ArtsJournal: Arts, Culture, Ideas

DANCE

Silas Farley, 26, Will Be Dean Of Dance At Colburn School In L.A.

Farley raised eyebrows last June when he retired from New York City Ballet at such a young age, but he had already been choreographing and teaching for for more than a decade and wanted to do more of it. Now he will — and his associate dean, running the business side of things will be Darleen Callaghan, who was...

How To Increase Equity For Blacks In Dance? ‘Ask Different Questions’

Choreographer Robert Moses: "The notion of change is sophomoric. The idea is to give people honest opportunity to be part of whatever they're intending to be a part of. … Should we have more representation? No, we should have more influence. More actual ability to exercise that influence and power. All those things will be happening for the better...

Star Soccer Star Touts Ballet Training For Performance

The images shared by the ballet company had soccer fans’ heads turning when they emerged. Such a sports star dabbling in ballet may have seemed unheard of, but it wasn’t a new trend. - Irish Times

Why Joffrey Ballet Is Only Now Making Work To Stream

Staging a full-length performance digitally "would break the bank," says artistic director Ashley Wheater, who doesn't really like streamed dance much. "I'm embracing it because there's nothing else, but it wouldn't be my choice. … if it's the right content, it can be really powerful." - Chicago Magazine

Australia’s Restless Dance Company Faces A Funding Crisis

When the Australia Council announced its latest four-year funding winners in 2020, Restless was a shock omission, as were La Mama Theatre in Melbourne and The Blue Room in Western Australia. It means a $1.2 million shortfall over three years — a nightmare scenario at any time for an arts company, let alone during a pandemic. - ABC News...

Black Ballerinas In Utah Are Helping Change Ballet Culture

In the wake of George Floyd's killing and the Black Lives Matter protests that swept the country, Ballet West's Black dancers were asked by their artistic director what needed to change. They weren't shy about the list. "When performances resume after the coronavirus shutdown of live events, Ballet West will no longer use makeup to lighten dancers’ skin or make them...

ABT Alum Takes Reins At Uruguay’s National Ballet

In 2012, a different ABT alum, Julio Bocca, was named director of the Ballet Nacional del Sodre in Montevideo with the remit to raise the company's level. One of the first things he did was recruit his colleague, ABT soloist Maria Riccetto, to come back to her hometown and join the company; so she did, and she became a...

(Un)Daunted: Crystal Pite On Choreographing For The Paris Opera Ballet

"You feel the weight of the famous Palais Garnier opera house itself, and the history and legacy of the legendary dancers who have performed there. And then there's the pressure of expectations, but after about eight minutes in a room full of dancers, I felt okay. They were all so welcoming, and you could sense how hungry they were...

How The Bay Area’s Hip-Hop Dance Crews Have Kept On Through COVID

"When the first COVID-19 lockdown rippled across the Bay Area last March, the dance community reeled. … But as the pandemic unfolded, the crews adapted: leveraging technology to rehearse remotely, dancing outdoors and performing via YouTube or Instagram as live events disappeared. Over the last year, they've found ways to keep dancing together, strengthening their community and confronting social...

Black Dancers And Dance Companies Worry They Won’t Be Able To Survive Pandemic

Broadway dancer NaTonia Monét says that, even when theaters finally start up again, "you have your few Black shows that come along, but other than that, you're fighting for the one or two token roles in the cast." And (with the sole exception of Ailey) Black dance troupes, from small regional companies right up to Dance Theater of Harlem,...

The Latest Dance Craze Sweeping The World

Jerusalema is a song by South African house musician Master KG. Friends in Angola filmed themselves dancing to the hit - the moves have since been recreated the world over. From health workers to nuns to children, everyone is getting involved. - ITV

The Five-Second Error In The “Nutcracker” Score

He suspects the engraver made the mistake while copying the score, and it didn’t get caught during proofreading. If Tchaikovsky noticed, there’s no indication of it in his correspondence around that time, according to Schwarm, the historian. - San Diego Union-Tribune

Cole Porter Created A Pro-Immigration Protest Ballet In The 1920s

Of course he did. "Like modern immigration laws, the Emergency Quota Act inspired a wave of pro-immigration activism, and Porter, who was born to the state’s wealthiest family and lived abroad after graduating from Yale, was part of it." - Indianapolis Monthly

Choreographer Annie-B Parson Says The Pandemic Has Made Us All Dancers

"I realized right away with COVID that people were becoming dancers, in that their spatial awareness was growing. We were literally afraid of each other's presences. We were backing away from each other on the street, remember? … Our bodies were very, very alive, unfortunately with this negative sense of contagion, but nevertheless it was a choreography that was...

#Queertheballet Explained

"Without visible exemplars, many queer women and non-binary people question their own place within the art form. “Growing up, I felt like I was the only one,” says Kiara DeNae Felder, a queer, non-binary dancer with Montreal’s Les Grands Ballets Canadiens. “I felt like, ‘Maybe there’s a reason I don’t see other people like me.’” - The Guardian

Our Free Newsletter

Join our 30,000 subscribers

Latest

Don't Miss

function my_excerpt_length($length){ return 200; } add_filter('excerpt_length', 'my_excerpt_length');