Tarvas Easy Hiker The Tarvas Easy Hiker is a pricier model, but it has everything you would want in a hybrid hiking sneaker: a simplistic and stylish design with functional hiking elements. The Easy Hiker has a water-repellent full-grain leather upper, natural rubber Vibram sole and Tarvas' signature mudguard, which wraps around the entire shoe for added weather protection, according to the brand. Why trust NBC Select? I am an editor at NBC Select who writes and edits stories on various topics including tech, fitness, home and more. I have covered major shopping holidays and other events for over five years. For this article, I rounded up my favorite hiking shoes and sneakers from NBC Select favorite brands.
New York Times
10-02-2025
- Entertainment
- New York Times
She Keeps ‘The Lion King' in Motion
If there were a want ad for resident dance supervisor to 'The Lion King,' it might read something like this: Must be able to work 10-hour days, seven days a week; to manipulate 200 puppets and walk on stilts; to wrangle 52 performers and remember every move in the two-and-a-half-hour show. Candidate must also have the heart of a social worker, the discipline of a Marine and the boundless enthusiasm of a camp counselor to keep the musical as fresh as when it opened 28 years ago. While plenty of Broadway shows have dance captains — they're in charge of keeping choreography in good order — only 'The Lion King' has a resident dance supervisor. The show is like a giant, kinetic jigsaw puzzle: It needs someone to ensure that all the pieces fit together, so that the narrative moves forward — and no one gets hurt. This has been Ruthlyn Salomons's job for 25 years. Movement is the show's motor, Salomons said. 'It's what binds it. It's not just the performing bodies that move. Everything in the show moves. Everything dances.' That goes for a 5-inch mouse as much as for the 13-foot-long mama elephant, Bertha, who has four puppeteers tucked into her body. 'The show's demands are so unusual,' said Michele Steckler, a former associate producer of 'The Lion King,' 'that taking care of it requires a different kind of maintenance.' In the show's early days, Steckler petitioned her colleagues to create a new position for someone to oversee all the movement. 'It was just too much for one person,' she said. (The show also has two dance captains, but they double as performers and can't see the show from outside.) A few years into its run, the production hired Salomons, 61, who has an extensive background in dance: She was a member of Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, danced with Mikhail Baryshnikov's White Oak Project and was the Romanian princess Matthew Bourne's 'Swan Lake' on Broadway. Each performance of 'The Lion King' finds her fixed behind the light board at the rear of the Minskoff Theater, scrutinizing the show's performers to ensure that no step is wrongly taken, no arm momentarily misplaced, no stillness cut short. Given the intricacy of the staging, the spitfire speed of its changes and the mutual dependence of the performers, disaster is always lurking. Performers have accidentally smacked into each other; puppets have been beheaded. 'The show is so complicated,' she said, 'that everything is balanced on the head of a pin.' With such an enormous cast, there is always someone out sick or injured, or needed by a sick parent or child, or getting married, having a baby or going on vacation. Or just needing a rest. Salomons is continually teaching and training swings, ensemble members and soloists. And she is always busy tidying sections of the show that have gone a bit slack, encouraging performers who have become a bit sloppy. That's in addition to keeping Garth Fagan's Tony-winning choreography up to snuff. While only 16 of the 52 performers are professional dancers, everyone in the show must pass a dance audition. Given the complexity of the manipulation of the puppets, the large number of people onstage at any given time and the density of the group dances, the ability to dance, or at least to be well coordinated, is a necessity. And that's just onstage. Offstage makes its own choreographic demands. Performers have to navigate swiftly and safely among the 100 backstage personnel — stagehands, wardrobe, makeup artists, puppet directors and puppet doctors, physical therapists — to change rapidly out of and into one of the show's 300 costumes before dashing back on as a different character. (Each ensemble members plays at least nine roles.) 'No single day is the same,' Salomons said of her job. 'I'm always learning something new.' Last month we followed Salomons around for several days to observe how she gets it done. Office: The Dance Bible JAN. 6, 11:45 a.m. Before heading downstairs for a brush-up stage rehearsal, Salomons is in her office, paging through what she calls her Dance Bible to check on casting. The Dance Bible is a thick loose-leaf binder, the size of an old Manhattan telephone directory, that she created to record all aspects of the show: casting, as well as all the performers' movements; scene by scene diagrams of entrances, exits and travel patterns; and schematics of the stage, auditorium and the lobby, where, Bertha, the gigantic elephant puppet is assembled just before curtain. If she has to be offstage to deal with a mid-show emergency, the TV above her desk lets her keep track of what's going on onstage. Taped to the walls and mirrors is a maze of lists with scene times and lengths, songs and monthly, weekly and daily schedules. Stage rehearsal: Giraffes and lionesses 12:10 p.m., Giraffes Salomons is training an ensemble member, James Vessell, to operate the giraffe. At 5-foot-2, Salomons strains her neck to issue a correction to Vessell, perched high up in the 14-foot-high puppet. 