Dancer Plans To Induce Epileptic Seizure In Performance "Rita Marcalo has stopped taking her medication ahead of the event at The Bradford Playhouse, which the audience will be invited to film. Arts Council England, which is funding the performance, said it aimed to raise awareness about the condition." An epilepsy charity has "urged Ms Marcalo to reconsider the event."

BBC 11/19/09

email this story | Posted 11/19/09@07:30AM

If Day-Lewis Has Two Left Feet, Nine Viewers Won't Know Daniel Day-Lewis told Oprah "that he managed to avoid dancing in a movie directed by Rob Marshall, who happens to be an accomplished Broadway choreographer. That's kind of like signing up for swimming lessons and then not getting in the water."

Los Angeles Times 11/18/09

email this story | Posted 11/19/09@06:19AM

Royal Winnipeg Ballet Feels The Pull Of The Cancan In its 120 years, the Moulin Rouge has evolved from "essentially a dancing brothel" to a music hall to Gallic neo-vaudeville for tourists. But the hall's constant is "the cancan, a strenuous chorus-line number in 2/4 time that demands balance, rhythm and stamina. It is popular entertainment incarnate, which is what drew Royal Winnipeg Ballet artistic director Andre Lewis to the Moulin Rouge as the theme for a new full-length story ballet."

Vancouver Sun 11/18/09

email this story | Posted 11/18/09@10:22PM

The Royal Ballet Plays Westminster Abbey "It's not often that you see a manifestation of Satan within the precincts of Westminster Abbey, but at a ceremony to unveil a memorial to the founders of the Royal Ballet, he made a striking appearance. [Two dancers] took the part of the fallen angel in synchronised performances of an extract from Ninette de Valois's Job, performed at either end of the long nave, so that the entire congregation could see something."

The Telegraph (UK) 11/17/09

email this story | Posted 11/17/09@10:22PM

What Does 'Postmodern' Mean? Trisha Brown Reveals The Truth "Nothing. (laughter) No, it was a joke in the dressing rooms at Judson. We were all naming categories of visual art practitioners and someone said, 'We were doing postmodern dance at Judson.' We all cracked up and no one countered us."

Voice of Dance 11/17/09

email this story | Posted 11/17/09@10:05PM

Splitting Duties, NYC Ballet Names An Executive Director Katherine E. Brown, currently WNYC's chief operating officer, will "oversee all nonartistic matters" at the ballet, including "fund-raising, finances, marketing, media and education, responsibilities previously held by Peter Martins, the company's ballet master in chief."

The New York Times 11/17/09

email this story | Posted 11/16/09@05:10PM

A New Take On Diaghilev Drawing on a great deal of new research, and relying wherever possible on contemporary journals and letters, Sjeng Scheijen puts Diaghilev into a different frame to any of his previous biographers. He shows us a man "driven by an overpowering need to explore the mystery of human creativity in its highest form" who "resolved to transform his age and consecrate his life to the cult of beauty."

The Guardian (UK) 11/14/09

email this story | Posted 11/16/09@12:43AM

Ballet BC Launches Its First Series Of New Work Following its near-collapse last year, the Vancouver company is binding itself to its community with "its first choreographic series, Surfacing, which will feature commissioned work by four local choreographers performed by company members and 15 dancers from the Arts Umbrella Graduate Program."

Vancouver Sun 11/12/09

email this story | Posted 11/15/09@09:06AM

PHILADANCO At 40 "'Forty years,' reflects Joan Myers Brown on the dance company she founded and continues to run, 'means really another year that we've got to struggle. But, the fact that we are still here is amazing'."

Philadelphia Examiner 11/12/09

email this story | Posted 11/15/09@08:55AM

Designer Withdraws Claims Against Riverdance The withdrawal came on the third day of a hearing expected to last two weeks. Dublin-based designer Jen Kelly had claimed his original costumes for the show were used and altered without his consent, and that he had been "airbrushed out of the history of the show" and not given proper credit for his work.

