'A Dance Lover's Paradise' In The South Of France "With 28 choreographers from 10 countries presenting 16 world premieres in as many days, … 30,000 spectators are expected to attend the [Montpellier Dance F]estival, which ends July 4. And it's here that Angelin Preljocaj took to the stage for the first time in 16 years in Un Funambule ('The Tightrope Walker')."

Los Angeles Times 06/28/09

email this story | Posted 07/02/09@09:56PM

The Masochism Tango: Why Finland Took The Archetypal Argentine Dance To Heart "It seems the melancholic music is a perfect match for the typical Finnish soul. 'It's a little bit sad, and it's beautiful,' a woman tells me at a dimly lit Helsinki restaurant that regularly hosts dances. Paradoxically, when she moves to these sad melodies, she feels happy. (She didn't want to be named, her reason being another national trait: shyness.)"

Christian Science Monitor 06/26/09

email this story | Posted 07/02/09@09:11PM

Hey, Rugby Players! Are You Man Enough To Get Through A Ballet Class? This week the coach of South Africa's national rugby team defended an eye-gouging incident by one of his players by saying, in effect, that rugby ain't ballet, it's a violent sport. So South African Ballet Theatre invited the players to take a class with them and see how they fared opposite some real men in tights.

The Times (South Africa) 07/01/09

email this story | Posted 07/01/09@09:30PM

The Elation And Devastation Of Pina Bausch's Work Pina Bausch could "take you to a higher place that you didn't even know existed. Not all the time and not every time, but she could do it. How? One way was by demanding that her performers dig deep within their own memories and feelings; famously, Bausch said that she was not interested in how people move, but in what moves them." A clip-by-clip guide to her work.

The Guardian (UK) 07/01/09

email this story | Posted 07/01/09@06:56AM

New York International Ballet Competition: 'A Deeply Depressing Affair' Alastair Macaulay: "Not that its standards of delivery were low; what was dismaying was that the competition … elicited from the dancers a great deal of what is anti-artistic, sensationalist and trite about ballet."

New York Times 06/30/09

email this story | Posted 06/30/09@09:51PM

A Pina Bausch Naysayer Eulogizes Her Work Alastair Macaulay: "What is scarcely diminished by Ms. Bausch's death is the art of dance. There were good dance moments in her work, but they were usually of secondary interest and choreographically of no lasting import. Her big-scale dance episodes were mainly wild and vehement forms of not quite coherent expressionism. Another strange component of Ms. Bausch's dance style was bad ballet. The way her performers would make a point of forcing themselves to do adagios, turns and jumps … was part of the extraordinary masochism she often placed onstage."

New York Times 07/01/09

email this story | Posted 06/30/09@09:35PM

Bausch's Influence Reached Far Beyond Dance The death of Pina Bausch "is an appalling shock and a tragedy not only for the dance world, but also for the entire international arts world. Bausch's visionary work as dancer, choreographer and creator of the Tanztheater Wuppertal had a reach way, way beyond the confines of the German town where she worked. Theatre and opera simply wouldn't look the way they do today without Bausch; she has also had an enormous influence on visual art and cinema...."

The Guardian (UK) 06/30/09

email this story | Posted 06/30/09@08:09AM

So You Think You Can Dance (Good Thing, If You Want A Mate) "Dancing is believed to be important in the courtship of a variety of species, including humans." Studies indicate that women are especially attracted to men who have bodily symmetry and who move in a coordinated, balanced way."

New York Examiner 06/29/09

email this story | Posted 06/29/09@04:08AM

Why Does Merce Cunningham Want To Shut Down His Company? "Why break up so solidly established an ensemble? Because modern-dance troupes, which are almost always dominated by a single choreographer, have a notoriously poor track record of institutional survival after their charismatic founders pass away. Mr. Cunningham, by contrast, is more interested in preserving his fragile choreographic legacy than in keeping his company afloat."

The Wall Street Journal 06/27/09

email this story | Posted 06/28/09@08:00AM

Carlos Acosta On The Ravages Of Dance Anyone who knows anything at all about ballet knows that it's unbelievably hard work. "We're very strong-minded people. We learn to control the struggle. You wake up every single day to hammer your body, and you do it, and it does something to you."

