Author: Douglas McLennan

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)

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

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

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)

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

The choreographer and his company have a gleaming new home in Brooklyn. But it’s more than a home; it’s a statement about one of the most exciting choreographers of our time. The New Yorker

The line between athletics and dance have blurred in recent years. Now a group of Italian gymnasts enters the dance circle, working with choreographers to refine their movement. The Plain Dealer (Cleveland)

A lot of movement, a lot of fuss, a lot of clamor. And for what? “There was a time when this competition gave every dancer their chance. Is it now being turned into a beauty competition where only those resembling a stereotyped story-book image of a prince can pass? Or must dancers grovel at the feet of a bunch of civil servants and beg ?” Culturekiosque

“People regularly spoke of Madam in hushed tones: what would she think of this ballet and that? Who would she like? Who wouldn’t she like? I heard tales of her fearsome authority and her strong opinions, always freely expressed.” The Times (London)

on Thursday at age 102. A dancer with the Ballet Russe and then founder of the Royal Ballet, Valois established ballet in Britain when the country had no classical dance tradition and became a revered choreographer, teacher, and director. “Her influence on the development of ballet in this country cannot be overstated.” BBC