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Home > DANCE

OCTOBER 2000

  • RESCUING MARTHA GRAHAM: Finally, maybe a plan to rescue the Martha Graham Dance Company, which went out of business in May. The company "is poised to reopen in temporary quarters as soon as January with a fresh infusion of private contributions and a promise of a $750,000 capital grant from the state senator from its home district. The state contribution comes with strings; the dance center cannot get the money unless it raises $750,000 in private donations for operating expenses. New York Times 10/30/00 (one-time registration required for entry)
  • THE RIGHT DIRECTION: The National Ballet of Canada will lose only $165,000 this year, compared to the $1 million it lost last year. National Post (Canada) 10/30/00
  • Sunday October 29

    • ANTHONY TUDOR'S FALLEN LEGACY: What happened to Anthony Tudor? He "made 57 ballets, four of them thought masterpieces by any lights, and a man whose worldwide influence on ballet is felt even today. So why, when you leaf through so many biographies and books, will you find Tudor given only the most clipped of mentions? For the older record-keepers of the art, Frederick Ashton is the good fairy at the birth of British ballet and Tudor the bad one." The Telegraph (London) 10/29/00
    • THE HIGH COST OF DANCING: Why is ballet so expensive? In the wake of Cleveland San Jose Ballet's death by red ink, the question needs to be raised. The Plain Dealer (Cleveland) 10/29/00
    • CUBA WELCOMES AMERICAN DANCE COMPANY: Crowds jam a performance by the Washington Ballet in Cuba. The performance is the first by an American dance company in decades. Washington Post 10/28/00

    Friday October 27

    • A FESTIVAL SURVEY OF 20th CENTURY DANCE: "Inside and in front of Royce Hall, all the bottom-line strategies that once sent plenty of dance audiences and critics fleeing into the night reign again, newly revived and still as provocative as ever. Minimalism. Structuralism. Endless Repetition. Everyday Movement. Task-Oriented Choreography, Dances Anyone Can Do. And you know what? The simple honesty of this work looks awfully appealing compared to the desperate narcissism, salesmanship, emotional grandstanding and empty virtuosity of much Big Deal contemporary dance these days." Los Angeles Times 10/27/00

    Thursday October 26

    • MOON-DANCE: Sun Myung Moon's dance company comes to London. Not just a vanity effort, the company is well-financed and has earned good reviews. "The Universal Ballet was created after Moon's 17-year-old son was killed in a car crash in 1984. The youth had been engaged to a gifted young ballet dancer called Julia Pak, the daughter of Moon's right-hand man. In a bizarre ceremony, she was married to her dead fiance's ghost, thus becoming Rev Moon's daughter-in-law, and the Universal Ballet was set up as a memorial to the dead man." The Telegraph (London) 1026/00
    • JOFFREY TO GET NEW HOME: Time was a headline like that meant the company was changing cities - like when Joffrey abandoned New York five years ago and turned up in Chicago. This time, it means the reborn Joffrey is getting a new $24 million building - surely a sign of its flourishing fortunes in the Windy City. Chicago Sun-Times 10/26/00
    • MONEY OWING IN CLEVELAND: Cleveland San Jose Ballet left a lot of unpaid bills when it went out of business last month. It's difficult to shut down a dance company "in an orderly fashion." Cleveland Plain Dealer 10/26/00

    Wednesday October 25

    • BOSTON BALLET IN THE DOCKET: Boston Ballet is to respond this week in the wrongful death suit filed against the company by the mother of a dancer who died weighing 97 pounds. The suit charges that the company is responsible for her death because it exerted pressure on her to lose wieght. "No matter how this is set up claim for claim, the public sees that the case goes forward and that this girl died on their watch. That's not good news for the Boston Ballet.'' Boston Herald 10/25/00

