Dance

“We’ve never had anything kind of like the splash that Ben has made, for better or for worse,” said Ben Johnson, performing arts program director at the city of L.A.’s Department of Cultural Affairs. – Los Angeles Times

Be wary of lists such as these. The Guardian attempts to select the best dance this century. But with dance spread out all over the world, can a critic (or group of them) choose (let alone judge) best performances? Doubtful. And yet, there are some great candidates for a best-of list here. – The Guardian

“Dance moguls Debbie Allen and Nigel Lythgoe are organizing a new two-week festival next spring” — titled, simply, the Los Angeles International Dance Festival — “featuring local and global companies including Ailey II, Bodytraffic, Syncopated Ladies and Heidi Duckler Dance, performing at venues across L.A. County.” – Los Angeles Times

“With just 10 dancers, [Ballet X is] a model of what is possible for small contemporary ballet troupes — and it embodies many of the ideals that larger companies are striving for today. It commissions lots of women. Half of the company members are dancers of color. The work pushes ballet in new directions, whether through innovative story ballets or genre-bending collaborations. It’s deeply rooted in its Philadelphia community, and has fostered an open company culture rarely found in ballet.” – Dance Magazine

Yes, there are spoilers, but it’s beautiful (and think how much time you’ll save!). – The Verge

“He’s just completed a residency at the Belhaven University Dance Department in Jackson, Mississippi, and teaches ballet around the state, where he resides in a small town outside Hattiesburg.” (Yes, he drives himself.) The Today show pays Danton a visit. – NBC News

What was happening here 50 years ago that sparked the creation of two of the city’s biggest and oldest forces in professional dance? – Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

“I haven’t made anything for three years. First, there is no money, second the job has tilted so much towards administration there is no time to make stuff. I have always said there are two different kinds of AD – those that choreograph and those that don’t. At certain times in a company’s history you will need one or the other. At this point in my life I simply want to make dance. I’m happy not to be a director any longer. I don’t want to be stuck in an office again.” – The Stage

“In 2015, artist Prumsodun Ok formed Cambodia’s first all-male and gay-identified Khmer dance company — in his living room. Part of his mission was to support the revival of an art form all but destroyed by the reign of the Khmer Rouge. Ok told his dancers they would need to be brave in order to give voice to a marginalized community. He shares his brief but spectacular take on honoring tradition.” (video plus transcript) – PBS NewsHour

Literally, it’s the luck of the draw – or where they’re placed before people vote. The later, the better. (Though the very first performers also do well.) Why? The “recency effect” and a kind of grade inflation. – Phys

What freaked out Elizabethan England? A dance from (gasp!) Italy, of course, where “a man clasped his female partner tightly around the waist with his left hand, took hold of the busk (the rigid point on the corset below her bosom) with his right, and lifted her high into the air so that his thigh was under her bottom.” Scandalizing! – BBC History Magazine

Several lawsuits filed against Epstein’s estate “say that when [he] was luring teenagers into sexual exploitation in Florida, he was using a network of recruiters within New York City’s dance studios to procure aspiring performers into a similar scheme.” – The New York Times

In comparing Lara Spencer’s apology to a politician apologizing to an ethnic group, Arroyo is saying that he finds that practice laughable as well. But the most blatant example is Ingraham’s comment that the ballet class looks like “tai chi people.” – Dance Magazine

Sergey Chernyshev, 18, began learning breakdancing from his father, also named Sergey, who picked it up from VHS tapes that made it into newly de-Sovietized Russia in the 1990s. “In many ways, the story of the Chernyshevs … is the story of break dancing over the past three decades, with its unlikely journey from the streets of New York to every corner of the globe and to its surprising inclusion, pending a final vote in December, in the Olympics.” – The New York Times

“Shaker dance both embodied and performed a gender-egalitarian community, one whose primary method of reproduction was not sexual.” (They increased their numbers through recruitment, for which their singing and dancing were effective tools.) “But their worship practices were reviled as both promiscuous and racially aberrant.” – JSTOR Daily

“The dance field isn’t immune to the ‘gig economy’ that’s disrupting everything from buying groceries to getting a ride to the airport. … So it’s no surprise that artists feel anxious about making ends meet. But this can also be an opportunity to discard old ways of doing business.” Zachary Whittenburg looks at “three movements towards fair pay in dance [that] have gained the most traction.” – Dance Magazine

On Monday morning, as Good Morning America host Lara Spencer was trying to make amends for her faux pas of last week, Travis Wall (of So You Think You Can Dance) and Robbie Fairchild (formerly of New York City Ballet, now well on his way to a Broadway career) led about 400 dancers through a ballet workout. – The New York Times

“What qualifies as artistry is ultimately a subjective assessment. Winning medals – or not winning them – has little bearing on whether a dancer will progress to a successful career. Even so, the Genée competition maintains high standards. The coveted gold medal is sometimes withheld if the judges decide no one has achieved the required level.” – Toronto Star

On Pose, the actors – whose characters are fully part of New York’s ballroom scene – do a lot more than vogue and runway, though that’s essential too. “The show has an undeniable commitment to dance that is present even when the characters aren’t performing or rehearsing, just talking and laughing and crying. Pose is something of a peek into the private lives of dancers, in which the rigor is the same for all — it doesn’t matter if their work is done in a studio, on a stage or on the piers.” – The New York Times

When host Lara Spencer of Good Morning America decided to go after six-year-old Prince George for his studies, she made especial fun of his ballet classes. Her apology Instagram post (after the predictable outcry) didn’t go well either. “The dancer Barton Cowperthwaite said in a comment: ‘No one wants to see a hiking picture from deep in your photo library. We want to see you make an apology, on air, for publicly dragging a child and an entire art form through the mud.'” (This rather ugly episode has spawned a hashtag: #ballet4boys)  – The New York Times

The Montreal-based touring company Le Patin Libre is “not interested in putting contemporary dance on ice, but in doing with skating what 20th-century modern art movements have done with other mediums, from dance to painting to sculpture. They are stripping away story and representation to leave the medium itself on full display.” Jenn Edwards, a former competitive figure skater and contemporary dancer who’s been a member of Le Patin Libre since April 2018, offers an inside view of the company’s work. – Dance International

Reporter Michael Cooper joins the choreographer as he examines photos from the history of the Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Company and tells stories of the time Robert Mapplethorpe photographed the diminutive Zane carrying the very large Jones on his shoulder, why he had to change the title of one of his most famous works from the original Last Supper at Uncle Tom’s Cabin Featuring 52 Handsome Nudes, and the evening he told an Italian audience, “Tonight, I am the Pope” and got denounced by the Vatican the next day. – The New York Times

Siobhan Burke: “Those 90-minute lessons — advancing from a warm-up of the back and feet to more complex coordinations of the torso and legs to jumping sequences that flew across the room — were always a struggle. Yet I grew to love, even crave, the difficulty. I looked forward to coming back and trying again.” – The New York Times

“The ballet company and a redevelopment company are joining forces to unveil a major arts-driven development for a well-established Carmel intersection. It includes a four-story mixed-use building with apartments and retail on one end and a new arts center on the other.” – The Indianapolis Star