Journalist Gia Kourlas talks to Netta Yerushalmy about her Paramodernities, in which she puts in the blender deconstructs Vaslav Nijinsky’s Rite of Spring, Martha Graham’s Night Journey, Alvin Ailey’s Revelations, George Balanchine’s Agon, Bob Fosse’s dances for the musical Sweet Charity, and three Merce Cunningham pieces (Merce probably wouldn’t have much minded which ones).
Category: dance
BBC Rejects Same-Sex Couples On ‘Strictly Come Dancing’
The show that launched the modern reality-TV dance competition genre has not featured a single same-sex pair in its 15 seasons on the air. And, despite calls from the public, previous contestants, and even some of the show’s own judges, there will be none this coming season, either.
Six Reasons Some Genuinely Gifted Dancers Never Make It Professionally
“You need so many factors, and some of these are out of your hands,” says the founder of Youth America Grand Prix. “The process of becoming a professional is different than being a professional,” points out the director of NUVO Dance Convention. Here are half a dozen problems and pitfalls involved in that transition – and suggestions for getting through them.
Julie Kent On Why Directors Sometimes Need To Criticize, Re-Cast, And Even Fire Dancers
Yes, it should be done respectfully and sensitively, writes the longtime ABT principal, now director of The Washington Ballet, but it’s far better than stringing a dancer along and letting him or her stagnate and get frustrated.
Building A Modern Dance Company Around Moves Like A Twerk, Or ‘The Mosquito’
“A modern-dance choreographer sometimes needs a vocabulary as inventive as her steps.”
ABT Begins Four-Year Partnership With Chicago’s Auditorium Theatre
“The institutions’ collaborative engagements will be staged each spring through 2022. [American Ballet Theatre] first appeared at the Auditorium in 1969. … The ABT partnership follows the Joffrey Ballet’s announced move from the Auditorium to [Lyric Opera of Chicago], a shift slated for 2020.”
A New Wave Of Dance Films Made On, And For, Smartphones
“It’s a testament to the sophistication of mobile devices that the strengths and weaknesses of the films have little to do with technical issues. Several of the movies look amateurish or are just plain bad, but none because of image quality or outdated effects. The flaws are artistic.” Brian Seibert reports from the first Mobile Dance Film Festival.
How Dancers Can Argue For Dance As An Intellectual Pursuit
“Unfortunately, it’s difficult to explain to non-dancers how corporal movement is a means of thinking and engaging with complex ideas. That’s why it’s so important that dancers can talk or write about their work, translating the corporal knowledge into language.” Alice Blumenfeld offers some suggestions for how to go about it.
Sixty Former Royal Winnipeg Ballet Dancers File Class Action Suit
When the ensuing police investigation ended in 2016 with no charges, they sued. Today more than 60 former RWB dancers, now adult women, have joined a class-action lawsuit that was certified in July and is seeking $75 million in damages from photographer Bruce Monk and the ballet company.
Why Mark Morris Is Choreographing Dances For After He’s Dead
“The romantic part of it is that I want to leave something to the people I’ve worked with over so many years. I want people to have work for a little while longer after I’m gone. [And] it’s way more fun for me than rehearsing repertory.”