Dance

“Countless workout fads have come along since the heyday of Jazzercise: Tae Bo, Pilates, Zumba, boxing, spinning, pole dancing. And yet Jazzercise persists: today, according to the company, there are more than seven thousand franchises, serving roughly two hundred and fifty thousand customers in twenty-five countries and grossing somewhere between ninety-five million and a hundred million dollars per year.” – The New Yorker

In the 18th-century source, a novel by the Abbé Prévost, Manon Lescaut was an archetypal siren, luring a helpless young nobleman to his doom; later operatic adaptations may have had more sympathy for her but weren’t so different. Yet MacMillan found in her one of his most powerful, and controversial, heroines, one that great ballerinas love to play. Alastair Macaulay looks at how their portrayals of the character have shifted over the years. – The New York Times

“Their moves are fresh, funny and stylish; their subjects include the climate crisis, gender politics and poetry.” – The Guardian

“One reason, an obvious one, had to do with a close friend. As soon as the playwright Branden Jacobs-Jenkins started to pass his name along to people in the theater world, … he found himself filling a niche Off-Broadway. ‘I was working on new plays that wanted to have a physical life, but didn’t know how,’ he said.” – The New York Times

Or, at least, in Manhattan. The once-wildly-popular 1990s electronic game can still be played at arcades in Times Square and Chinatown, where there is a devoted following. – The New York Times

Kathleen Breene Combs has been with the Boston Ballet for decades. now, she’s packing up her pointe shoes, putting on the business shoes, and moving to Rhode Island’s Festival Ballet Providence as executive director. Her interest in the smooth running of the back end came about when she got active in the union, negotiating dancers’ contracts, and morphed into something else when she got pregnant. – Pointe Magazine

They have been the face of the company for years — or, rather, the faces. Mr. Taylor picked his dancers for their individuality, both in looks and in spirit. And now they’re moving on… – The New York Times

“Terrence S. Orr … will retire next June after the ballet company concludes its 50th anniversary season. Under his leadership, Mr. Orr expanded the company’s repertory with more than 20 new commissions and dozens of acquisitions … [and] the company has grown its ticket sales, school enrollment and campus.” – Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

Kelly Tweeddale, who trained as a dancer when young, has spent the past five seasons as president of the Vancouver Symphony; before that, she was for 12 years executive director of Seattle Opera, and she worked previously at the Cleveland Orchestra and Seattle Symphony. She begins work in San Francisco after Labor Day. – San Francisco Chronicle

The news, rumoured for months, was confirmed by the company Tuesday as it announced details of what will be House’s final season at the head of one of Canada’s oldest and most respected contemporary dance troupes.
– Toronto Star

In 1980, Kylián traveled to the Northern Territory to see the largest-ever gathering of Australian Aboriginal tribes; they all spoke different languages, so they communicated with dance. The experience led Kylián to choreograph The Stamping Ground in 1983, and it’s been performed in many countries since. But never in Australia until now, as Bangarra Dance Theatre, the country’s leading Aboriginal company, takes the piece on. – The Sydney Morning Herald

“What if humans are the primates whose capacity to dance (shared by some birds and mammals) was the signature strategy enabling the evolution of a distinctively large and interconnected brain, empathic heart and ecological adaptability? And what if dancing plays this role for humans not just in prehistoric times, but continuing into the present?” – Aeon

“‘I’ve always been attracted to those ballet steps, and using them as a framework, or form, but then changing stuff within that,’ she says. Nevertheless, breaking into the ballet world wasn’t a clearcut goal of hers. … When asked when she became interested in working with ballet companies, Tanowitz answers, laughing, ‘When they hired me!'” – Pointe Magazine

“[Emilie] Skinner launched DNCB in 2011 after dancing with Contemporary Ballet Dallas and carved out a niche re-staging groundbreaking examples of early modernist ballet, particularly pieces by the influential Ballet Russes such as The Afternoon of a Faun, Le Train Bleu and Parade.” – Dallas Morning News

“The ballerina’s challenge is to hide how hard she’s working, which is why behind-the-scenes ballet stories are always so appealing — it’s satisfying to see the athleticism inherent to the art.” – The Cut

Six years ago, the company moved into a newly-rehabbed 11,000-square-foot space with rent and expenses of $15,000 a month — expensive, though below market for the size and location. But the expense of building damage and other after-effects of Hurricane Harvey (2017) led to a cash-flow problem from which METdance has never recovered. – Houston Chronicle

“I think what appeared after in newspapers and magazines can’t be justified by what I said online … It was a weird, interesting experience and it felt like there was a certain karma that I had to go through. But actually I felt free after, free to dance.” (He also says that he thinks Rasputin “meant well.”) – BBC

For the retiring dancer, who’s about to become executive director of Festival Ballet Providence, it was a definite choice: she got a degree and interned in Boston Ballet’s administrative offices when not dancing. “As much as I love being in the studio, I knew that after I stopped dancing, I didn’t want to continue that rigorous in-the-studio lifestyle. … I became very interested in what the art form could offer as a whole, rather than just personally what I could offer as an artist.” – Dance Magazine

“Ballet might have been considered camp from the start in its original French context,” allows Madison Mainwaring. (But then, so could most things at Louis XIV’s Versailles.) “If there is a camp essence in [today’s] Romantic style of ballet, with its jeweled costumes and feathered headdresses, it is related to the worship of a style that is no longer of its time.” – The New York Times

This decade has been pretty rough for the company, which lost its home to mold, cycled through executive directors at an alarming rate, and nearly closed for good in 2015. Now Orlando Ballet’s in the black, audiences are up 40% in two years, its shows are hits, and its new HQ is being built. – Orlando Sentinel

What’s particularly frustrating for international festival presenters is the idea of treating artists like immigrants and that they are not seen as the economic motors they are. After all, these people are not taking jobs; they’re coming for a limited amount of time and have no history of being dangerous.  – San Francisco Classical Voice

Sarah Kaufman: “The subtlety, intelligence and beauty of Federer’s play can pull us into a direct and instant involvement with grace. We experience a dimension of humanness that feels perfected and free, even close to divine. Great artists can do this to us.” – The Washington Post

Batsheva Dance Company’s Ohad Naharin told Army Radio, “BDS is against the occupation, something I sympathize with. I’ve always said that if protesting and boycotting my performances would improve the situation in the territories or bring a solution to the conflict, I would support the boycott myself.” There were prompt calls from some members of the public for Naharin to be stripped of all previous honors and for state funding of his work to be withdrawn. – Haaretz (Israel)

“What if all ballet dancers had agents and ballet companies had scouts? What if once a year there was a ballet combine, at which pre-professional dancers and ‘free agents’ could showcase their skills and be assessed by ballet companies across America like in a centralized audition?” – Dance Magazine

He joined the company in 1983 and grew to become one of its stars, and in 2001 he became the boss. When he departs in 2020, McAllister will have been the longest-serving artistic director in the Australian Ballet’s history. – The Age (Melbourne)

Gia Kourlas got Tharp and Sara Rudner, who danced in the work’s 1979 premiere, together with Misty Copeland and Isabella Boylston, who are performing in ABT’s upcoming revival. “It was lively … but certain points became clear: How important is it to work with the artist who actually created a ballet? Very. And how scary is it to step into the roles of two of the finest dancers of their generation, classical or otherwise? Ditto.” – The New York Times