Category: dance

“After more than 45 years working in Europe, changing the face of dance, he has returned to his native America. … More significantly, since he left his own company in 2015, he has turned his attention back to the ballet studio. After a journey that took him to the outermost shores of contemporary movement, where he has reimagined the classical vocabulary, turning it around, taking it apart and examining it from every angle, he is back working with pointe shoes and traditional forms.”

“Alicia Graf Mack, an educator and former performer with Dance Theater of Harlem and Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, will become the director of the dance division at Juilliard … She will begin in July, when Damian Woetzel, the former New York City Ballet principal, takes over as Juilliard’s president.”

Says Martha Graham Dance Company artistic director Janet Eilber of Childs, “She is one of the people who truly went in the other direction of Martha Graham, and part of what we do now is inviting vastly different perspectives on our legacy. We want their own separate, unique voices. We want the contrast. It brings context to the Graham classics.”

Ashley Bouder: “It’s as if the image of a man leading a woman into the wings is a metaphor for how the dance world is run. A male director leading the careers of dancers. A male choreographer laying down the pathway of steps to perform. Of course, there are women who have broken through this mold. But there it is in the phrase: ‘broken through.’ A simple place at the table would be sufficient. Instead, it’s like women are crashing the dinner party. … Too many times I’ve felt the proverbial pat on the head and heard a ‘Good for you, sweetie’ comment. A few times, I’ve actually gotten a real pat on the head.”

Well, they would say that, wouldn’t they? Even so, Jennifer Stahl reports: “Dr. Matthew Henley, a professor at Texas Women’s University [and a former dancer for Seán Curran], is gathering data to advocate for the value of dance as an intellectual practice – and build a framework for how to describe dance intelligence to non-dancers.”

“3. Ignoring your hands.
Give yourself a stock list of things to do with your hands, especially if you tend to always hold them in ballet positions. Gesture is completely different from port de bras.”

“In Auxerre Cathedral in northern France, and most likely in cathedrals in Sens and Amiens (and perhaps Chartres, as well), clergy gathered around the labyrinth [patterned into the floor of the nave], danced in a circle, and tossed a ball from person to person. These games, according to medieval religious observers, had ties to pagan practices. In certain places, they were incorporated into church rituals for hundreds of years.”

“Clare Croft, a dance dramaturg and assistant professor of dance at University of Michigan, answers all our questions on what dramaturgs actually do, and how to best take advantage of one.”

What is it about dance, a non-verbal art, that allows it to do what words cannot? Is it that it is physical/gestural rather than verbal, or instead that it is characteristically artistic experience rather than everyday discourse? To answer this, we must also consider for comparison the two other possibilities: non-verbal non-art and verbal art (literature/poetry).

Senior stage manager Johanna Adams-Farley and deputy Sarah Woodward talk about their work at Covent Garden, from productions that have been the company has known for ages (“Manon has been in the rep for so long it almost runs itself”) to preparing world premieres.