“I think I’m at the top of my game. I’m not retiring, I’m not doing this because of health. And I love teaching and coaching.” And, while he loves Chicago, he’s moving to L.A. “First of all, California is warmer, and I need that for a little while. Also California makes sense because a lot of things that I want to do could be movie-related. I also feel like it’s far away from ballet … and I like that challenge.” – Pointe Magazine
Dance
Artistic Director Of Houston’s Shuttered METdance Launches New Company
METdance, the city’s largest company after Houston Ballet, was disbanded this past summer, having never recovered financially from 2017’s Hurricane Harvey. Before the summer was over, Marlana Doyle had started both a school, the Institute of Contemporary Dance Houston, and the Houston Contemporary Dance Company, which gives its first performances this weekend. – Houston Chronicle
Strikes Over Pension Reform Have Cost Paris Opera And Ballet €2.5 Million A Week
“The Opéra de Paris’s pension regime is one of the oldest in France, dating back to Louis XIV. It is costly as ballet dancers are allowed to retire at 42 and technical staff can leave with a full pension in the their 50s. However, their generous regime is one of 42 that are for the chop after President Emmanuel Macron’s controversial shakeup of the French pension system.” – The Telegraph (UK)
At The Jacob’s Pillow Gala This Summer, One Patron Was Subjected To Humiliating Racist Treatment By Some Other Patrons. Here’s How The Director Handled It.
“After hearing about this, I couldn’t stay silent. I wrote an op-ed for our regional paper, The Berkshire Eagle, describing how Jacob’s Pillow, like many cultural institutions, is working to create a climate of inclusiveness. ‘We can diversify the artists … we celebrate onstage, the dancers we teach in our school, and the representation of people of color on our board and staff,’ I wrote. ‘What can we do to evolve our audiences so that our institution is truly inclusive?” I invited readers to share their thoughts.” Pamela Tatge writes about what has happened as a result. – Dance Magazine
The Wonder Of Merce Cunningham In 3D
We watch the dancers from close up and on all sides, our proximity enhanced by the magic of 3-D. The elegance of the cinematography (by Mko Malkhasyan) turns these passages into the stanzas of a visual poem. – The New Yorker
Dance Therapy Is Being Used To Combat Depression And Other Mental Illnesses
“Dance/Movement Therapy goes beyond simply dancing. DMT uses dance and movement to promote insight, integration and well-being, as well as to diminish undesirable symptoms in various clinical populations. Unlike mainstream talk therapies, DMT uses the entire body to approach the client primarily on a non-verbal and creative level. The body in motion is both the medium and the message.” – Quartz
Life As A ‘Petit Rat’: Two Teen Students At The Paris Opera Ballet School
“Pointe spoke with these two young dancers” — Hortense Millet-Maurin and Vincent Vivet, both 15 — “to see what it’s like studying inside the world’s oldest ballet academy.” – Pointe Magazine
Ailey’s First Resident Choreographer Talks Disruption
Ailey formed his company, in part, to give people of color a place to dance, Jamar Roberts said. It was also a place for him to to tell their stories. Mr. Roberts wants to continue that, but times have changed. “Are we just saying, ‘Yay, we have a place to dance’ and is that a responsible conversation?” he said. “Is that relevant considering all that’s still going on? I feel wrong for asking these questions. I have a problem when I feel like I’m being disruptive.” – The New York Times
How Dance Therapy Works On Parkinson’s
Unlike mainstream talk therapies, Dance Movement Therapy uses the entire body to approach the client primarily on a non-verbal and creative level. The body in motion is both the medium and the message. DMT recognizes the moving body as the centre of the human experience, and that body and mind are in constant reciprocal interaction. – The Conversation
Here’s Something For Our Era: A ‘Digital Dance Company’ In North Texas
There’s dance, but then there are podcasts, and then there’s the international dance film festival as well. – Dallas Morning News
