Category: dance

Tania Castroverde Moskalenko, a Miami native who has spent the last two years at the helm of the Auditorium Theatre in Chicago, will take the reins at MCB later this summer. “Thursday’s announcement noted that under Castroverde Moskalenko’s leadership the Auditorium ‘experienced a significant financial turnaround … and is projected to end Fiscal Year 2018 in August with a surplus.”

“[Frances] Turner’s two and a half years at the head of New Zealand’s national ballet company were marred by trouble at the end of last year, when the board commissioned an independent review to investigate claims of workplace bullying and foreign dancers being preferred over New Zealanders. The review eventually cleared RNZB of those allegations but did make some recommendations for how [things] could be improved.”

Guthrie Theatre artistic director Joseph Haj: “I really wanted to make a production where we could believe the difficulty of these young people’s lives a bit more than we’re typically given to when we see this musical. … It’s really the choreography where we thought, this is where we can shorten the distance between then and now, and this is where we can create a movement world that is rawer, harder in some places, tougher than what the Robbins choreography was.”

“This choreographic competition gives emerging ALAANA (African, Latino(a), Asian, Arab and Native American) choreographers the opportunity to hone their skills creating on the Joffrey Studio Company and Academy Trainees. … The program was originally funded for just one year by the Sara Lee Corporation in 2011. Yet the artistic staff at Joffrey was committed to the cause, and not only decided to continue the program but expanded it.”

L’Association Professionnelle de la Critique de Théâtre, de Musique et de Danse, a group of 140 French and international journalists, named the Toronto-based troupe Best Company of the Year on Monday for its performance of Nijinsky at the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées.

“The modern dance tree has abundant roots, and two of its thickest and oldest belong to Ruth St. Denis and Ted Shawn. Their Denishawn company and school in Los Angeles, which lasted from 1914 to ’29, toured the world with a new spirit of dance — barefoot and weighted, exotic and spiritual. They were celebrities of their day. Their costumes were often extravagant and the opposite of Coco Chanel’s dictum: ‘Before you leave the house, look in the mirror and take one thing off.’ That was the cue, at least for St. Denis, to add another bauble.”

There’s a long tradition in India of intersex and trans women called hijras who show up at weddings and other celebrations and dance for money. Except for those special occasions, however, hijras are severely marginalized in Indian society, and many must turn to begging or sex work to survive. But one group in Mumbai has banded together to create a performing company called Dancing Queens. Reporter Priti Salian meets them.

The 16 minutes of film, incorporated into a new documentary by filmmaker Jacqui Morris, features Nureyev choreographing his version of Nutcracker and dancing in contemporary works.

“It’s a performance venue, a dance company, a rehearsal space, an internship possibility — a Rubik’s Cube of resources bundled into two sites at 280 and 890 Broadway. And in March of this year, Gibney (having officially dropped ‘Dance’ from its name) announced a major expansion of its space and programming; it now operates a total of 52,000 square feet, 23 studios and five performance spaces across the two locations.”

Indian classical dance proponent Sharmila Mukherjee says, “The graceful movements, elegant postures, sculpturesque poses and intricate footwork in the Russian ballet lends itself naturally into the fabric of Odissi. … The story of Swan Lake has a lot of strong emotions. These emotions work very well for Indian dance forms as well.”