Month: September 2001

Is dance ready to sell out in return for larger audiences? “Contemporary gallery and museum art glows with attention and lucre while modern dance, surviving on a diet of instant noodles and staticky sound systems, is as pale and wan as ever. Now that they’re willing, why don’t choreographers get to be must-see sensations with big, hip followings? Why do you have to be a ‘dance lover’ to love downtown modern dance?” The New York Times 09/16/01 (one-time registration required for access)

Mark Morris’s new dance home opens. “The Morris Dance Center — perhaps the most lavish dance center in New York, created at a cost of $6.2 million — has become something of a symbol. For Mr. Morris and his dancers, it is a place to call home. For other dance companies, it is a place to envy, a place where dancers have their own cubicles, their own physical therapists, their own mailboxes.” The New York Times 09/12/01 (one-time registration required for access)

Barbie is sponsoring the English National Ballet’s production of Nutcracker this year. “Mattel said the £85,000 sponsorship deal, due to be officially announced on Tuesday, was designed to encourage young girls to become more interested in ballet.” BBC 09/10/01

Why is ballet such a difficult art to warm up to? “The problem is that we are most comfortable with art that achieves its effects verbally. It’s no coincidence that the mass art forms are literature, cinema, pop, television and theatre. Even with a Beethoven or Mozart symphony, it’s comforting to have a programme or sleeve note revealing what the piece is “about”. With dance I always felt as if the audience had to provide mental subtitles for a silent movie. Some choreographers compensate with the use of mime, but this further repelled me, mime being the only art form lower on my list than ballet.” The Guardian (UK) 09/08/01

The new artistic director of Boston Ballet is 39-year-old Finnish dancer and choreographer Mikko Nissinen. He seems to be “a born impresario, whose dream of leading a major troupe could give Boston’s stumbling dance company the energy and elan it needs. Nissinen… will commute between Boston and Calgary until his contract with the Alberta Ballet runs out next June.” Boston Globe 09/07/01

He thinks the Ballet should be a leader among dance companies in the United States, performing repertory that cannot be seen elsewhere. He wants the Ballet to tour internationally, and he would like its school to become an example for others across the country. He also intends to cultivate choreographers from within the company. Boston Herald 09/07/01

Nissinen, 39, has had a stormy tenure with Alberta Ballet. “His appointment makes him the youngest artistic director of any American or Canadian troupe of comparable size.” National Post 09/07/01

From the outside, the dance world looks overwhelming female. But according to a new study of 25 dance theaters and festivals in New York last season, 147 male choreographers were produced and only 85 female choreographers. Of publications writing about dance – including The New York Times and The Village Voice – and the fund- raising letters of two major producing organizations last fall, while 70 men were written about, only 25 women were. The New York Times 09/04/01 (one-time registration required for access)

So Scottish National Ballet has killed off its classical ballet and plans to reinvent as a modern company. Why? “Money is suspected to be the motive. No-frills contemporary dance, with its smaller forces and taped music, costs less to do than ballet, with its spectacle, corps de ballet and orchestra. Plus, I fancy, there is a vague feeling that Scotland is a culturally go-ahead place (as the Edinburgh Festival annually reinforcess) and certain influential people chafe against ballet’s old-fashioned values and senior audiences.” The Telegraph (UK) 09/01/01

New York’s Joyce Theatre announces a new $1 million program to commission new dance works. The New York Times 09/01/01 (one-time registration required for access)