Trying To Leap The Three Big Arts Barriers With A Dance Company In San Diego
Peter Kalivas says his PGK Dance Project, begun 25 years ago while he was working as a professional dancer in Munich, “must always be attempting to resolve the three main barriers the professional arts constantly face: affordability, accessibility and relevance.” – San Diego Union-Tribune
Performance Art Of Intimacy
That desire for usefulness has always been a knotty issue for performance art, since it is often both accessible (live and affordable) and inaccessible (challenging and unfamiliar). Intimacy and ritual seem to be buzzwords in the poetry and art world at the moment. – Times Literary Supplement
Donald Byrd’s ‘Harlem Nutcracker’ Sold Out Theaters, But It Bankrupted His Company. After Almost 20 Years, He’s Reviving It
“It took five years of active persuading, plus nearly two decades of water under the proverbial bridge, before choreographer Donald Byrd finally agreed to resurrect The Harlem Nutcracker. Instantly loved after its 1996 New York premiere, his Nutcracker was financially doomed by 2001 — and left some scars on its way out.” But this year, firmly ensconced at Seattle’s Spectrum Dance Theater, Byrd is at last ready to return to it. – The Seattle Times
Kyle Marshall On Dancing The Abstract Work Of Trisha Brown While Creating His Own Explorations Of Religion And Race
A Q&A with Gia Kourlas “about examining his religious upbringing, performing the dances of a postmodern master while choreographing his own works and developing a close-knit dance family.” – The New York Times
This High-Stress Competition Is The Only Way To Get Promoted At The Paris Opera Ballet
“Welcome to POB’s annual ‘concours de promotion,’ or competitive promotional exam. In a company that employs 154 dancers, it is the only way to climb the ranks. Outsiders are often baffled by this system because it is so different from how other companies promote their dancers. This year, Pointe was invited to take an inside look at this high-stakes event and spoke with two of the 14 dancers awarded promotions that go into effect in January 2020.” – Pointe Magazine
The Outsized Role Instagram Is Playing In Dance
Dancers who are already stars in their field, like American Ballet Theatre principal dancers Isabella Boylston and James Whiteside, have had their photos liked, commented on, and reposted by A-listers like Jennifer Garner and Sarah Jessica Parker. And today, SJP’s simple “like” carries far more cultural cachet than if she were, say, to catch a matinee performance of Giselle. Why? Because that appearance on SJP’s personal feed means that some Sex and the City fan (or, if you’d rather, The Family Stone fan), who has never seen so much as a pirouette, is suddenly introduced to the art form, with a trusted endorsement to boot. – The Observer
The First Gay Dance Company In Cambodia [VIDEO]
Khmer dance has ancient Buddhist, Hindu, and animist roots – and though it’s mostly performed by all female groups today, it used to be performed both by men and by women. Now, Prumsodun Ok wants to revive the male dances and to provide a means of expression for gay dancers. – BBC
Can Dance Make a More Just America? Donald Byrd Is Working on It
“The choreographer’s commitment to dance as a catalyst for social change can be seen at a museum show in Seattle and in a new work for the Alvin Ailey company.” – The New York Times
The English National Ballet Has Severed Ties With Prince Andrew
This seems like a pretty solid idea for a company that has a lot of young women involved. And, of course, “earlier this week the duke announced he would be not be undertaking public duties ‘for the foreseeable future,’ following a widely criticised television interview about his relationship with convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.” – The Stage (UK)
Employee Steals Nearly $800,000 From DC-Area Ballet Academy
Listen, a ballet school with an extra $800,000? We don’t think so. Not surprisingly, the woman – hired to handle the accounts of the Reverend Sun Myung Moon-founded Kirov Ballet Academy in DC – was caught. – NBC Washington
How Are European Companies Dealing With The Racial Caricatures In Classic Ballets?
