BOSTON BALLET BACKLASH

When the Boston Ballet unexpectedly dismissed several of its dancers last month, and then fired the incoming artistic director who had apparently ordered the action, the troubled company went into full defense mode, with everyone involved desperate to blame someone else. Now, two of the dismissed dancers paint a dismal picture of an organization where the buck stops nowhere. Boston Herald

CROUCHING DANCER, HIDDEN WIRES

If you haven’t taken Hong Kong action movies seriously, now may be the time to start. Dance critic Joan Acocella of The New Yorker pays particular attention to “wirework, whereby the fighters are attached to wires, like Peter Pan, so that they can move upward as well as in the usual directions… such feats leaven the film’s violence with a sort of joy. By producing a longer arc of action, wirework allows for longer takes–hence, expansion, afterthoughts, fantasy.” The New Yorker

THE NEW PAS DE DEUX

With the folding of Cleveland’s only full-time ballet last year, other companies have decided to take some chances in an effort to draw crowds. Several smaller dance troupes have been reinventing the classic pas de deux recently, replacing the traditional male-female dance of love with duets featuring (gasp!) two male performers. The Plain Dealer (Cleveland)

BOSTON BALLET MAY BE RECOVERING

The Boston Ballet, beset by management shake-ups, dancer turn-over, and lawsuits, may at last be settling down. One clue: promoting Jorden Morris to chief ballet master. “I’m in the position of basically putting a dance team together and making sure that it’s a strong, talented company. I can tell you that I will hire the best dancer for the job. That is the bottom line.” Boston Herald

LOSING ON A TECHNICALITY

The family of former Boston Ballet dancer Heidi Guenther may appeal its loss in a wrongful death suit against the company, saying the case was thrown out on technicalities. “What’s most troubling about this anomaly in the law is that a worker can be treated negligibly and even die, but have no right under the workers’ compensation system.” Boston Herald

BALLET LAWSUIT DISMISSED

A Massachusetts judge has thrown out a lawsuit brought against the Boston Ballet by the mother of a former company dancer who died of anorexia. The suit claimed that ballet officials told the young dancer she had to lose weight to join the troupe: Heidi Guenther was 5’3″, and weighed 93 pounds when she died in 1997. Nando Times (AP)

CROCE ON DANCE

In 23 years writing about dance for the New Yorker, Arlene Croce was a strong voice. “Unlike many dance critics covering a beat, Croce did not write to be liked, or even to be rewarded by her employers. She wrote to be read. She could not be predicted or controlled, and, combined with her intellectual talent and her rhetorical genius, the result could be explosive in senses either exciting or terrifying, depending on whether the reader is on the sidelines of the action or the target of it.” The New Republic