The Stage 11/12/09

email this story | Posted 11/13/09@05:24AM

UK Dance Cos. Pitch Program Proposals To A Panel, Live "Dance companies and artists are to be given the chance to pitch projects to a team of 18 producers, including Sadler's Wells, The Lowry and The Place, in a Dragon's Den-style scheme." (Dragon's Den is a BBC program that "sees entrepreneurs pitching for investment from some of Britain's top business brains.")

The Stage (UK) 11/09/09

email this story | Posted 11/11/09@09:50PM

A Sort Of Dancing With The Stars On Ice "It now seems like such a brilliant idea that it is a surprise no one had thought of it before: pairing figure skaters with hockey players for ice dancing routines in the ultimate ice rink reality show. That's what the [CBC] has done this fall with Battle of the Blades, a huge hit across Canada."

New York Times 11/11/09

email this story | Posted 11/11/09@09:29PM

Is Morphoses Worth Saving? Christopher Wheeldon's dream of a bi-national, transatlantic ballet company, while still intact for now, has been put in real jeopardy by the economic downturn. Tobi Tobias: "To judge by [his] latest piece, Wheeldon isn't moving in a direction that makes his work seem worth sustaining a troupe largely dedicated to showcasing it."

Voice of Dance 11/04/09

email this story | Posted 11/10/09@10:04PM

Houston Ballet To Boast Largest All-Dance Facility In U.S. "When it rains hard, dancers leap around buckets placed underneath the leaks. The Houston Ballet has struggled with challenging conditions at its headquarters in a former clothing factory since 1984" -- but that's due to change in 2011 with a new $53 million home, now under construction.

Bloomberg 11/10/09

email this story | Posted 11/10/09@05:03AM

Texas Ballet Theater, Minus The Musicians In a letter to the editor, the chairman of Texas Ballet Theater explains why her organization is doing without live music, even at the new Winspear Opera House: "It was heartbreaking, but temporarily suspending live music was the financially responsible decision. Had we not done so, there would be no Texas Ballet Theater."

Dallas Morning News 11/09/09

email this story | Posted 11/09/09@07:30PM

A Choreographer And Company Leader Who's Actually Low-Key? Meet Tere O'Connor "In contrast to the outsize personalities who dominate much of modern dance's history, he is a thoroughly 21st-century leader, with a belief that bigger is usually worse when it comes to dance (work on grand stages, he has said, 'looks like a bunch of No. 2 pencils in an earthquake') and little interest in lending his name to a specific style or ideology."

New York Times 11/08/09

email this story | Posted 11/08/09@10:21PM

Pittsburgh Ballet Theater Buys A Rectory For Its Students "St. John the Baptist Church in Lawrenceville may be no more, but its buildings live on in new ways - the historic main church has been a popular brewpub and restaurant since 1996, and now its former rectory will become a residence for teenage students at Pittsburgh Ballet Theatre School."

Pittsburgh Post-Gazette 11/07/09

email this story | Posted 11/08/09@10:06PM

Rambert Dance Company's Scientific Advisor (Yes) Speaks "So I talked to the team and to the dancers about bird behaviour, including my research on corvids [crows, rooks and jays]. I drew on examples such as the dance of the blue manakin, which, for me, is avian tango, and the Lawes's parotia (the six-plumed bird of paradise), which has a courtship dance that looks like a bird ballet."

New Scientist 11/05/09

email this story | Posted 11/08/09@10:03AM

Merce's Work, Without Merce "By outlining ways in which his dances might be conserved without the dance company for which they were created, Cunningham … introduced a forward-looking program for modern-dance professionals, who have always focused on the here and now. … But can Cunningham's scheme really be carried out? Can the dancers and the dances be disentwined?"

New York Times Magazine 11/08/09

email this story | Posted 11/08/09@12:27AM

The Red Shoes Restored, With Shoes Redder Than Ever Manohla Dargis: "This born-again version of The Red Shoes, digitally resuscitated from battered prints and negatives, … is essential viewing because even if you think you have seen the movie before its restoration, if you're under 60, you probably haven't seen it anywhere near its original Technicolor glory."

