“One of the seminal performance figures of the 20th century, Pina Bausch is a choreographer who has expanded the possibilities of modern dance, opening up the genre to snatches of dialogue, stage visions and chaotic intrusions from everyday life. She is based in an obscure German town where her avant garde, often violent, work attracted furious hostility. Her own company rebelled over her methods but more recently, after she overcame personal tragedy.” The Guardian (UK) 01/26/02
Month: January 2002
IN LOVE WITH ISADORA
Dancer Isadora Duncan was one of the great dancers (according to some). On the other hand, Balanchine remembered her as a “drunk fat woman who for hours was rolling around like a pig.” A new book examines her life: “Isadora’s melodramatic death in 1927, at the age of 50, came too late to save her reputation from ridicule. Blowsy and reckless, she commandeered a ride in a sports car (the marque was an Amilcar, not a Bugatti) in order to try out the handsome driver. The long fringe of her red shawl caught in the rear wheel, her neck snapped and her body was dragged along the road for 30 metres. The perfect end, according to Jean Cocteau: ‘A kind of horror that leaves one calm’.” The Observer (UK) 01/27/02
FORBIDDEN DANCE
Capoeira is “a 400-year-old Brazilian martial art that arrived in North America only 25 years ago. Developed by slaves as a weapon to strike for their freedom, it was outlawed in Brazil for such a long time – it only became legal in the 1930s – that in order to survive it was disguised as dance. The outcome is an exhilarating art form that in North America has undergone yet another metamorphosis.” The Globe & Mail (Canada) 01/26/02
SHOOTING STARS
“Of course, ballet has always been a profession for the young. What’s different right now at the New York City Ballet is the large number of promising young dancers.” Christian Science Monitor 01/25/02
DANCE OF DISTURBING IMAGES
Pina Bausch is “the world leader of dance-theatre, often imitated, never equalled. Some dance-lovers are strongly resistant to the genre that she has, if not invented, then formulated as the late-20th-century’s major contribution to the history of dance.” The Telegraph (UK) 01/21/02
LESSER OF TWO EVILS
For mid-level ballet companies, the choice of what to do about music is never an easy one. Everyone agrees that live music is preferable to recorded, but the cost can be prohibitive, and once a regular ensemble is engaged, union rules can make it very difficult to disengage them. Still, is the ballet really the ballet when the sound comes from a speaker rather than an orchestra? San Francisco Chronicle 01/20/02
REACQUAINTANCE WITH THE DANCE COLLECTION
The remarkable Dance Collection at Lincoln Center’s Library of the Performing Arts has finally reopened after the library finished a three-year renovation. “It is the largest dance archive in the world, with holdings that date back to 1460.” The New York Times 01/18/02
MOVING WITH THE TIMES
Yuri Grigorovich, for 30 years the master of the Bolshoi Ballet, wielded absolute power during his reign. In post-Soviet Russia he was ousted from his perch. “Clearly he saw the writing on the wall in terms of his future with the Bolshoi; as a principal cultural powerbroker in the old Soviet regime, he was a natural target for housecleaning.” But he quickly put together a new company, made up of young dancers from the leading schools. The company is now in America for an impressive tour. Chicago Sun-Times 01/16/02
100 CONCERTS IN 27 CITIES
The company’s 90 dancers are impressive, but performances in Detroit are uneven – the company is “in the midst of a 27-city, 100-performance tour that has them spending an astounding amount of their waking time on buses.” Detroit Free Press 01/16/02
APPRECIATING DANCE
How does one teach the aesthetics of dance as an artform? “All students have seen dance movement, if only music videos on MTV or Broadway musicals. But appreciating dance as an artform requires some understanding of the cultural status of works of art. What makes ordinary movement different from artistic movement? What makes social or ritualistic dance different from theater dance?” Aesthetics-online 01/02