The Independent (UK) 06/27/09

email this story | Posted 06/28/09@07:55AM

Dance Legacy - Michael Jackson Redefined Pop Star Dance "No one has yet to recapture the impossible suaveness and otherworldly nimbleness of Jackson as a dancer -- the Moonwalk completely rewrote the book on male sexuality in music, a move that evoked both deep-space androids and the rakish seducers of the old myths."

Los Angeles Times 06/26/09

email this story | Posted 06/26/09@05:51AM

NY Public Library Goes Backstage At The Ballets Russes "While visitors to the NYPL [exhibit] will not see Nijinsky dance, they can see the famous diary he kept as he was going mad. Brilliant set and costume designs by Leon Bakst and Natalia Goncharova, plus photographs, musical manuscripts and old BBC films, place the Ballets Russes' achievement in context, supplying a perspective that the theatergoers who flocked to its productions never had."

The Star-Ledger (New Jersey) 06/25/09

email this story | Posted 06/25/09@09:46PM

That Lagerfeld Dying Swan Tutu? It Sank Its Ballerina. "It takes a lot to make English National Ballet principal dancer Elena Glurdjidze look awkward, but designer Karl Lagerfeld managed it last week. … Despite superficial points in common, the fashion designer is not the ballerina's natural ally."

The Observer (UK) 06/21/09

email this story | Posted 06/25/09@09:37PM

Nina Ananiashvili On Her Final Bow: 'I'm Trying Not To Think About It Too Much' A Q-&-A with the 46-year-old ABT star, who gives her final performance with the company this weekend as Odette/Odile. She's heading home to Tbilisi to concentrate on directing the State Ballet of Georgia - and to be with her two children and her husband, Georgia's foreign minister.

W Magazine 06/23/09

email this story | Posted 06/24/09@09:57PM

Yvonne Rainer To Take Stage For First Time Since 2007 "The news in L.A.'s dance world this week has been the West Coast premiere of works by choreographer Yvonne Rainer. But today's bigger news is that when Rainer's 'RoS Indexical' and 'Spiraling Down' are performed at REDCAT on Thursday through Sunday, the esteemed 74-year-old will be on stage as well."

Los Angeles Times 06/23/09

email this story | Posted 06/24/09@05:51AM

Moscow International Ballet Competition Declines To Award Grand Prize Gold medals were given in men's and women's solo (to Vladimir Shklyarov and Maria Semeniachenko) and duet categories as well as for choreography (to Yury Smelakov). Yet "no single dancer was deemed impressive enough to win the Marina Semyonova grand prix - the competition is dedicated to the legendary Russian dancer - and the $10,000 cash prize that goes along with it."

Moscow Times 06/24/09

email this story | Posted 06/23/09@09:43PM

Bolshoi Technicians Jailed In Hong Kong For Assault And Robbery "Two lighting technicians with Russia's world-famous Bolshoi Ballet [are] beginning 40-month jail terms in Hong Kong Tuesday for beating up and robbing a prostitute."

Monsters and Critics (Asia-Pacific News) 06/23/09

email this story | Posted 06/23/09@09:42PM

Dance Archives Are Helpful, But Balletic Tradition Is Crucial "The choreographer Siobhan Davies has just announced that she is creating Britain's first digital archive for dance, which will contain films, images, notes and texts relating to her work, dating back to 1977. It will be very useful, of course. But the most vital mode of transmission is human memory...."

The Telegraph (UK) 06/22/09

email this story | Posted 06/23/09@07:12AM

National, Royal Winnipeg Ballets To Share Olympic Stage "The National Ballet of Canada and the Royal Winnipeg Ballet will share a stage in Vancouver next February as part of the cultural Olympiad accompanying the Vancouver 2010 Olympics. The Olympic ballet gala, featuring contemporary dance from the two classical ballet companies, is one of 35 new arts projects announced Monday by Vancouver 2010 organizers."

CBC 06/22/09

email this story | Posted 06/22/09@08:07PM

Frederick Ashton Ballets In Peril "Choreography is the most fragile of art forms. The Balanchine repertory was lucky in that, within a few years of his death the Balanchine Trust was established to supervise stagings. But the Ashton repertory is in more perilous condition."

