Dance

For most of my career, dancing and academic research were two separate but equally weighted spheres. However, over the years, I have become more and more aware that many people viewed dance as a less valuable way of thinking and working. Dance, in their minds, was a purely emotive activity consisting of uncritical, spontaneous movement or a purely athletic endeavour whose sole purpose is to defy our body’s physical limits. Part of the reason why this view of dance persists, I think, stems from a deeply rooted prejudice against embodied vocations. – Aeon

Put simply, the state’s dance scene has taken a body blow. Indeed, industry leaders fear that some companies won’t recover from this crisis at all and others could come back in a weakened or reduced form. – Chicago Sun-Times

The male-female binary is built into the formalized structures of dance at just about every level, from the very beginning of training through the conventions of professional-level choreography and even down to dancewear. As alienating as that can be, non-binary dancers find ways to make room for themselves. – Dance Spirit

“The internet may be exploding with resources for virtual classes, from top dancers teaching barre to free warm-ups courtesy of the Merce Cunningham Foundation, but in academia, teachers face many restraints. Copyright laws, federal privacy regulations, varying tech platforms and grading rubrics all make teaching dance online a challenge.” – Dance Magazine

“In this time of confinement, we have been given one immeasurable gift — the freedom to go outside. In exchange, we must abide by a simple rule: Stay six feet away from others. As choreographic intentions go, that’s not remotely vague. Yet during my runs and walks in Brooklyn over the past few days, I’ve noticed that six feet doesn’t mean the same thing to everybody.” Gia Kourlas looks at how (and why) social distancing plays out as it does — and gives instructions to the more oblivious among us. – The New York Times

In addition to calling off all events in the June 24-August 30 festival, Jacob’s Pillow administration is making staffing and salary cuts. However, said director Pamela Tatge, “[if] people are able to congregate again in August, we will make every effort to try to bring audiences together in keeping with the public safety guidelines in effect at that time.” – The Berkshire Eagle

Sharon Stern was a vivacious, popular, hard-working actor when she enrolled in the MFA program at America’s first Buddhist university. There she met Butoh master Katsura Kan and became his ferociously devoted disciple. That ferocity of devotion — to her teacher, to the art form and the idea of loss of self behind it — concerned her parents, her friends, and ultimately Kan himself. When Stern killed herself, her parents blamed Kan and sued him for wrongful death. – The New Yorker

The ballet says that, “We also recognized that while many of our dancers have made their homes here in Sarasota, and others would be able to easily return to their home states/countries, many of the Company were not going to be so lucky. With our dancers from countries like Italy, who are unable to return to their families, we have assured them that we will help in whatever ways we can.” They expect to lose around $800,000. – Ballet News

There’s no touring, no practicing for Coachella, no videos filming. There’s nothing. “As the entertainment business comes to a halt, commercial dancers and choreographers — the performers who animate film, TV and music videos — said the experience has been surreal and stressful.” – Los Angeles

Tuany Nascimento grew up in Complexo do Alemão, a poor and often dangerous group of hillside slums in Rio de Janeiro. She studied dance with hopes of becoming a professional ballerina, a dream she gave up in order to help support her family with a day job. But she kept dancing when she could, and enough neighborhood girls became curious that she started her own school, called Na Ponta dos Pes (meaning on pointe). (video) – Al Jazeera

“The employees who are to be paid and receive benefits through the dark season include the dancers, musicians, stagehands, costume designers, security personnel, ushers and administrators. … For now, their payment schedule is the same as it would have been without the pandemic: They will be paid until the end of the spring season, and then will face a short layoff.” – The New York Times

“So am I a dancer? The short answer is no. And people find this answer surprising. Many expect a dance writer to dance, despite not having the same expectations of other fields. For instance, most food critics are not chefs, and most film critics are not actors or directors.” – Broad Street Review

“Dance curators do a lot more than program a season. They spot raw talent, develop and shape careers, identify trends and create context around what they are presenting. But what does it take to get into this kind of wide-ranging work — and what do curators actually do on a daily basis?” Three of them tell us. – Dance Magazine

The recently interrupted tours, canceled premieres, locked studios and social distancing requirements have hit the financially fragile, socially enmeshed dance world hard. When your life revolves around lifting, leaping, catching, jumping and otherwise spending time (often literally joined at the hip) with your dance partners, how do you deal with solitary confinement? – Washington Post

Brian Seibert: “She calls it Passing and Jostling While Being Confined to a Small Apartment. It’s a dance history exercise [for Seibert’s class at Yale], but it occurred to me that it might double as a diversion for people now cooped up at home; it’s something that anyone can attempt, carefully. Ms. Rainer agreed. So here I can present her first dance for the socially isolated.” – The New York Times

