Dance

Choreographer Robert Moses: “The notion of change is sophomoric. The idea is to give people honest opportunity to be part of whatever they’re intending to be a part of. … Should we have more representation? No, we should have more influence. More actual ability to exercise that influence and power. All those things will be happening for the better of everyone.” – San Francisco Classical Voice

The images shared by the ballet company had soccer fans’ heads turning when they emerged. Such a sports star dabbling in ballet may have seemed unheard of, but it wasn’t a new trend. – Irish Times

Staging a full-length performance digitally “would break the bank,” says artistic director Ashley Wheater, who doesn’t really like streamed dance much. “I’m embracing it because there’s nothing else, but it wouldn’t be my choice. … [Nevertheless,] if it’s the right content, it can be really powerful.” – Chicago Magazine

When the Australia Council announced its latest four-year funding winners in 2020, Restless was a shock omission, as were La Mama Theatre in Melbourne and The Blue Room in Western Australia. It means a $1.2 million shortfall over three years — a nightmare scenario at any time for an arts company, let alone during a pandemic. – ABC News (Australia)

In the wake of George Floyd’s killing and the Black Lives Matter protests that swept the country, Ballet West’s Black dancers were asked by their artistic director what needed to change. They weren’t shy about the list. “When performances resume after the coronavirus shutdown of live events, Ballet West will no longer use makeup to lighten dancers’ skin or make them appear to be an ethnicity other than their own. Dancers will wear tights and toe shoes that match their skin color.” – Salt Lake Tribune

In 2012, a different ABT alum, Julio Bocca, was named director of the Ballet Nacional del Sodre in Montevideo with the remit to raise the company’s level. One of the first things he did was recruit his colleague, ABT soloist Maria Riccetto, to come back to her hometown and join the company; so she did, and she became a major celebrity in Uruguay, nearly as big as soccer stars. She retired from dancing at the end of 2019 at age 39, and as of the beginning of 2021, she is the BNS’s artistic director. Here’s a Q&A between Riccetto and Marina Harss. – Pointe Magazine

“You feel the weight of the famous Palais Garnier opera house itself, and the history and legacy of the legendary dancers who have performed there. And then there’s the pressure of expectations, but after about eight minutes in a room full of dancers, I felt okay. They were all so welcoming, and you could sense how hungry they were for something new. There was real passion during the rehearsal process. It’s true that you can feel exhausted by the institution itself. The company has 154 dancers. It’s huge, but just being there as a guest meant I didn’t have to play politics.” – Ludwig Van

“When the first COVID-19 lockdown rippled across the Bay Area last March, the dance community reeled. … But as the pandemic unfolded, the crews adapted: leveraging technology to rehearse remotely, dancing outdoors and performing via YouTube or Instagram as live events disappeared. Over the last year, they’ve found ways to keep dancing together, strengthening their community and confronting social justice issues in the process.” – San Francisco Chronicle

Broadway dancer NaTonia Monét says that, even when theaters finally start up again, “you have your few Black shows that come along, but other than that, you’re fighting for the one or two token roles in the cast.” And (with the sole exception of Ailey) Black dance troupes, from small regional companies right up to Dance Theater of Harlem, have been so underfunded for so long that some may, as it were, never recover from COVID. – The Washington Post

Jerusalema is a song by South African house musician Master KG. Friends in Angola filmed themselves dancing to the hit – the moves have since been recreated the world over. From health workers to nuns to children, everyone is getting involved. – ITV

He suspects the engraver made the mistake while copying the score, and it didn’t get caught during proofreading. If Tchaikovsky noticed, there’s no indication of it in his correspondence around that time, according to Schwarm, the historian. – San Diego Union-Tribune

Of course he did. “Like modern immigration laws, the [1921] Emergency Quota Act inspired a wave of pro-immigration activism, and Porter, who was born to the state’s wealthiest family and lived abroad after graduating from Yale, was part of it.” – Indianapolis Monthly

“I realized right away with COVID that people were becoming dancers, in that their spatial awareness was growing. We were literally afraid of each other’s presences. We were backing away from each other on the street, remember? … Our bodies were very, very alive, unfortunately with this negative sense of contagion, but nevertheless it was a choreography that was being learned.” – Slate

“Without visible exemplars, many queer women and non-binary people question their own place within the art form. “Growing up, I felt like I was the only one,” says Kiara DeNae Felder, a queer, non-binary dancer with Montreal’s Les Grands Ballets Canadiens. “I felt like, ‘Maybe there’s a reason I don’t see other people like me.’” – The Guardian

“The story of breaking’s meteoric rise to the Olympic stage — it’s set to make its debut at the Paris Summer Games in 2024 — involved an unlikely and reluctant partnership between street-savvy breakers and traditional ballroom dancers, an evolution of an urban art form into a competitive endeavor and a lightning-fast education campaign to sell Olympic officials and a curious sporting public that breakers are very much athletes.” – The Washington Post

Some of the recommendations are both obvious and overdue: no more yellowface/brownface/blackface, hire more diverse choreographers (but classical choreographers, not contemporary or hip-hop as is the past), tights that match skintones, etc. Other measures will face more resistance, especially the suggested changes in the way the company recruits dancers and students. – Pointe Magazine

Christopher Rudd’s creation is the first romantic same-sex pas de deux in ABT’s history, and one of the first—if not the first—to celebrate queer lust so explicitly in ballet. Such a feat, while to be applauded, is long overdue for a world in which more than half of the men who perform in and champion the artform are members of the LGBTQ2S+ community, according to Dance Magazine. Maybe times are finally changing. – Xtra

“As they announce plans for the spring and summer — mostly digital, garnished with a little outdoors and in-person — many New York dance presenters spoke in recent interviews about what they’ve been up to and how the pandemic has changed their business. … Even without box-office revenue, most have continued paying artists, sometimes with no expectation of any product or performance in return. ‘Make something only if you want to” has been a fairly common presenter-to-artist attitude. And yet the dozen or so presenters interviewed said they were surviving financially.” – The New York Times

“‘There will be no blackface, or yellowface,’ [Paris Opera artistic director Alexander] Neef told reporters, but works like La Bayadère and The Nutcracker would remain, with possible further changes in choreography and costumes. Behind the scenes, there will be efforts to increase the number of dancers of color who enter the ballet’s ranks.” – The New York Times

Jean-Daniel Bouchard said although his twin passions may seem like something of a contradiction — farming can be gruelling physical labour and involves plenty of financial mathematics, versus an art form that depends on imagination and creativity — they help him find balance. – CBC

Hire some choreographers. “Choreo-roboticists (that is, roboticists who work choreographically) believe that incorporating dancerly gestures into machinic behaviors will make robots seem less like industrial contrivances, and instead more alive, more empathetic, and more attentive. Such an interdisciplinary intervention could make robots easier to be around and work with—no small feat.” – Wired

The documentary will feature interviews alongside select footage of Tharp’s more than 160 choreographed works, “including 129 dances, 12 television specials, six major Hollywood movies, four full-length ballets, four Broadway shows and two figure skating routines.” – IndieWire

Linda-Denise Fisher-Harrell dropped out of Juilliard at age 19 to join the company, where she danced for three years before moving on to 13 years with Ailey. After retiring from the stage in 2005, she got a graduate degree and went home to Baltimore to teach. Now, as HSDC’s artistic director, “she is tasked with culling an artistic identity that gradually moved Hubbard Street away from its audience base as the company increasingly delved into experimental works.” – Dance Magazine

A look at how small groups of (properly tested and quarantined) dancers and choreographers got together (at long last!) to make work this past summer at two centers of dance in the Hudson River Valley. – The Washington Post