The New York Times 06/21/09

email this story | Posted 06/21/09@10:50AM

A Dance Radical Picks Up The Conversation, Decades Later "Back in the early 1970s, Yvonne Rainer was in the midst of a transition from postmodern dance maker to experimental film auteur. She still had all kinds of ideas for new dances, but she would jokingly send them to her friend, the choreographer Trisha Brown, instead of realizing them herself. It has only been in the last decade, after a request from a stellar admirer, that Rainer returned to dance, and now, at age 74, she finds herself firmly in the throes of her first artistic love."

Los Angeles Times 06/21/09

email this story | Posted 06/21/09@10:27AM

Oregon Ballet Theater Exceeds Its Fundraising Goal "After a furious three-week fundraising effort that included a spectacular gala performance last week, the ballet announced that it has surpassed its $750,000 needed to guarantee that it could continue beyond June 30. By the end of the day Wednesday, the company had raised $853,271."

The Oregonian (Portland) 06/18/09

email this story | Posted 06/18/09@09:57PM

More Success: Texas Ballet Theater Is Back In The Black "With less than two weeks remaining before the end of its current fiscal year, the Texas Ballet Theater has reached its fundraising goal of $2 million dollars - the total that it said was needed over the last six months in order to give the financially strapped company renewed stability as it plans for the upcoming 2009-2010 [season]."

Fort Worth Star-Telegram 06/18/09

email this story | Posted 06/18/09@09:55PM

In South Africa, A New Dance Company Is Actually Turning A Profit "In a few months Bovim Ballet, which ends its current five-city national tour at Gold Reef City this week, has certainly proved a point. After premiering at Artscape in January and having had a sold-out season at Oude Libertas in Stellenbosch, South Africa's newest classically-based dance company has not only been surviving on box office, but making a neat profit."

Tonight (South Africa) 06/16/09

email this story | Posted 06/18/09@09:51PM

The Ballets Russes Return To The Scene Of That Historic Riot "On Friday night [at the Théâtre des Champs-Elysées], in a culmination of years of diplomatic and artistic negotiation, the curtain will be lifted on four of the works that helped make the dance troupe's name." The program includes "two of the company's best-known ballets, Scheherazade and Ravel's Bolero, alongside two 1912 works which were largely forgotten about after Diaghilev's death in 1929."

The Guardian (UK) 06/17/09

email this story | Posted 06/17/09@09:54PM

Metz Opera House Considers Dissolving Its Ballet Authorities in the northwest French city have announced a plan to close the 12-dancer company in two years. "The Opéra-théâtre de Metz … is one of the last in France that maintains a ballet [troupe] dedicated solely to accompany the operas or operettas in its repertoire."

Agence France-Presse 06/11/09 (in French)

email this story | Posted 06/16/09@09:31PM

Troubled Oregon Ballet Theatre Nears Fund-Raising Goal "A special all-dance benefit has raised approximately $710,000 for the financially troubled Oregon Ballet Theater. ... The ballet has until the end of its fiscal year, June 30, to raise the $750,000 it needs to close a funding gap caused by a dramatic reduction in donations and a series of Christmas-time storms that decimated crowds for its most important production, 'The Nutcracker.'"

Portland Business Journal 06/15/09

email this story | Posted 06/16/09@07:41AM

New Leader For Hubbard Street Dance "In a move signaling continuity, Hubbard Street Dance Chicago on Wednesday promoted staff member Glenn Edgerton to the role of artistic director, the third person to hold the title in the troupe's 32-year history."

Chicago Tribune 06/11/09

email this story | Posted 06/15/09@07:08AM

London's Royal Ballet Gets Only Its Third-Ever Australian Principal "At just 23, Steven McRae has been promoted to principal dancer, only the third Australian man to be so honoured. Robert Helpmann was the first."

The Australian 06/24/09

email this story | Posted 06/14/09@11:38AM

Rasta Thomas And His Bad Boys of Dance "Thomas takes the refinement and technique of his ballet forbears … and mixes it up with pop, rock and hip-hop, unapologetically shoving ballet into the 21st century. […] Thomas's eclectic program looks nothing like your grandmother's night at the ballet. One number features blow-up dolls."

