Dance

The story is purely about royal succession, which you’d think wouldn’t appeal to Americans. (And indeed, the ballet used to be reserved for touring European companies.) But there’s more:
“The fairy godmothers whom the monarchs invite to the heiress Aurora’s christening in the Prologue take the drama into a new, larger dimension: pure classicism. They make this a ballet about ballet itself — ballet as a language of harmonious idealism, in which radiant physical geometry keeps marrying music.”

As early Americans adapted the country dances of Europe, African-Americans (often enslaved, alas) were right there – first as musicians, then as callers. Erin Blakemore gives us the history.

“Isn’t this the most royalist of all ballets? King Florestan XXIV and his queen have a daughter, you see, and the story hinges on her finding Prince Right. Dynastic succession is the name of the game. … So why is this classic danced so regularly and well across America? Is royalism merely its surface?” The answer, says Alastair Macaulay, is this: “The fairy godmothers whom the monarchs invite to the heiress Aurora’s christening in the Prologue take the drama into a new, larger dimension: pure classicism. They make this a ballet about ballet itself – ballet as a language of harmonious idealism.”

“Digital broadcasts of dance generally fall into two categories: behind-the-scenes glimpses into rehearsals, like those offered by ballet companies around the globe on World Ballet Day, and live streams of in-demand theatrical performances, like those presented by the Guggenheim for its Works & Process performance series. In these latter cases, the broadcast usually supplements the live event; even without people tuning in remotely, the show would go on. “Marfa Dance Episodes,” directed by Benjamin Millepied, with choreography by him as well as several company members, differ in that the broadcast itself was the event; the series was created exclusively for an online audience, and the episodes, ranging from about seven to twenty minutes, were choreographed for—and with—the camera.”

When Dance Magazine published its list last week, the editors asked readers to tell them whom they unjustly left out. And readers definitely did.

“‘It’s easy to talk about the issues facing the dance sector, but I thought we had to do something,’ McGregor says, citing the cost (“around £2,000 per week,” or over $2,500) of renting a studio in London. As part of [his] FreeSpace [program], 5,000 hours of studio time will be gifted to 25 artists over one year. In exchange, for each week spent in the Studio they are asked to devote one day to outreach projects.

She’s opening a studio in St. Petersburg that will teach yoga and gymnastics as well as ballet; she’s running a dance festival that covers both that city and Moscow; she loves being a guest with other companies and wants to do more of it. In a Q&A with Gia Kourlas, she talks about her plans, ballet training today, and what she loves about American audiences.

“Using the sports marketing model, where major brands advertise to capture the sporting fan market,” the National Performing Arts Funding Exchange “will target corporate underwriters for various [small and independent] dance organizations. [Founder Cliff] Brody is convinced that companies will jump on the bandwagon to put their names behind dance.”

“There’s very little ballet that I like. I’m not interested in most of what’s happening in ballet. And so I think that women have been drawn to contemporary dance because it’s a more interesting field where you can see more interesting work. It draws upon more fields of art, there are more diverse influences. I think the problem with ballet, in general, is its insularity and the education that results from that.”

Siobhan Burke: “‘Greetings, folks,’ the email began, addressing a BCC-ed list of recipients to which I was sure I had been added by mistake. I read it twice, three times, refreshed the page. Because it’s not every day that you hear from Yvonne Rainer – the choreographer, dancer, writer, filmmaker and game-changing force in dance history – with an invitation to dance in her work.”

Dance Magazine’s got a list…

The festival’s new leader said, “There is a crisis of ambition in this country for choreographers. … Choreographers need space and time to experiment with new works.”

Germaine Acogny, who says dance is the mother of all the arts, “is best known for fusing West African and modern dance. She has been sharing her decades-old technique with young artists from across the continent at L’Ecole des Sables, French for the School of Sands, in a remote fishing village in Senegal.”