    Tuesday October 24

    • EXCELLENCE IN TURMOIL? So the Australian National Ballet is in turmoil, eh? Dancers quitting, the press fuming, morale sagging... Funny, under artistic director Ross Stretton "the dancers have found a new way to dance. Technically, most of them have never looked better. They have a clarity to their dancing, an edge that comes from being able to use their technique as if it belongs to them rather than to the artistic director. And this is the way it should be. Sydney Morning Herald 10/24/00
    • WASHINGTON DANCE GOES TO CUBA: The Washington Ballet travels to Cuba this week. "It's said to mark the first time since the Castro revolution that a whole American dance troupe has performed in Cuba. This, however, is only part of it." National Post (Canada) 10/24/00
    • CHILDS RETURNS: Lucinda Childs has been living the life of an exile these last six years in France, where the climate for funding dance is more hospitable than America. Now she's back in New York, embracing much of what she formerly rejected. New York Magazine 10/23/00

    Monday October 23

    • MOON OVER LONDON: "Before they even set foot on a stage, the dancers of the Universal Ballet are a remarkable lot. They come from South Korea, a country not noted for its ballet culture, and their salaries are paid for by one of the most controversial religious leaders in the world — Rev Sun Myung Moon." Now they're coming to Britain. The Times (London) 10/23/00

    Sunday October 22

    • FOREIGN INFLUENCE: Even critics of the way Anthony Dowell has run London's Royal Ballet, have to admit that his infusion of startlingly good foreign dancers has hade the company richer. The Telegraph (London) 10/21/00
    • THOSE LEFT BEHIND: Now that Cleveland San Jose Ballet has folded its tent in Cleveland and reinvented itself in San Jose, what's next for dance in Cleveland? The Plain Dealer (Cleveland) 10/22/00

    Wednesday October 18

    • DANCING AWAY: Six more dancers are leaving the Australian National Ballet. "The Australian Ballet is approaching the end of the year with the resignation or retirement of 20 per cent of the dancers in its ranks." The Age (Melbourne) 10/18/00

    Monday October 16

    • DANCE ABUSE: A New Zealand dance teacher conducts a survey of teaching dance in New Zealand and finds widespread abuse - "splinters of glass deliberately being placed in the shoes of a young ballerina, a mother pushing her daughter's rival down a flight of stairs, a mother giving her daughter alcohol and drugs to calm her before ballet exams, and girls forced to diet to maintain the thin ballerina's figure." New Zealand Herald 10/11/00
      • DENIAL? Most of Auckland's ballet teachers met at an emergency meeting  to discuss the survey, which attracted wide media attention this week. New Zealand Herald 10/13/00
      • PROTESTS: New Zealand's ballet world is "up in arms over the survey, which was initially based on 40 students' experiences." New Zealand Herald 10/14/00
      • DEFENSE: "It is disconcerting to realise that there are obvious parallels to be seen between the 19th-century model of a perfect female and the 21st-century model of a desirable ballet student/dancer. New Zealand Herald 10/16/00
    • SAN JOSE BALLET DEBUTS: "This may be the artistic organization that finally mobilizes the elusive community spirit in dot-com land, the one that channels all that newly acquired wealth into a legacy for the future. The South Bay will have a fully professional company to call its own. And, in an era when anybody with big bucks, a ballerina chum and a serious case of artistic amnesia can found a suburban vanity troupe, the work of Ballet San Jose's executive director Andrew Bales and his staff deserves a fanfare or two." San Francisco Examiner 10/16/00

    Friday October 13

    • TOUGH AS A LINEBACKER: New study says that the punishment ballet dancers inflict on their bodies is comparable to professional football players or wrestlers. "Ballet is physically grueling and the fact that other dancers are competing with them adds to the physical stress. They often perform hurt and are afraid someone will take their place. Many dancers have eating disorders and they lead very, very stressful lives. The level of precision required is comparable to that of an Olympic gymnast." Chicago Tribune 10/13/00
    • AUSTRALIAN BALLET TURMOILS: There's been an exodus of dancers from the Australian Ballet. Is it just a seasonal thing as contracts come up for renewal or is there something more worrisome? "Right now, many dancers of the Australian Ballet are unhappy. And while it's easy to say dancers are always fearful, their state of mind matters because they are the assets of the company. And if the assets are unhappy, word gets out." Sydney Morning Herald 10/13/00
    • SUSPICIOUS RETIREMENT: The stage-managed retirement of one of Australian Ballet's principal dancers raises questions about the reasons for her leaving. Is it really arthritis in her feet, as the press release claims, or... The Age (Melbourne) 10/13/00