The move comes after an investigation into alleged sexual misconduct by Scarlett, who had been artist-in-residence, with students at the Royal Ballet School. The company also said, in what seems a carefully worded statement, that “there were no matters to pursue in relation to alleged contact with students.” – The Guardian

Debbie Allen, star and choreographer of Fame, has been hosting dance lessons and classes since Wednesday. “‘While all of us are dealing with this uncertainty and darkness, we will bring the light right here on the dance floor,’ she told her class which amassed to over 89,000 students, as she blasted Fame‘s titular song.” (And don’t forget about #QuaranTunes.) – The Hollywood Reporter

It seems all too obvious to compare flamenco virtuoso/a Manuel Liñán’s all-bio-male show Viva! to Les Ballets Trockadero de Monte Carlo. But, writes Marina Harss, the dancing here is quite traditional, “less satire than declaration of love for flamenco, pure and simple.” – The New York Times

“The idea came from the dancer Miranda Quinn: The opening sequence of The Brady Bunch popped into her head. ‘How they’re all in little squares,’ she said. ‘That made me think of how we’re all being quarantined and are supposed to stay separate, but this was a way for all of us to still be dancing together and creating together even though we’re apart.'” – The New York Times

“We polled contributors from around the country to put together a very subjective and not at all comprehensive list.” In addition to Best Dance Theater Work and Best Dance Film, there are such categories as Best Story Ballet Remake, Most Exciting Reinvention of Neoclassicism, Most Satisfying Confusion, and Most Creative Use of Tables. – Dance Magazine

Marina Harss talks to four dancers from across the country about how they’re staying in shape and in touch despite being more or less trapped in their houses. – The New York Times

Garnet Henderson’s guide includes more than just obvious advice such as “keep three to six months’ worth of income in savings” (which, she acknowledges, is impossible for many dancers). One key point: be sure to save documentation of every gig you’ve lost because of the epidemic, because you’ll need it when you apply for aid. – Dance Magazine

As dance, music and opera companies seek ways to stream performances online; dance teachers hold class and dance parties on Instagram live; university dance programs unveil plans to move curriculum online; and pioneering choreographers seek ways to make virtual dances amidst this period of social distancing, an uptick in innovative online dance experiences is imminent. But it is impossible to predict now what the overall economic impact of COVID-19 will be on arts and culture—an $800 billion U.S. industry. – Dance Magazine

Moira Macdonald was at Pacific Northwest Ballet’s final (in too many senses) dress rehearsal for a program the public won’t get to attend. “There was no one in the seat in front of me, no one next to me, no one across the aisle — just performance, filling up the empty spaces. You don’t usually think of McCaw Hall as a room, but it is; this was like a large version of a living-room entertainment. Were those people onstage, dancing with the fierce passion that comes when you only get one shot at something, performing only for me? It was easy to think so.” – The Seattle Times

Mistake. “Not long after she started working again at the academy, she misappropriated $1.5 million from its coffers.” – The New York Times

Seriously: Dance is doable in-the-house exercise. Though the five dancers in this article all have extensive gym and group class routines, one also says that “dancing helps me appreciate my body and how much it can do for me. I can ask it to be coordinated, connected, and challenged. I like that it can surprise me, too!” – HuffPost

Kathryn Morgan, who spoke on the Today Show about mental health and the ballet world, went viral for that – but had much more to say. On her own YouTube channel, she gave a lot more details. – Dance Magazine

Merce Cunningham, Alvin Ailey, Mark Morris, Pina Bausch, Richard Alston … and the list goes on. Writer Lyndsey Winship gives a brief survey of the various ways (and no, video alone is not enough) that companies and archives are working to preserve modern choreography. – The Guardian

The Brazilian-born star will become, along with Sofiane Sylve of San Francisco Ballet, principal dancer and ballet master of the Semperoper Ballett in Dresden. In late 2017, Gomes was pressured to resign from ABT over what the board chairman called a “highly concerning” accusation of (unspecified) sexual misconduct in 2009 that was unconnected with the company or anyone in it; Gomes has since worked freelance as dancer and choreographer, most notably with former ABT colleague Julie Kent at The Washington Ballet. – Pointe Magazine

“During his time at Houston Ballet as choreographic apprentice in 1989, and later as choreographic associate from 1995 to 2008, he created seven ballets … Although the company has returned to his popular full-length Peter Pan several times over the years, and In Dreams in the 2017/18 season, [Pretty Things] is McIntyre’s first new work for the company in nearly two decades.” – Dance Magazine