Dance

One dancer says it’s a lot more work than it might seem: “The footwork is all flatfooting, which looks kind of easy, but when it’s at a higher tempo you can feel crazy. You have to have your weight in the back of your heels, and you have to be relaxed. It’s very simple, but the combination of things can trip you up. Like you can trip.” – The New York Times

“While the iconic precision dance troupe has of course always had artistic leaders for each of its shows, its parent organization, Madison Square Garden Company, is now looking to hire someone to oversee the artistic vision of all of the Rockettes’ year-round programming. That includes workshops, outreach activities and, intriguingly, new productions.” – Dance Magazine

The standards set by the French-born ballet master in his decades at the Imperial Ballet in St. Petersburg have had a defining influence on the art form ever since. But only three of his story ballets — Sleeping Beauty, La Bayadère, and Don Quixote — are in the repertory today, and of those only Sleeping Beauty has a genuinely good score. The rest, argues Alastair Macaulay, have “preposterous” plots, forgettable music, and values that were retrograde and out-of-step with even his own time and place, let alone ours. – The New York Times

The study, from the University of Bath, shows young people for poor backgrounds are faced with cost barriers, access difficulties and a fear they won’t fit in. – Classic FM

David Dorfman: “Dancemakers: Talk about money with the same knowledge and passion with which we talk about our mentors, our dances and the art form’s history. Research the roots of our current capitalist value system and know it intimately. … Sit down with people who have resources and believe you have something to offer them. Tell them what you need in order to make your art and how their investment will elevate our country’s cultural fabric.” – Dance Magazine

“CONTINUOUS Network, originally a partnership between Siobhan Davies Dance in London and BALTIC Centre for Contemporary Art, Gateshead,” and now expanding to include two more dance companies and five more galleries, “will present six new co-commissioned dance works by 2022, and tour eight existing ones, with the aim of reaching 75,000 people live or online over the next three years.” – Arts Professional

There is no full way to capture the presence of dance except through dance itself. This tension—between dance and the representation of dance—is always at the heart of dance; dancers feel it, too, and so do the people who watch dance and the people who write about it. – New York Review of Books

But the 16-year-old says she wants to focus on what she’s passionate about – and she wants ballet to change, “to be a welcoming place for everyone and step away from traditions that can be harmful to people who might look different.” – The Oregonian

Maria Kachetkova is classically trained, and danced with American Ballet Theatre and San Francisco Ballet before striking out on her own – and learning some new techniques. “I thought it would be nice to show what ballet is today,” she says. – The New York Times

Ilya Vidrin was a competitive ballroom dancer until the day he fractured his back while partnering. “In the years since, the incident has led him into a deep exploration of the less tangible elements involved in partnering: motivation, trust, interpersonal chemistry and implicit agreements.” His studies, including a PhD, have led him to form what he calls the Reciprocity Collective, with which he’ll be offering a “partnering and science lab” at Jacob’s Pillow. – Times Union (Albany)

“[She] danced her first Swan Lake on her 15th birthday, … went on to be the first western ballerina to perform with Moscow’s Bolshoi Ballet in 1957 and became director of the London Festival Ballet (now English National Ballet) in 1968, rescuing the company from crisis.” And she dealt with Rudolf Nureyev, as difficult a divo as ever there was. – The Guardian

Nancy Wozny: “We used to be able to tell a dancer’s ancestry — be it Graham, Cunningham or Balanchine — by their movement.” No more: “I’ve always felt my gift to the field is being able to put into words how an artist moves differently than the person next to them. … I am finding it harder these days to define a dancer’s kinetic signature, which is my signature as a dance writer.” – Dance Magazine

These newly published observations cement the human-ness of Snowball’s dancing. His initial headbangs and foot-lifts are movements that parrots naturally make while walking or courting. But his newer set aren’t based on any standard, innate behaviors. He came up with them himself, and he uses them for different kinds of music. “This is what we would genuinely refer to as dance, both in the scientific community and in the dance profession,” says Nicola Clayton of the University of Cambridge, who studies bird cognition. “It’s amazing.” – The Atlantic

And here’s the dynamic she means not to recreate: “In my whole 30 years in New York City Ballet, I rarely interacted with my boss except on the stage. I never knew where I was in his eyes or other people’s eyes, so I was just guessing, along with everybody else.” – Vogue

Once a soloist at New York City Ballet with an auspicious future, Kathryn Morgan was forced to leave the company in 2012, felled by an autoimmune disease that saw her hair fall out, her weight rise and her balance disappear. – CNN

Kathryn Morgan had to leave City Ballet in the fall of 2012 after an autoimmune disease screwed up everything from her hair to her balance, starting a couple of years earlier. “What Morgan initially believed would be a few months of recovery became a nine-year ordeal: of doctors who dismissed her, of surrendering a dream, of personal turmoil and a life repeatedly upended. And, now, as she prepares to return to ballet on her own terms, a rebirth.” – CNN

Yeah, doing work “for the exposure” and vague promises of pay isn’t really great. “Some dancers were going for that because it was a good opportunity and gives you more of a profile and helps to build your CV, but it’s not a good deal. It’s not fair. At the end of the day we deserve fair payment.” – The Guardian (UK)

Wayne McGregor teamed up with Google engineers and creative technologists to train the algorithm, called “Living Archive,” using thousands of hours of video from the choreographer’s previous works over 25 years. It was a way of “activating the archives” and “hijacking its past,” McGregor said. – Los Angeles Times

When Molnar took over the [Vancouver-based] company in 2009, it was on the verge of bankruptcy. Since then she’s brought in big-name contemporary choreographers and built up” Ballet BC’s quality and reputation to the point that they now tour internationally. She begins her job at NDT, one of Europe’s leading contemporary dance troupes, in August 2020. – The Georgia Straight (Vancouver)

Alice Blumenfeld, alumna of Flamenco Vivo and now director of the company ABREPASO: “Only as I started to branch out did I realize there are many people breaking boundaries in flamenco in the U.S. in incredible ways that could only be possible in the melting pot that is America.” – Dance Magazine

The company is on a roll, stepping out into the city in innovative and surprising ways. Its subscriptions have spiked 240 percent since the 2017/2018 season, according to Nick Chan, Hong Kong Ballet’s director of marketing, and last season half the productions sold out. – Washington Post

“It’s actually very hard to keep the audience engaged in the development of a story. The struggle is figuring out how literal I can be, and how much I can use the abstract aesthetic of dance to enhance an emotion as opposed to just tell the story. … Storytelling is where ballet started, and then contemporary dance took over and it was all about movement and space and music. I want to revive it, and not feel it has to be an old-fashioned form.” – Pointe Magazine

Having presided over the company’s 40th and 50th anniversaries, he was looking ahead to the 60th anniversary and planning what he could do that would “be new and different”, he explains. “And I just sort of went — you know what? Maybe it’s actually the time for a new person to have the opportunity – a new director, new vision.” – Dance Australia

“Masazumi Chaya, the associate artistic director of Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater since 1991, will retire on Jan. 5, 2020, after the company’s annual City Center season. But he’ll still be involved with the organization: After he steps down, Mr. Chaya, 72, will be in charge of a licensing project that will assist in the restaging of Ailey’s works.” – The New York Times

Several L.A. dance spaces have faced displacement in recent months, posting pleas to save their studios on crowdsourcing sites like GoFundMe as rising rents create the same pressures that have threatened to push artists out of their longtime studios and theater companies off their home stages across the city. – Los Angeles Times

Writing under a pseudonym, an Iranian woman who studies and practices traditional Persian dance describes both the art form and attempts to preserve and perform in in today’s Islamic Republic. – Dance Magazine