American companies have been looking hard at this problem in the past few years, especially in the annual cash cow that is Nutcracker. With ballet becoming ever more internationalized — “a performance in Moscow can be beamed to a cinema in Massachusetts” — Lyndsey Winship has a look at how dancers and choreographers in London, Paris, Moscow, and Monte Carlo are approaching the issue, from Nutcracker to the Indian temple of La Bayadère and the Ottoman pirate ship of Le Corsaire to the blackface Moor in Petrushka. – The Guardian
Using Dance As Therapy And Educational Tool For Children With Autism
“As soon as James Griffin gets off the school bus he tells his mom, ‘Go dance, go dance.’ James is 14 and has autism, and his speech is limited. He’s a participant in a program for children on the autism spectrum at the University of Delaware that is studying how dance affects behavior and verbal, social and motor skills.” – The New York Times
Why Australian Ballet Dancers Stopped Stretching
A decade long study at The Australian Ballet has delivered some surprising results as to what works in stretching and what is actually damaging to the body and increasing the risk of injury. This statement to ‘not stretch’ is proving highly controversial to what has been seen as ‘common practice’ in dance studios globally for generations. – Dance Informa
A Deaf, Mixed-Race Dancer Finds Her Dream Role In ‘For Colored Girls …’
Ntozake Shange didn’t write the role of the Lady in Purple in her “choreopoem” for a deaf performer, but she happily approved casting Alexandria Wailes in the current New York revival. Gia Kourlas talks with Wailes about integrating American Sign Language with choreographed movement and how dancing has helped her communicate all her life. – The New York Times
Let’s All Just Stop Talking About Sergei Polunin For A While, Okay?
After all, argues Courtney Escoyne (reacting to news of a second Polunin documentary), it only encourages him. “I’m not sure that it matters what stance this documentary takes. It’s yet another vehicle for him to receive exactly what he wants: attention. At this point, that’s not something I believe we owe him.” – Dance Magazine
GoFundMe Isn’t Just For Health Care Or Funerals In The U.S., But Also For Ballet Costumes
That’s right, the Colorado Ballet has turned to crowdfunding to get new Nutcracker costumes; the old ones were created for the San Francisco Ballet in 1986, and Colorado Ballet bought them in 2005. “For years, the team has done what it can to try to maintain the set and costumes, using vodka to try to extract the sweat from the costumes and glue and tape to keep some of the props together.” – Denver7
‘She Walks Like A Bird, But That Bird Is A Duck’ — Loie Fuller, The Unlikely Dance Superstar Of Fin-De-Siècle Paris
Offstage, she was a dumpy little frump of a Midwestern girl who lived openly with her mother and her female lover. Onstage, she was “la fée éléctricité,” who manipulated with sewn-in rods a gown made of massive lengths of white silk to create natural images and fantastical shapes under rotating colored spotlights — an act that made her a huge celebrity for decades. – The Public Domain Review
Ballet Helps Veteran Recover From PTSD
“‘Keep your fingers straight and off the trigger. Do not point the rifle at anyone you do not intend to shoot.’ That’s Roman Baca, a U.S. marine and Iraq War veteran. But he’s not speaking to the company of soldiers he led during his tour as a sergeant in Fallujah, Iraq. Here, Baca is instructing a company of ballet dancers” in the documentary short Exit 12: Moved by War. (video) – The Atlantic
The ‘Mattress Monster’: Yvonne Rainer Recreates One Of Her Oddest Avant-Garde Dances From The 1960s
“It could be a dream or a nightmare. You’re 84. What would it be like to have an artistic conversation with your 30-year-old self? [Rainer] is finding that out as she reconstructs, in collaboration with Emily Coates, Parts of Some Sextets, which she created in 1965 for 10 performers and 12 mattresses. A complex braiding of movement, text and, yes, mattresses, it builds an invigorating labyrinth of choreographic activity.” – The New York Times
The Paralyzed Dancer Who Chooses to Dance
“I learned that the dancer inside me doesn’t care about this wheelchair. She just wanted to find a way to keep dancing. I think I’m living the life I was born to live. That was an accident, this is a choice.” WWL-TV (New Orleans)