    Tuesday October 10

    • PAUL TAYLOR AND MERCE CUNNINGHAM: "One of these two men is 'the world's greatest living choreographer'. Or the other one is. They have both been called it, by rival camps. They are the twin faces of contemporary dance: the one experimental, abstract, visual; the other athletic, emotional, musical. The followers of dance divide fiercely on who is the master, with Taylor commanding delight from those who find Cunningham abstruse, and the Cunninghamites sometimes scorning Taylor for being too 'accessible'." The Telegraph (London) 10/10/00

    • TALENT DRAIN: The Australian Ballet's most senior principal dancer, 30-year-old Justine Summers, has resigned, blaming arthritis in her feet. Several other dancers are also leaving the company. The Age (Melbourne) 10/10/00

    Monday October 9

    • BOLSHOI ARTISTIC DIRECTOR FIRED: The artistic director of the Bolshoi Theatre's ballet company says he has been fired. He blames his firing on the shakeup in the company last month that had Russian premiere Putin replace top Bolshoi management. CBC 10/08/00

    • SAN JOSE DANCE IS BORN: From the ashes of failure in Cleveland, the Cleveland San Jose Ballet company is reborn this week as a new company in San Jose. "It is the latest and most important chapter in a tale of artistic integrity and civic pride, of all-American optimism and resourcefulness, of triumph. What could have been a major tragedy for dance in the Bay Area - and what in fact was a senseless loss for Cleveland - has been turned into a major victory for American culture." San Francisco Chronicle 10/08/00 

    • NEW "GONE WITH THE WIND" BALLET: "Atlanta Ballet has announced it will produce a full-length show based on Margaret Mitchell's Civil War-era novel, published in 1936. The Ballet was awarded exclusive rights from Mitchell's estate last year and plans to have Scarlett, Rhett and Ashley on their toes by 2003." The Age (AP) (Melbourne) 10/09/00

    Sunday October 8

    • THE MYTHICAL LUCINDA CHILDS: Why has choreographer Lucinda Childs largely made her career in Europe? "European governments have always spent generously on the arts, with France showing particular interest in contemporary American dance. And when choreographers like Mr. Cunningham, Trisha Brown and Ms. Childs were struggling to find backers in the United States in the early 1980's, France stepped in to rescue them. Today, Ms. Childs is revered across Europe as a grande dame of American dance. In the United States, though, her work is so rarely seen that she has assumed almost mythical status." New York Times 10/08/00 (one-time registration required for entry)

    Thursday October 5

    • BOLSHOI LEADERSHIP CHALLENGED: The Bolshoi continues in turmoil after the company's leadership was replaced by the Russian president. New Artistic Director Gennady Rozdestvensky has clashed with ballerina Nina Ananiashvili, who "questioned some statements of his first speech as the leader of Bolshoi". Russia Today 10/04/00
    • REMEMBERING NIJINSKY: Nijinsky "danced for only a decade and spent more than half his life in a mental asylum before he died in London in 1950" but his life has a grip on our dance imagination. The author of a remarkable 1997 film riff exploring the dancer's life talks about his magnetism. Los Angeles Times 10/05/00

    Tuesday October 3

    • BALANCHINE BEYOND NEW YORK: "Can Balanchine's ballets have a viable life elsewhere? The recent Balanchine Celebration at the Kennedy Center answered that question with a yes of Joycean force." New York Magazine 10/02/00
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