“To be certain, the company’s January announcement that it was shutting down as a full-time performing troupe drew plenty of congratulations from some circles. But there was also a good deal of consternation about what this would mean for the folks in Boise.”
“Tutus have been replaced with bare chests and tights, pointe shoes have been tossed aside for slippers, and delicate décolletages have been swapped for beefed-up biceps. Once the traditional arena of lithe ladies, ballet is seeing an increasing number of all-male shows – in one of the biggest shake-ups in the history of the profession.” […]
“While JR has been hard at work creating the piece” – an eight-minute theatrical dance for New York City Ballet – “he’s also been relentlessly documenting its evolution via Instagram.” Of course.
“Four out of five will suffer a severe injury during the course of their dancing career — and two out of those four will never fully recover. Injuries, more often than not, are the result of fatigue and repeated strain on muscles and joints, rather than unpredictable accidents.”
The ballerina who wants to bring dance lessons into the schools: “I have two young daughters and they’re growing up with such a facility for communicating online. It’s amazing the way they can communicate in so many different ways, but then they forget to communicate with their bodies.”
“Appropriation can be insensitive or disrespectful in all sorts of particular instances. But often, it is wonderful.”
“The estimated damage came to more than $4 million, a daunting sum for a company with an annual budget of just under $5 million that, in 2000, was forced to suspend operations for two years because of crippling debts.”
“The great majority of current dancers claim to be aware of the challenges that transition will pose (98 percent, 86 percent and 93 percent in the U.S., Switzerland and Australia, respectively), but many former dancers concede that they were in fact ill-prepared for this process.”
“Thanks to a collaboration between Gaumont Pathé archives, La Cinémathèque Française, and sound-recording expert Henri Chamoux, 34 of the original films [shown at the Exposition's newfangled Phono-Cinéma] have been beautifully restored.” (includes clips)
Alastair Macaulay visits the “exuberantly diverse” exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery, “Dancing the Dream”, which features everyone from Vernon and Irene Castle to Rudolf Nureyev to Shirley Maclaine to Isadora Duncan to Mark Morris to Twyla Tharp to John Travolta to Gypsy Rose Lee.
Patrick Rump, “a broad-chested, broadly smiling German” and former karate champion, is working “to start a revolution in dance health.”
Missing costumes, a fire…
Choreographer Peter Quanz: “I decided to make a group of dancers – which I’ve called sculptures, like a Greek chorus that is omnipresent through the ballet. At one point they are mud and they are born out of the mud. … I use those sculptures as a way to articulate my viewpoint on the relationships […]
“Creative arts therapy, also known as expressive therapy, includes dance, drama, art and music, according to Ehrman-Shapiro. She said not just any artist can be a therapist. For dance therapy, it requires a master’s degree and more than 3,000 hours of supervision from a dance therapist, just like a social worker.”
He says flat-out that it’s because of the distance: “Despite how rewarding the experience has been it has proved difficult on a personal level to be so far away from family and friends.”
“How can we define the best of the best? It is a matter of opinion and will always be subjective, but there is also the question of popularity and influence.”
“Creating a company gives me tools with which I can work,” Maillot said, “but being a choreographer is not being a painter or writer. You don’t have direct transmission of your work. It depends on others.”
“Where is the equivalent to Adorno on Stravinsky and Schoenberg? Where the monographs to match those on Cubism, or the modern novel? If the link between the “Demoiselles d’Avignon” and temporality in fiction is worth examining, why not between that same painting and Nijinsky’s Sacre du Printemps?”
“In the first of our new guest blogs, Candoco Dance Company’s co-artistic director Pedro Machado explains why, in their new work, Notturnino, his company are making it up on the spot. How will it change the dancers’ relationship with the audience?”
“Last year, when I first heard about One Billion Rising, the day of action Ensler had declared to ‘break the silence’ about violence against women, I did not immediately think (as 999,999,999 other women evidently did), ‘Oh hooray, the famous vagina lady is doing something about violence!’ Instead I thought, ‘They’re going to tell us […]
“Here was a company of astonishing dancers who continually circled the globe. But their repertoire did not always live up to their talent and range. The quandary? How do you maintain the Ailey’s identity, yet at the same time grow with the art form? How do you balance both the racial and “post-racial” nature of […]
JR, the French street artist whose installation on the floor of City Ballet’s home theater went viral, will choreograph a new piece for the company (with the help of ballet master Peter Martins).
“Ballet is grace and perfection, but it’s also twisted ankles and stinky flats. We meet two young male ballet dancers whose passion for performance led them all the way to the State Ballet School of Berlin.” (audio)
It’s turfing, a style of street-dance that was created in the city about twenty years ago and is now booming.
“Jenifer Ringer, who retired this month from New York City Ballet, has been appointed head of the Colburn Dance Academy. The Colburn School, where music, dance and drama are currently taught, is starting the new, more specialized program in the fall, in partnership with the L.A. Dance Project and its director, Benjamin Millepied.”
The Spanish choreographer has extended his contract for an additional five years, through the company’s 50th anniversary season.
In a short video titled Dancing on Rough Ground, “Anastasia Kurkova describes the challenges she faced after leaving her home country to join one of the most competitive ballet companies in Germany.”
For seven years, the “Dancing in the Street” festival in Grand Center not only opened the entertainment district’s fall season, but also served as a showcase for local companies.
Gold-medal winners Davis and White “have a small window of opportunity. The Winter Olympics soon will be forgotten by general sports fans, who quickly will move on to other things, because spring training is heating up and then March Madness is right around the corner.”
“Have you ever seen a dancer’s feet? It’s a wonder the profession even exists. What other art form is as brutal as ballet?”