Washington Post 06/12/09

email this story | Posted 06/11/09@09:49PM

'World Cup Of Ballet' Underway At Bolshoi "Held every four years since 1969, this is the 11th International Moscow Ballet Competition and about 120 of the top aspiring ballet dancers from across the world are in competition for the gold medals."

Reuters 06/11/09

email this story | Posted 06/11/09@09:43PM

Colleagues Race To Aid Oregon Ballet Theatre The company, which needs to raise $750,000 by the end of this month to avoid the risk of closure, has put together a major benefit, with top dancers from the likes of New York City Ballet, San Francisco Ballet and Pacific Northwest Ballet, in record time - and with virtually zero in out-of-pocket costs. "Jon Ulsh (OBT's executive director) woke up one morning with the idea… and the next morning we were lining up companies."

The Oregonian (Portland) 06/06/09

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

More Good Ideas For Helping Oregon Ballet Theatre Trisha Pancio of Portland Center Stage suggests "Eight things nobody has tried yet to save the ballet." For example, here's no. 3: "Tutu trick or treat? Like Unicef but for ballet? Couldn't the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence… spend an evening or two going door to door in tutus to collect for the ballet?"

The Oregonian (Portland) 06/10/09

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

Merce Settles The Future For His Company And His Dances "He has decided that when he dies, or when the right time comes, the Merce Cunningham Dance Company will embark on a final two-year international tour and then shut down … Meanwhile, Cunningham associates will prepare detailed records of the dances so they can be licensed and given authentic productions by other companies."

New York Times 06/10/09

email this story | Posted 06/09/09@09:36PM

The Late Tanja Liedtke Is Top Winner At Australian Dance Awards The former director-designate of Sydney Dance Company, who was killed in a road accident just weeks before taking up her post, took honors for outstanding achievement in choreography and outstanding achievement in independent dance for her 2007 piece construct, which also received an award for outstanding performance by a female dancer (Kristina Chan).

The Australian 06/08/09

email this story | Posted 06/09/09@09:30PM

Oh, The Riffraff That Turns Up At The Ballet These Days "A Russian oligarch who mysteriously vanished from his Moscow dacha nearly six months ago, and who is wanted by both the Kremlin and Interpol, has been spotted at a gala ballet performance at London's Covent Garden."

The Guardian (UK) 06/09/09

email this story | Posted 06/09/09@09:19PM

Brooklyn Ballet To Open Its Downtown Digs "The Brooklyn Ballet will officially open its new headquarters on June 16 on the ground floor of the Schermerhorn House, the company announced on Monday. The 11-story building in downtown Brooklyn, which also houses low income artists and the formerly homeless, is a collaboration between a real estate development company and a nonprofit affordable housing project."

The New York Times 06/09/09

email this story | Posted 06/09/09@05:32AM

The Science Of Dance (Can You Tell?) "Readers were asked to pick which of four scientific articles was being depicted in a dance (you can watch the performance again here). The good news is that 54 percent of Lab readers correctly guessed that the dance, which was professionally choreographed (by Jinn Liang Chaboud) and performed, was an interpretation of a study of DNA polymerase salt kinetics by Vince LiCata of Louisiana State University."

The New York Times 06/07/09

email this story | Posted 06/07/09@04:42PM

Portrait Of A New ABT Principal Dancer Veronika Part, "with creamy skin, high cheekbones and flashing dark eyes, possesses an Old World glamour reminiscent of Ava Gardner. She isn't a wispy sort of ballerina, but a womanly one. Tall and naturally suited to adagio roles that highlight slow développé extensions and a luscious upper body, Ms. Part can also leap like a gazelle."

The New York Times 06/07/09

email this story | Posted 06/07/09@11:34AM

Ballet BC Parts Ways With Artistic Director John Alleyne "[H]e and the Ballet BC board came to a joint decision not to renew his contract when it ends June 30. Questions remain about the terms under which he is leaving, including whether he'll receive a severance payout. The decision is part of a major restructuring plan that will leave the province without its flagship dance company during the 2010 Olympic Games."

Vancouver Sun 06/05/09

email this story | Posted 06/04/09@09:39PM