'Danger is in the air,' she tells him. 'You are picking up the scent of a cheetah that had been laying in wait for you. Every count counts. Your life is on the line. It's crucial that the performer understands the narrative that motivates the movement.' There are two giraffe puppets, each controlled by a single performer who must first climb a ladder to attach his arms and legs to the custom-made stilts fitted inside the puppet. Salomons had to learn to walk on the stilts to teach the giraffe puppeteer how to achieve its stately walk and expressive tilts of its head as it crosses the stage. Success requires the physical coordination of an Olympian and often a month to learn. 1:10, Lionesses Next up are the eight lionesses for a hunt scene. 'I needed to remind them of the importance of stillness in their section,' Salomons said. 'It's difficult, after doing eight shows a week, to remember the intent behind the movement. And every moment inside the show, every single movement has a narrative embedded in it.' Crouched at the edge of the stage, her eyes go back and forth from her Dance Bible to the dancers while she softly sings the lioness's chant. 'I can't stop myself from singing,' she said with a laugh. A moment later, she springs up, rapidly crosses the floor, and places her hand on a dancer's torso to demonstrate the precise position above the leg that gives her movement greater ferocity. Then she turns to the group: 'Remember you have to be stealthy. Stillness is crucial in preparing to attack.' Dance rehearsal: 1 performer, 8 roles, 13 scenes JAN. 10, noon At the Ripley-Grier studio on 38th Street, 16 floors above the cacophony of Eighth Avenue, Salomons and Christopher McKenzie, the dance captain for the male vocalists and dancers, work with Jordan Samuels, a swing. Salomons, her voice quiet but commanding, demonstrates the steps of one of the eight roles he will play in 13 scenes — requiring 12 costume changes. McKenzie had performed in every show for the three and a half weeks leading up to this rehearsal. 'I needed Chris today because while I can see the show from the outside,' she said, 'Chris understands the actual feeling of being onstage and the spatial relationship between the performers.' 'Ruthlyn can't be at every one of the 19 rehearsals a week, so we pinch hit,' McKenzie said: 'I teach parts and when necessary, I remind Ruthlyn of the details in the men's roles.' McKenzie and Alia Kache, the dance captain for the women vocalists and dancers, are also swings. 5 p.m. After the four-hour rehearsal, Salomons races uptown to the production stage manager Antonia Gianino's office for a short break before she and Gianino go over the evening's casting. Performers are allowed to phone in up to two hours before curtain if they can't make it; and because ensemble members perform so many roles in each show, everyone — performers, crew, wardrobe, hair, makeup, stagehands — has to be able to turn on a dime. The maze of backstage hallways crackle with the din of Walkie Talkies as the crew shares new information, announces updates and coordinates timing. Show time! JAN. 10, 6 p.m. An hour before curtain, Salomons travels from dressing room to dressing room to check on how the dancers are feeling, answer questions, dispense advice, give notes and offer an encouraging shoulder squeeze. Thirty minutes later, she rushes down to her station behind the lighting board to begin her surveillance of the show. 6:30 p.m. The audience begins to file in. 7 p.m. The curtain slowly ascends on a giant orange sun rising on the back of the stage. The giraffes begin their majestic walk across it. The animals begin to awaken. Bertha begins her waddle down the aisle. Once again, the audience holds its breath. 10:45 p.m. After curtain call and a 45-minute subway ride home to Rego Park, Queens, Salomons is not quite ready to fall into bed, she said in a phone call. 'I need to unwind,' she said. 'My mind is still racing with all the things I need to do tomorrow. I try to close the lights, shut my eyes and just be silent. But sometimes, like last night, even after expending so much energy working with the performers, my dancer energy couldn't stop, and so I cleaned my apartment.' AFTER 25 YEARS on the job, how does Salomons maintain her enthusiasm? 'Of course, I have my down days sometimes,' she said. 'The daily work can take its toll. But then something magical happens to reinvigorate me, especially when I have a new performer to work with.' She tells them it's OK to make mistakes, that it's part of the process. Salomons discovered that when she was a student at LaGuardia High School, in Manhattan, and fell onstage while dancing in 'Company.' 'At first I was mortified and terrified,' she said. 'How I could ever face the world again? A split second later I was up on my feet and suddenly realized that if I could fall and get up again, I could be a dancer. I could do anything.'