New York Times 11/06/09

email this story | Posted 11/05/09@10:25PM

Bangarra Dance Theatre At 20 Founded in 1989, Bangarra is now the flagship performing company of Australia's (and perhaps the world's) aboriginal peoples. "When you sit down and see a Bangarra show, you don't realise you've just been given a 50-minute history lesson, you just feel like you've been taken on a journey and it comes back to you in waves.''

The Age (Melbourne) 10/30/09

email this story | Posted 11/05/09@10:07PM

A Cunningham Counterpart To Wiseman's Paris Opera Ballet Doc Tacita Dean's Craneway Event "records three days of rehearsals by the Merce Cunningham Dance Company at the Craneway Pavilion," a converted automobile factory near San Francisco, about a year before Cunningham's death. The documentary film reminds Alastair Macaulay of Degas's backstage-at-the-ballet paintings.

New York Times 11/05/09

email this story | Posted 11/04/09@10:34PM

'One Of The Finest Dance Films Ever Made": Wiseman's La Danse: The Paris Opera Ballet A.O. Scott: "[The documentary's] greater virtue, and the substance of Mr. Wiseman's particular genius, is the way it transfixes you with the inner workings of an institution you may not otherwise care about."

New York Times 11/04/09

email this story | Posted 11/03/09@10:30PM

Old Ballet Florida HQ Sold To College Drama Dept. Palm Beach Atlantic University, a privately funded 3,500-student Christian school, paid $1.85 million for the two-story building in downtown Palm Beach as a home for its theater program. Ballet Florida declared Chapter 7 bankruptcy and shut down in July.

Palm Beach Post (Fla.) 11/03/09

email this story | Posted 11/03/09@10:12PM

Isadora Duncan Awards Nominees, Honorees Announced "Dohee Lee and Jo Kreiter will be honored for outstanding achievement by [January's] 24th annual Isadora Duncan Awards, which recognize contributions to Bay Area dance...." The San Francisco Ballet and the San Francisco Ethnic Dance Festival received seven nominations apiece.

San Francisco Chronicle 11/03/09

email this story | Posted 11/03/09@06:03AM

Worldwide Mass Thriller Dance Breaks Record "This was the fourth annual Thrill the World event and interest was at an all time high to honor the late King of Pop, Michael Jackson. Thrill the World reported that 22,932 people danced to Thriller in 32 countries around the globe."

Examiner 10/31/09

email this story | Posted 11/01/09@08:26AM

Five Hours, Three Stages And One Enormous Space: In Memory Of Merce "There was inevitably a lot of great dance and dancing. But also, inevitably, this was not exactly a dance occasion. … Nor, for that matter was it about Merce (yes, everyone called him and calls him Merce). What distinguished Cunningham from all other great choreographers was the degree of his inclusiveness."

Los Angeles Times 10/29/09

email this story | Posted 10/29/09@10:09PM

Salsa In The Land Of The Rising Sun "Japan's standing as a 'hub' for salsa in Asia rises every day. International talent flock to the capital; specialist publications cover the dance form as a swelling number of aspiring dancers scour the city for classes."

The Root 10/28/09

email this story | Posted 10/29/09@09:56PM

Dancing About Transportation At The Staten Island Ferry Terminal "Ferry terminals are surprisingly dreamy spaces. This is especially true on wet, foggy days, when the differences between land, sea and air seem negligible, the boundaries permeable. … All sorts of boundaries seemed uncertain [Tuesday] afternoon at the Whitehall Ferry Terminal in Lower Manhattan when [the company] Palissimo performed Halt!, a new site-specific work."

New York Times 10/29/09

email this story | Posted 10/28/09@09:50PM

Why Are Women Choreographers Lower-Profile Than Men? "Has dance simply caved into the wider, sexist culture, or are there specific issues affecting the profession right now? And is this apparent marginalisation something women have chosen - or has it been foisted on them?"

