|
NOVEMBER 2001
Wednesday November 28
SUMMING UP
STRETTON: Ross Stretton is barely into his first season as director of
London's Royal Ballet, but his influence is already being keenly felt. "His line
on the 'heritage' repertory seems tough - ballets, he says, need to change over
the generations because dancers today are so different from 'the chocolate
box-sized ballerinas of 50 years ago'." The Guardian
(UK) 11/28/01
Tuesday November 27
IS
WAR GOOD FOR DANCE? Has September 11th saved American dance? TNR's Jenifer
Homans observes that post-modernist dance had become ingrown and vacant.
"September 11 certainly has focused our minds, and some things, at least, are
clearer than they were before. It is now possible to say, with a new conviction,
that nostalgia, sentimentality, and postmodern narcissism make for inadequate
and spiritually vacant art." The New Republic 11/26/01
A HOME OF THEIR
OWN: It's a tough time to be out raising money, but the Alvin Ailey company
has begun a $60 million campaign to build a new home of its own. The New York Times 11/27/01 (one-time registration
required for access)
Sunday November 25
BARE
AMBITION: Five young dancers with the Australia Ballet have stripped down to
their underwear to pose for a men's magazine. They say they want to "counter the
ballet's reputation as a stronghold of fusty traditionalism." But critics say
the "seductively posed and scantily dressed ballerinas strutting their stuff in
men's mags debases the art form." The Age (Melbourne)
11/25/01
PREPARING NOT TO
DANCE: "Old dancers never die, the saying goes, they just shuffle off. First
a knee goes, then an ankle, then a hamstring. The paychecks get to be too
skimpy. Or the traveling gets to be too much. Not all dancers can or want to
choreograph or teach. But dancers possess traits like discipline and vitality
that are treasured by employers." The New York Times
11/25/01 (one-time
registration required for access)
Thursday November 22
A BARBIE
NUTCRACKER: Has it come to this? Is Barbie cashing in on the popularity of
The Nutcracker or is this some misguided hope that more little girls will take
to dance if their little plastic pal is a dancer? "The computer-animated
Barbie in the Nutcracker is a higgledy-piggledy mix of dialogue, action
adventure and dance that owes as much to Disney as it does to Tchaikovsky or
ballet. If you took a Barbie in your hand and made it fly through the air, you'd
get a fair idea of how stiff the animated figures sometimes seem, not a good
sign for a film in which Barbie plays a ballet dancer who performs the role of
Clara and dances a pas de deux with Prince Eric, played by Ken." The New York Times 11/22/01
(one-time registration required for
access)
Wednesday November 21
BATTLE-TESTED:
Alina Cojocaru had only been with the Royal Ballet one year when she was
promoted on-stage - a signal honour, comparable to battlefield promotion for a
soldier - to the rank of principal. And she's only 19, daughter of the Romanian
proletariat, chosen as a child by Russian ballet masters for training in Kiev.
Is she really that good? The
Telegraph (UK) 11/21/01
Monday November 19
WHAT BECOMES A
CLASSIC? It's always hard to pick a classic. Modern dance is a particularly
difficult art form to figure out what will endure. "You're never sure of your
decisions. People even tire of the Mona Lisa and `Hamlet.' That doesn't mean
they aren't masterpieces." The New York Times
11/18/01 (one-time
registration required for access)
Thursday November 15
PLAYING BY
HER OWN RULES: A 650-page biography of the tempestuous life of Isadora
Duncan is out. "Isadora is pieced together from a vast archive of love
letters, magazine clippings, diaries, drawings and photos - to the extent that
Peter Kurth's job occasionally appears as much editorial as biographical."
Salon 11/12/01
-
ISADORA
- 10 YEARS IN THE MAKING: "I'm lucky. I signed to do Isadora Duncan's
biography 10 years ago, in another world, nation, century, millennium and life.
My agent worked me like a dog on the proposal -- he kept sending it back. It's
good, he'd say, but not good enough; more of this, less of that. I came down to
New York from Vermont to meet some big editors, but ultimately decided to stay
with Little, Brown. For a moment, I felt golden and secure. But I had two
secrets no one knew about. The first was that I was dying of AIDS. The second
was that I knew nothing about Isadora Duncan; nothing at all." Salon
11/12/01
Sunday November 11
SPEAKING OF
DANCE: "In the United States, at least, dance theater often amounts to
mawkish dancing to the choreographer's own low-grade romantic poetry, clichéd
movement interpretations of blundering political rants, or performance art
studded with feeble moments of affectless gesture. In each case, the perpetrator
pumps up one medium at the expense of the other. But in witty Aerobia, an
agile and nuanced relationship develops between the talking and the dancing."
The New York Times 11/11/01
(one-time registration required for access)
Sunday November 4
DEFINING
THE NEW: Twenty years ago, contemporary dance in Ireland was a backwater
proposition. But through shrewd choices of collaborators and an eye for the
innovative, Dance Theatre of Ireland has become arguably the hottest company in
the country. Sunday Times
(UK) 11/04/01
Friday November 2
A POTPOURRI
RUSSIAN DANCE TROUPE: "[T]he dance troupe Todes has found its own niche in
Russian estrada, or popular stage dance. Estrada is a unique genre that is
possible only in Russia. In the Western dance world, music types and dance types
are often more clearly defined. However, estrada mixes styles, bends
conventions, and combines everything from folk to classical."
The Moscow Times 11/01/01
|
|
|
|
|