|
DECEMBER 2000
PRESERVING
DANCE: It's quite possible with the dissolution of the Martha Graham
Company, that her works will fall into oblivion. "Whatever its quirks, though,
the Graham case is part of a widespread phenomenon: the disappearance, real or
potential, of choreography. Even in this era of satellite imaging and fingertip
access to unfathomable resources, much of the world's dance catalogue has been
erased." Washington Post 12/31/00
Tuesday December
26
- THE
INTERNATIONAL ART: "Just as no football fan would ever mistake a Brazilian
forward for a German one, so the seasoned ballet-goer likes to think they can
tell an American or a Russian from the back of the gallery. Go to any
performance of The Nutcracker in London or Manchester this week and you'll see
Danes dancing with Spaniards, Italians dancing with Japanese. Look hard and you
may detect subtle differences of style. Yet stereotypes need to be handled with
care: the surnames tell only half the story." The
Telegraph (London) 12/26/00
Sunday December
24
- ANATOMY OF A
BALLERINA'S CAREER: Two years ago New York City Ballet's Jenifer Ringer
seemed to be caught on a frigid downward draft, endangering a once promising
career. But she managed to pull out of her dive to become one of the company's
promising new pricipals. The New York Times
12/24/00 (one-time registration required for
entry)
- HISTORY
OF AFRICAN-AMERICAN DANCE: "The origins of much American entertainment -
jazz, blues and rock-and-roll, social dancing from the Twist to the Hustle to
college-fraternity stepping, as well as hip-hop culture, just to give a few
examples -- go back to the African slave trade. Those whose lives were uprooted
and stamped with foreign ways in turn left an indelible mark on the art of their
adoptive land." Washington Post 12/24/00
Tuesday December
19
- THE
PROBLEM WITH BALLET: Readers respond to stories about excluding a 4th grader
from the San Francisco Ballet School because of her looks. "Unfortunately, it's
partly due to this knee-jerk reification of elitism for its own sake that ballet
has become an airless theater, a music-box model that the rich come to
thoughtlessly admire." San Francisco Chronicle
12/19/00
Sunday December
17
- INSIDE
THE AUSTRALIAN BALLET: It appears from the outside that the Australian
Ballet is in trouble. "Yet, as dancers leave the company in what look like
droves, the board and management react, as they usually do at times of looming
crisis, by appearing not to notice that something is wrong." So maybe it
isn't. The Age (Melbourne) 12/16/00
- CULTIVATING THE NEXT
GENERATION: Juilliard works at training a new generation of
choreographers. New York Times 12/17/00 (one-trime registration required for access)
Tuesday December
12
- DANCING FOR
PROFIT: Since the South African government has discontinued funding for
dance a new for-profit company has stepped in to see if dance can be
commercially viable. The obvious first choice? "Nutcracker" of course.
The Daily Mail & Guardian 12/12/00
Monday December
11
- FIRING
UP THE NATIONAL BALLET: The National Ballet of Canada has had a rough time
in the past year with the public relations fiasco surrounding the dismissal of
dancer Kimberly Glasco. The company is hoping to relight its image with an
extravagant new production of "Firebird." CBC
12/10/00
Sunday December
10
- RENEWING
DANCE? "How many choreographers today are thinking about telling new tales,
new tragedies, in dance? Almost all new ballets today are supine rewrites of
past classics or great tomes of literature painted onto the stage with a leaden
thud. The mystery is that there's so little genuine inspiration by our own
world. We hear every day of events whose imagery and emotional resonance seize
us, and novelists rush to their keyboards and artists to their scalpels and
camcorders, as Janacek rushed to his desk. But ballet? Nothing." The Telegraph (London) 12/10/00
- OUTSIDE INFLUENCE:
Before Washington Ballet's recent visit, It had been 40 years since an American
dance company had performed in Cuba. "I knew the kind of development we've seen
in the United States, melding contemporary ideas and modern dance and ballet
techniques, hasn't existed in Cuba. I think the repertoire we brought expressed
a lot of elements of our own lives and maybe will contribute to how they'll view
or make dance in the future." New York Times
12/10/00 (one-time registration required for
access)
- ROBBINS
REVEALED: "At Jerome Robbins' death in 1998 at 79, he had all the awards
that movies, theater and dance could offer, with an unequaled record of ballets
and Broadway shows. Yet he carried with him a shame that would not go away. In
1953, he named names before the House Un-American Activities Committee, earning
the enmity of many of his fellow artists who were blacklisted for their
membership, however brief or desultory, in the Communist Party." Chicago Tribune 12/10/00
Friday December
8
- OUR
BODIES AT EIGHT: A parent has filed a complaint against the San Francisco
Ballet School for discrimination because the school rejected her daughter on the
basis of her looks. The eight-year-old girl was told not to try out because of
her figure. The fourth-grader is 3-foot-9 and weighs 64 pounds. The mother
claims the school's criteria used to weed budding ballerinas from also-rans
violates San Francisco's nondiscrimination provisions. New Jersey Online (AP) 12/08/00
Thursday December
7
- DISTRESS
SALE: Margot Fonteyn's personal effects, costumes and clothes are to be
auctioned off next week, but her friends and the dance community are
protesting. Sydney Morning Herald 12/07/00
Tuesday December
5
- BALLET SHAKEUP: The British ballet world has
been turned upside down this year, with directors of three major companies
announcing their departures. English National Ballet’s Derek Deane is the latest
to go, citing insufficient funding and a lack of board support for his more
adventurous work. The Telegraph
(London) 12/05/00
Monday December
4
- REPORT FROM
CUBA: Washington Ballet recently
completed a trip to Cuba where it appeared at Havana’s 17th International Ballet
Festival. The visit marked the first Cuban performance by a major American
ballet company in 40 years. "I hope to see the day in the U.S. that audiences
feel so comfortable to react - with a cheer, or a gasp." NPR
12/01/00 [Real audio file]
- DANCING FOR PEACE: Nicholas Rowe, a former
Australian Ballet dancer and choreographer, now teaches dance to Palestinian
children in Ramallah as part of a unique program to use the power of dance to
heal. "Giving them the chance to feel something other than anger is very
important." The Age (Melbourne)
12/04/00
Sunday December
3
- WHY
I LOVE THE NUTCRACKER: "Although it's true that a December day without
'Nutcracker' would probably improve the health of thousands of artistic
directors and parents, it's also true that the ballet continues to merrily
launch a thousand careers and holiday celebrations." Notable dance figures talk
about their attraction to the Christmas classic. Los
Angeles Times 12/03/00
- PILOBOLUS
AT 30: When Pilobolus debuted 30 years ago, few knew what to do with them.
They stripped down movement and "spent more time clinging to one another, and
disguising their bodies than doing what passed for dance - doing steps across
the floor. The men had taken virtually no dance technique classes. Pendleton
didn't even know how to point his feet, for goodness sake. But audiences loved
it. And so - though more cautiously - did the critics." Orange County Register 12/03/00
|
|
|
|
|