Category: dance

The dance-theater-visual artist won the prize in the Arts and Humanities category, one of six. “During more than four decades of performance-making, Lemon has explored race and memory, as well as experiences of grief and spirituality, through nonhierarchical movement and language.”

The cover note accompanying this mysterious missive, sealed with wax and dated 12/02/1963, says, “Please file it unopened, with the date carefully noted. It is the outline for a play, and I have no means of copyrighting it except this way. The material is eminently stealable and I’m discussing the matter with people of similar ambitions.” The current possessors of the letter, the Stage Directors and Choreographers Society, don’t plan to open it just yet, but they are choosing five choreographers to create short pieces based on what they imagine the letter says.

One consequence of the Metropolitan Opera’s recently-announced changes to its season schedule — Sunday performances, going dark in February, adding weeks in May and June — is that the available time for American Ballet Theatre’s spring season there is being reduced from eight weeks to five. Marina Harss explains why the move might just make sense to the company, and she offers a suggestion for where they might go instead.

“The fact is, Balanchine had much more than a “roving eye” and his behavior can no longer be ignored or rationalized. His toxic relationships with women are one of many reasons that NYCB finds itself in the position it is today, struggling to understand how bad behavior was allowed to flourish for so long, both at the highest levels of leadership and in the lower ranks as well. At this moment, coming to terms with this unflattering side of the Balanchine legacy is arguably more important than preserving his choreography for future generations. Without an honest reckoning about its past, NYCB will never truly be able to move forward.”

Madison Mills: “What does it take to make it as a dancer in New York? I have no idea. I’ve never done ballet, I prefer jazz hands to leaps, and I’m more uncoordinated than most. Regardless, I decided to find out. So I auditioned for Alvin Ailey, one of the most prestigious dance companies in New York. It wasn’t pretty.” (video)

“Small- to medium-sized companies based in cities outside dance meccas … are often written off as ‘regional,’ or somehow lesser than their big city counterparts. But in recent decades, a few have defied such categorization as they’ve gained traction on the national and international scene. So how does a company build an international profile without losing connection to its hometown? We asked the directors of Tulsa Ballet, Aspen Santa Fe Ballet and Sarasota Ballet to share their strategies.”

Toni Bentley: “The company has now formally hit its nadir after 35 years under the direction of Peter Martins, who succeeded Mr. Balanchine. As a lead dancer for Mr. Balanchine, Mr. Martins embodied a singular purity that made him one of the great male dancers of the 20th century. But the company, under his guidance, is now proffering vulgarity, narcissism and amorality … [and] this descent into moral vacuity has been in the works for decades.”

“With the company’s fall season at New York’s Lincoln Center starting Tuesday, audiences must decide whether buying a ballet ticket means checking their consciences at the door. This is because [Alexandra] Waterbury’s lawsuit goes beyond blaming specific dancers — it accuses the entire institution.”

Jennifer Stahl reports on the statements released by the two fired dancers, how the dancers’ union is handling the dismissals, reactions on social media, and one way in which this scandal is affecting City Ballet’s search for a new artistic director.

The two, including “leading light” Amar Ramasar, were named in the same lawsuit that said City Ballet had a “fraternity atmosphere” in which one dancer – Chase Finlay, who resigned before he could be fired – was “accused … of sending explicit pictures and videos of Alexandra Waterbury, a young woman he had been dating, to his friends without her consent, and asking others to send back explicit photos of their own.”