Month: July 2001

It is never easy for a dancer to retire. Unlike performers in nearly every other discipline, dancers are forced to hang up their toe shoes when their bodies give out on them, usually sometime in their late 30s. For some, being told that it’s time to go is an unbearable insult, and the occasional ugly battle between dancer and dance company results. But one Canadian dance legend decided to take the quiet route to retirement this year, earning her even greater affection from colleagues and audiences alike. National Post (Canada) 07/31/01

Gary Harris is the new artistic director of the Royal New Zealand Ballet. He says he wants to make RNZB the “ballet company of the Pacific” with a busy touring schedule, presenting a distinctly New Zealand style.” New Zealand Herald 07/30/01

Anthony Dowell’s tenure as director of Lonond’s Royal Ballet has been a mixed affair. “What makes a good director? The question has never been more of a poser than during Dowell’s captaincy of the ballet, in the most turbulent years of the Royal Opera House’s history. The organisation has struggled with vast debts, the closure and rebuilding of the theatre, and a serious loss of public affection.” The Telegraph (UK) 07/29/01

Is Anthony Dowell leaving just in time as director of London’s Royal Ballet? “The ideal director, if he or she is not a creator, should be a curator, ensuring that the Royal Ballet presents the classics in the purest form. By emphasising design over direction, Dowell has taken the company out of the premier league of classical troupes. It still dances well but its productions have become secondary ones, not the definitive statements Ninette de Valois required of the Royal Ballet.” The Observer (UK) 07/29/0

Why don’t major ballet companies come to San Francisco? “There is an impressive roster of companies that routinely bypass the Bay Area during United States tours that are anchored in appearances at Lincoln Center, the Orange County Performing Arts Center or the Kennedy Center.” San Francisco Chronicle 07/29/01

Louis Spisto, the embattled director of the troubled American Ballet Theatre, has resigned. His tenure was marked by controversy – “rising expenses, a management style that was characterized by a number of employees as autocratic and allegations of sex and age discrimination.” The New York Times 07/26/01 (one-time registration required for access)

“Aerial dance is a new trend catching on in the dance world, especially in the western United States. ‘One of the most exciting performances we ever did was a vertical adaptation of Romeo and Juliet out of the 23rd story of a skyscraper in Houston. We were 350 feet in the air with the Houston Symphony below us and 40,000 people watching. It was magical, and it had quite an impact on people’.” USAToday 07/25/01

In honor of artistic director Anthony Dowell’s departure from the Royal Ballet, the company will be projecting a full-length performance of Swan Lake on a giant screen in the plaza outside Covent Garden. London Evening Standard 07/24/01

Anthony Dowell was perhaps the Royal Ballet’s best dancer ever. By contrast, as head of the company for the past 15 years, he’s shown his limitations as an artistic director. Now he’s moving on. The Independent (UK) 07/20/01

Lewis defends charges that his programming is too “market driven” and that he is having problems with some of his dancers. Nonetheless two of the company’s most prominent dancers have said they are leaving at the end of the season. National Post 07/18/01