The Guardian (UK) 10/27/09

email this story | Posted 10/28/09@07:28AM

Even Dance Has A Mommy-Track Problem "Dance is suffering from a shortage of high-profile women because of the difficulties faced by female choreographers trying to juggle a career in the sector with motherhood, according to leading industry figures."

The Stage (UK) 10/27/09

email this story | Posted 10/27/09@10:07PM

How Pilobolus Audiences Are Different "The din at a Pilobolus performance is like that of no other dance crowd. If you were blindfolded, you'd have every reason to assume that you were attending a small-scale circus, … and the biggest affront wouldn't be boos but the reverential silence of a ballet recital."

Los Angeles Times 10/25/09

email this story | Posted 10/27/09@09:55PM

Reacting To Rift, Joyce Stagehands Join IATSE Joyce Theater stagehands voted yesterday to join the "powerful union" that "struck Broadway in 2007 and negotiated a contract at Carnegie Hall that resulted in a props supervisor earning $530,044 last year." Now Joyce executive director Linda Shelton says she's "concerned that some dance companies won't be able to afford us anymore."

Bloomberg 10/27/09

email this story | Posted 10/27/09@05:02AM

Urban Dance: If You Teach It, They Will Come Undergrads who pursue the University of East London's urban dance degree -- an anomaly in the UK -- are taught "not just hip-hop styles like krumping, popping and locking, but also the fundamentals of African dance, capoeira and kathak." Purists sneer, but the program's "popularity is booming."

The Guardian (UK) 10/27/09

email this story | Posted 10/26/09@07:54PM

These Dance Moves Prohibited (Warning: Explicit Language) High school administrators who "fretted over how to deal with freaking, grinding and other provocative dances" are combating "explicit teen dancing with an equal dose of explicitness" in the contracts they now require students and parents to sign "before a teenager can step onto the dance floor."

Los Angeles Times 10/26/09

email this story | Posted 10/26/09@05:43PM

Worldwide "Thriller" Dance Record "It's estimated about 20,000 people in more than 200 locations in 37 countries around the world participated in the dance which occurred Saturday night or Sunday morning depending on where you were."

CBC 10/25/09

email this story | Posted 10/25/09@08:14PM

Can Christopher Wheeldon's Dance Company Survive? "As Morphoses prepares to open its third season at City Center on Thursday, Mr. Wheeldon is facing a crucial moment in which the viability of his venture seems highly uncertain. His contracts with the Vail International Dance Festival and City Center in New York will end this season, and renewals must be negotiated. In the current economic climate fund-raising possibilities could hardly look more dire."

The New York Times 10/25/09

email this story | Posted 10/25/09@12:02PM

To Escape Corporate Image, Boston Ballet Rebrands The company's brand strategist explains: "I think the ballet really needed to put a stake in the ground and say, 'This is happening here, you need to take note.' Because no one else would do that for them. One of our big challenges was to shift the perception of what ballet is all about."

Boston Globe 10/22/09

email this story | Posted 10/22/09@07:36AM

'Why Must The Stage Always Be Horizontal And The Dancer Vertical?' "Perhaps the most salient characteristic of [Deborah] Colker's work since she founded the company that bears her name 15 years ago has been her desire to toy with perceptions of dimension, direction and distance. An early piece, Rota, featured dancers performing in a large spinning wheel, like hamsters at play."

New York Times 10/22/09

email this story | Posted 10/21/09@10:14PM

Rudy Perez, L.A.'s 'Postmodern Dance Guru,' At 80 "That he continues choreographing is something of a minor miracle. Not only is the arts economy dire, but Perez also has been visually impaired for the last decade. Moving slowly and burdened with hazy vision at best, Perez says the work keeps him going."

Los Angeles Times 10/21/09

email this story | Posted 10/21/09@10:00PM