“Since NYCB preserves its Balanchine legacy by keeping everything in house – dancers are hired almost exclusively from [the School of American Ballet], where they are trained by former members of the company – the school is a logical place to start transforming its image. And it’s working. Presently, the children’s division and intermediate/advanced division boasts 44% and 29% students of color, respectively.”

The semi-autobiographical dance-theater piece Funkedified “reaches back to the music that 53-year-old Harris grew up in North Philly in the 1970s, when funk, psychedelia, and later dance-club music fatefully collided.”

“Is it Pina Bausch’s raw examinations of everyday life? Is it performance that mixes movement and text? Is it dance that tells a story? Dance Magazine talked with four choreographers who use elements of dance and theater – but whose work escapes easy categorization – about playing with narrative, integrating movement and words, and what ‘dance theater’ means to them.”

Marina Harss talks with Clifton Brown, who spent 13 years with Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater before leaving to dance with Lar Lubovitch and Jessica Lang and is just now returning to the Ailey fold.

“Sara Mearns, wearing rehearsal clothes she wouldn’t normally wear – a purple chiffon Grecian dress – turned to Lori Belilove to ask a question she wouldn’t normally ask as a principal at New York City Ballet. Her brow narrowed in concentration: ‘We decided I would come on like the wind?'”

“Dancers are used to communicating with their bodies. But they can forget how much they rely on verbal cues until the directions are spoken in a different language.” Nevertheless, it can be done; Garnet Henderson offers four hints for how to manage it.

“Three pairs of dancers, two in New York and one in India, share their experiences finding mutual balance in a physically challenging medium.”

“[Elizabeth] Warshawer’s most recent high-profile role was as executive vice president, chief operating officer, and chief financial officer of the Curtis Institute of Music. She held the post until 2015, overseeing such major initiatives as the development of strategic plans, the launch of major online initiatives, and construction of a new building with dorms and rehearsal spaces. She is currently interim executive director of the National Symphony Orchestra in Washington.” Current executive director David Gray leaves this month.

“Former Pacific Northwest Ballet star and current artistic director of Grand Rapids Ballet, Patricia Barker, will become the Royal New Zealand Ballet’s twelfth artistic director and only the second female director in its 64-year history.”

The relationship with Hong Kong Ballet, a company of about 50 dancers, grew out of a planned tour to the territory with the Washington Ballet about three years ago, Septime Webre said. The tour fell through, but later on the agent for the trip alerted Webre to the company’s search for a director. Webre will replace Madeleine Onne, director since 2009.

“Anyone who thinks that Irish dance is a necessarily rigid form, defined by a stiff upper body and dancers moving in militaristic unison, should spend some time watching Colin Dunne.”

That would be Valery Gergiev, the general director of the storied St. Petersburg house as well as a compulsively globe-trotting conductor who’s found himself caught in controversy before. This time, in addition to opining on male dancers’ diets and female dancers’ size, Gergiev discussed the preference for small breasts on ballerinas and dissed the Mariinsky’s Moscow rival, the Bolshoi.

When you’ve been a principal for decades, one dancer says, ‘You hone your craft as you go. All the years of experience come into play when I approach any role, all of that muscle memory and stamina is in your body.’ … After years of repetition, she says, ‘You’re able to focus and dig deeper. Once you have the technical mastery under your belt, your focus is freed.'”

The dancer, 31-year-old Grey Davis, lifted the unconscious 58-year-old man on the tracks to safety “with a lift that they do not teach in dance school.”

When only 1.8 percent of ballet exam candidates are boys, there’s a bit of an imbalance. So, the Royal Academy of Dance has hired a choreographer to shake things up. That choreographer: “Whether that be developing their favourite footballer’s elaborate goal celebration, jumping and posing like super heroes, spinning across the room like Angry Birds, or creating patterns and shapes like building blocks in Minecraft, … I hope the choreography I have created will motivate and excite aspiring male dancers to get involved.”

“The $32 billion sports brand has asked him to model for its latest campaign for NikeLab’s all-conditions gear in both still and video ads.”