“My intention was to put dance, rather than them, in the dock. Instead of writing technically about dance, I wanted them to bring their own highly refined terminology to bear on the form. In this way, both dance and academics would change locations and effect a mutual migration.”

A group of 74 female dancers, training primarily in ballet and from six vocational dance training colleges across the UK, were asked if they could recall someone ever making a “critical comment” that their body “should be a certain shape, weight, or that there was a need to diet to lose weight or increase food […]

“The results revealed that beat preference, when graphed, looks like an upside-down U on the scale of rhythmic intricacy. Overly simplistic beats are boring, it seems; overly complicated ones are befuddling. A mix of both, however, makes a sound that’s just off-kilter enough to be exciting.”

“Providing a behind-the-scenes look at the glory and gore of ballet, both books, in their own way, uncover unjust practices in ballet which for decades have tended to be tolerated, if not excused, in the name of art.”

“What can pass in just a few musical beats during a performance – the corkscrew jumps, the ballerina who seems to fly apart in the air only to land with perfect poise – is dissected here for the speed, timing and calibrated force that audience members might miss if they blinked.” (video)

“In American and European cultures, ballet is typically viewed as a respectable art form, and you wouldn’t think twice about teenage girls taking lessons.” In Iraq, ballet lessons might get a girl killed. (includes video clip)

“Love us or hate us, we need each other.” Lauren Warnecke (who’s still a bit surprised to hear herself called a critic) understands where choreographers and dancers are coming from – and explains for them her new point of view. (She really is on your side. Most critics are.)

Lindsey Butcher, artistic director of Gravity & Levity: “Audiences don’t quite know what it is. Circus aficionados tend to think it waters down aerial skills and feel excluded because it is contemporary dance, but equally I’ve had dance buffs tell me I’m ‘selling out’ to circus. The truth is that aerial dance borrows from both […]

“In a land where a strict interpretation of Islamic law means movie theaters and many other diversions are banned, nightclubs are unthinkable and the weight of tribal custom is heavy, Saudis in large numbers are discovering the thrill of a little sidekick-sidekick bunny-hop.”

“On days that Paul was not in the studio, … the camera could get right up close to the dancers. For visual continuity, the dancers agreed to wear the previous day’s sweaty dance clothes all over again.”

“When I hit 50 I stopped dancing for a while because the memory of how I used to dance was too painful for me. But there are things I can do now that I couldn’t then. When you’re young it’s all about how fierce it feels. Now it’s about how deep it feels, and I’m […]

“When I first came here they said you’ll disappear off the dance map. The opposite was true – we got a lot of attention. It just requires more creativity. … Being surrounded by other artists and companies [in a big city] is more of a challenge than being away.”

Sergei Filin can now see (just) well enough to judge a competition (which he’s doing this week). Of healing at the troubled Bolshoi, he says, “It’s primarily myself who has to heal, because I bore the main blow myself. … I think it’s those people who were creating this atmosphere for all these months which […]

“What I love about working with these dancers is that they have openness without judgment – it’s all new for them. Sometimes knowledge gets in the way so the fact that they have a space to absorb new information, and not too much to refer to from their past, means that it all comes in […]

“People have forgotten that dance is meant to be part of their lives. Socially, it gets you out and about; physically it’s exercise without too much strain; and it makes you feel great about your body.”

When Princess Caroline invited Maillot to lead Monaco’s ballet company, he says, “I wanted to show the world that this company wasn’t the toy of a princess. I wanted a company that would have its own identity. And I wanted Monaco, so small and so specific, to experience the whole possibility of dance.”

Artistic director Loyce Houlton said that there were “disconnects” between the departed board and the organization. While she would not go into details about what precipitated January’s startling news, she “took responsibility,” as a board member and artistic director.

“The company’s plans — which are being supported by several major foundations — are the latest attempt to deal with questions about the legacy of a major 20th-century choreographer.”

Alastair Macaulay: “The Russian nation and its capital city have greatly changed; Russia’s dealings with the West – and its presentation of its own history – have been transformed; and the Bolshoi Theater itself has been completely renovated and partly rebuilt … [and] visually, in its auditorium and its public spaces, [it] may well now […]

It’s a tough job that Benoit Swan-Pouffer left behind about a year ago – “running a well-funded, New York-based operation with an extensive repertory of work by big-name choreographers”. But the company’s ballet mistress is ready to take it on.

“I don’t tap dance for the sake of applause. I don’t tap dance for the sake of spectacle. I tap dance for equality, I tap dance for the recognition of the man in this country, what we had to go through as a people in order to claim existence in this country.”

In choreograher Mourad Merzouki’s Boxe Boxe, “as the protagonists come into the ring (complete with stripe-shirted umpire), boxing mitts turn into glove puppets, a dancer’s body curves in a feline swoop only to be caught in a firm headlock, and limbs jab, swipe and kick while a string quartet roams the stage.”

“The brainchild of Amsterdam-based, Italian-born choreographer Emio Greco and Dutch dramaturge Pieter C. Scholten, Rocco explores brotherhood, masculinity, and the mythology of boxing, while pushing its four male dancers to physical extremes.”

The debate lies in a crucial distinction. While many animals are obviously capable of “moving rhythmically” to music, that’s not the same thing as dancing.

“On a crowded dance floor, a group of 50 women are swaying, stomping, lunging, and gyrating to singer Jason Derulo’s ‘Talk Dirty,’ Pitbull’s ‘Don’t Stop The Party’, and other popular numbers blasting over loudspeakers. It could be any trendy New York club, except here the dirty words and sexually explicit lyrics are missing from the […]