The legendary ice dancers recount how they created the program that won then the gold medal at the 1984 Winter Olympics – and that remains, 30 years later, one of the most storied performances in the history of the discipline. (Surprise: the Ravel piece was considered a radical choice back then.)
“In the last two years, it seems, the 36-year-old dancer and choreographer has suddenly landed in the spotlight. Abraham’s strong social messages and hybrid style have made him the darling of the dance world establishment … Now, everyone is asking: What will Kyle Abraham do next?”
“‘Why did we ever think this was a good idea?’ mutters choreographer Scott Ambler as a barrage of boys in trainers comes thundering across the room.” Why? Because every time Bourne and Ambler put out a call for local young men – regular blokes – to perform in this project, they get hundreds of responses.
“Why does the Bolshoi matter outside Moscow? Many seasoned balletgoers ultimately prefer the styles of certain Western companies or that of the Mariinsky Ballet of St. Petersburg. Yet your knowledge of ballet is incomplete until you’ve witnessed how the Bolshoi can seem the most red-blooded, exuberant and viscerally stirring of ballet companies.”
The 88-year-old Gillian Lynne “claimed teachers were tougher when she was starting out, adding that venues such as the London Palladium were ‘run with a rod of iron.’”
“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 […]
“It’s not always discussed, but dancers are as integral to the creative process as choreographers. That notion gives Sara Mearns, the fearless and ravishing principal at New York City Ballet, reason to pause: ‘I think I’ve had maybe two questions before about my point of view.’”
“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 […]
Sarah Kaufman: Amy Purdy is a double amputee, and her prosthetic limbs have carried her with deceptive ease through four weeks of competition on ABC’s “Dancing With the Stars.”
The steps are “simple, idiotic nuggets of movement,” said Ani Taj, the Cartel’s founder and choreographer. “If you want it to be a populist experience, then people have to be able to do it in some way.”
“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.”