“I think the thing that’s changed the most over the years is that it just becomes more and more and more difficult to sustain organizations and to sustain the art itself. The funding climate has changed over the years: it’s much more difficult and much more competitive. And the nature of the audience has changed as well. There is just so much more competition for people’s time especially with what’s available online, in new media, and on demand.”
“The lawsuit rolls on, pitting a 57-year-old stage carpenter against one of the country’s premier ballet companies. And it puts two friends, who bonded during years of working alongside the likes of Mikhail Baryshnikov, Rudolf Nureyev and Susan Jaffe, on opposite sides of the courtroom.”
“‘I’ve been with her this whole time on this journey of hers,’ Copeland said. ‘When she told me she couldn’t dance anymore and was going to open a school, I said, “What can I do to help?”‘”
“This production is not an occasion for him to express his bold originality as is the case with his Nutcracker … Rather, his approach to Sleeping Beauty is to re-create as closely as possible the 1890 choreography by Marius Petipa,” notation for which has survived.
“[Dance education] should not have a cost or price. … When you put a price on [access], then you divide into two camps those who can and those who cannot. In the camp of those who cannot I bet there is a lot of talent there, a lot of Nureyev … I think we should demand at the highest level that these things should happen. It is a fight to take to the government.”
“How miraculous that amid all that suffocating tulle, a ballet flame-thrower named Leonid Yakobson emerged. … Dancers hungry for a challenge loved the odd body shapes, sexiness and wit of his choreography. Among his disciples were the young Natalia Makarova and Mikhail Baryshnikov” as well as Maya Plisetskaya. Even Richard Nixon was a fan.
“Former dancer and ballet teacher Ian Knowles created the site – balletposition.com – which he claims is the first of its type, to compare useful data for dancers looking to join ballet companies in the UK, Western and Eastern Europe and the US.”
“There seemed to be an explosion of young men in knit caps and young women in leather pants watching as New York City Ballet recently performed a trio of Balanchine classics. In fact, the average age in the David H. Koch Theater seemed to have dropped by years, if not decades.”
Jenifer Ringer, late of New York City Ballet, explains the process and the factors that affect it.
“She was, and is, longer than most. More angular. Like calligraphy, critics said. And that’s just the start. They go crazy for her work ethic. Her astounding strength. Her rapturous, incandescent spirituality. So have choreographers. … Last fall, at 47, Whelan left the New York City Ballet. But she’s still dancing.” (audio; includes video clips)
“So how does one plan for a tragedy? You really can’t. You plan for your organization’s response to one. That is to say, put in place the information, guidelines, training, and materials needed to help company leadership and staff deal with a most difficult and often chaotic time.”
Well, for a start, you get Maurice Béjart and Pina Bausch ranked ahead of Marius Petipa and Bob Fosse. And there’s more to argue about where that came from. (On the other hand, at least she doesn’t forget about hip-hop and Bollywood.)
“Ballet is easily the most photogenic of the sports. An art form that toes the line between performance and feats of athleticism, it’s filled with pirouettes and arabesques that when frozen in a frame appear like paintings or perfectly sculpted statues.”
Sylvie Guillem: “One foot on stage. Curtain up. That was it… The relation I had with the audience, it was fantastic. It is always so strange. You dance, and there is an answer – that is always true. You put me in a room with people and I hide in the corner; put me on stage and I’m different.”
“Behold, a brief history of ballet invading pop music.”
Judith Mackrell: “A couple of months ago I asked whether choreographers need editors and whether dance, like literature, might benefit from having some kind of inbuilt system of feedback, comment and control. It became clear that this was a question that others were asking. And a few weeks later, it was taken up by Rambert in their offer of a public debate.”
Two years ago, the Teatro del Maggio Musicale, facing the same cash crises that afflict most Italian opera houses these days, announced that it could no longer afford to maintain its ballet company, called MaggioDanza. Supporters put together a private entity intended to maintain the troupe at the theater. It didn’t work (and they’re all suing each other), so MaggioDanza will close after all. (in Italian)
“There are so many talented female choreographers out there, but they’re much less quick than men to accept work. Some of the women I approached had little children and decided it was too much to deal with. Some felt they were not ready for a big London commission. … There’s no shortage of men who want to experiment and put themselves forward, but we have to go out to find the women.”
“Since founding her practice in 2008, Rodriguez has become the go-to physical therapist for much of the ballet world’s elite talent, treating marquee dancers like Benjamin Millepied and Wendy Whelan, as well as members of companies including the New York City Ballet, the Alvin Ailey school and France’s Paris Opera Ballet.”
The 33-year-old Quebecker is a principal and the National Ballet of Canada and arguably the nation’s biggest male ballet star. He also makes high-profile guest appearances, composes and performs music, runs a summer arts festival in the countryside north of Montreal, and is choreographing a full-length ballet based on one of the most beloved works in all of French literature (Le Petit Prince). And he’s a dad.
Essentially, Taylor will become a presenter of dance as well as a dance company.
Thanks to a series of proverbially unfortunate events that haven’t, in the end, worked out so badly, New York Theater Ballet – homeless just a year ago – has found itself ensconced in one of the East Village’s iconic avant-garde performance venues.
The installation at Manhattan’s New Museum, called (in exemplary political art fashion) P.O.L.E. (People, Objects, Language, Exchange), incorporates the original neon “Silence = Death” sign and has included pay-what-you-wish “open pole” sessions.
“‘It’s weird to think at 16 I will be on the other side of the world, living by myself and cooking and cleaning and washing up,’ says Lee. ‘It’s scary, but it’s what I’ve been training for.'”
“Juan Ramírez’s days begin and end with flamenco – the iconic, traditional form of folk music from Andalusia in Spain that emphasises percussive guitar, powerful singing, fierce dancing and, above all, potent emotion.”
“The images flash between the noble and the grotesque, as a Renaissance artist might put it–the polished and the rough, elegant and comic, masque and antimasque. Then as now, we’re fascinated by these contrasts, these irreconcilable parts of our essential humanness. It satisfies something innate to see opposites in play.”
“Technically, the performance is astonishing. The robot itself required a full four months of on-site programming and rehearsal. That most demanding and conspicuous technical element makes the hour-long performance’s lighting seem elementary by comparison, but it is similarly high-tech and essential to the piece’s sleek, minimalist aesthetic.”
The highest praise for a dancer these days is to call her “an athlete.” What is wrong with “artist”? Why prolong the inferiority complex about art?
Gustavo Ramirez Sansano was appointed in November 2014, alongside Paul Kaynes as chief executive, as National Dance Company Wales new artistic director and was due to begin his tenure in June. National Dance Company Wales’s previous artistic director and co-founder Ann Sholem stepped down in 2013 after 30 years in charge of the company.
“Tate Modern is to become a museum of dance for 48 hours as 75 performers take over the gallery spaces for displays and workshops, and the Turbine Hall is transformed into a nightclub.”