Like Jerome Robbins and Bob Fosse before her, Susan Stroman is a director-choreographer who should really be called a choreographer-director. In this show, “we make New York City definitely a character in the show,” says Stroman. - Dance Magazine
"Mathilde Caillard's energetic dance became a meme for young activists opposing the reform. The slogan chanted in the clip, "Retraites, climat: même combat! Pas de retraités sur une planète brûlée" ("Pensions and climate are the same fight! No pensioners on a scorched planet"), became a rallying cry." - Le Monde (in English)
Earlier this month David McAllister became interim Artistic Director of the Royal New Zealand Ballet in Wellington, as Patricia Barker departed following a troubled tenure. He'll be filling the same role (under more peaceful circumstances) at the West Australian Ballet in Perth when AD Aurélien Scanella steps down. - Limelight (Australia)
The new season of the podcast The Turning looks at the life of the choreographer; the heights, the difficulties, and the suffering that dancers experienced working with him, and how the still-powerful influence of his aesthetic led directly to many of the problems ballet is facing today. - MSN (The Washington Post)
The newly revamped space "is a boon for a New York dance scene still recovering from the setbacks of the pandemic. But it’s also an opportunity for an institution that was once central to dance in New York to regain importance, a possible realignment with a storied past." - The New York Times
For instance, anytime there's a scene in a club, a choreographer will suggest moves for the extras so they don't look awkward (which is easier than you'd think). And they'll help manage crowd scenes as well as any set piece where timing and execution are crucial. - Yahoo! (Los Angeles Times)
"(Brittany Nicholas is) responsible for knowing the 12 ensemble tracks and all of the dancing for eight principals. She also acts as an extension of the choreographic team, maintaining the choreography and integrity of the show, taking notes, leading rehearsals, and teaching new cast members their parts." - Dance Magazine
"It's a precarious task that needs to carefully shape the audience's experience but not smother it. A title should be just enough of a frame to hold its contents, while remaining permeable so the viewer can ascribe their own meaning." Three dancemakers discuss how they go about it. - Dance Australia
The Functional Grammar of Dance (FGD) explains how body parts create meaning by interacting with the space and the people surrounding dancers in a performance. We used it to annotate and interpret data collected from live dance rehearsals. - The Conversation
Earlier this month a video of five teen girls dancing -- bareheaded, outdoors -- to the Rema/Selena Gomez hit "Calm Down" went viral. The girls were promptly arrested, detained, and forced to make a video of repentance. Now women all over Iran are making similar videos and posting them in solidarity. - BuzzFeed
How? By not hiring a single South Asian dancer for the performance. Dance group artistic director Achinta McDaniel says South Asian dance groups are organizing. "This really lit a fire. ... It’s been too long that we’ve been quiet." - Variety
"Stella Abrera is ABT Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis School's new Artistic Director. Abrera has been acting in this position for the last several months after serving as Artistic Director of Kaatsbaan Cultural Park in Tivoli (a position now held by former ABT star Paloma Herrera)." - The Ballet Herald
"Booty-shaking worker bees guide their fellow workers to pollen by a form of communication known as 'waggle dancing' — performing steps that map out where food is located. ... Now scientists have discovered that bees hone these moves when they're young, by touching their antennae to the bodies of dancing elder bees." - CNN
"The dance video, in which the blue balloons stood in for ions, depicted how Checkers Marshall's Ph.D. work aims to make metal-organic frameworks smaller, more effective, and more useful for other applications, from water filtration to nerve agent detoxification." - Science
