Category: dance

“As dancers, we grow up in studios surrounded by people with similar abilities. We take for granted these incredible skills that we’ve spent years perfecting because everybody around us can do much the same as us. We sympathize with our friends who end up in “boots” for their broken metatarsals and we mourn the loss of the incredibly refined senior dancers once they retire. But the demands of being in a ballet company are such that we don’t waste much time considering the potential loss of our own career.”

Jennifer Stahl: “The bottom line: Readers agree it’s time to hold directors accountable, particularly to make sure that dancers are being paid fairly. But the good news is that change is already happening. Here are some of the most intriguing ideas you shared via comments, email and social media.”

“The review was commissioned amid speculation of a poor working culture at the [company] after it was reported close to half of the 36 dancers it employed were leaving, and not all by choice, at the end of 2017. The substance of any specific allegations made or the responses to them were not within the scope of the review, which looked more at how complaints had been managed and its general working policies.”

“Two years ago, when Atlanta Ballet appointed Gennadi Nedvigin as its fourth artistic director, he voiced a vision to increase the company’s size, add a main stage production in the fall, and appear in new venues in Atlanta and beyond. Despite a major turnover last spring, he’s well on his way to realizing that vision. Atlanta Ballet is announcing its 2018-19 season with plans to expand the company from 32 to 42 artists.”

“‘PBT: New Works’ marks the first time the company has mounted a full showcase of dancers’ choreography for a mainstage performance. However, nurturing emerging choreographers on PBT’s roster has been a mission for [artistic director Terrence] Orr for the past few years.”

Corps member William Moore on his Weighted Affair: “I wanted to create a simple narrative – a dinner party with friends – to try to show the sometimes conflicting nature between what someone thinks as opposed to what they choose to actually portray in reality.”

“This flowering of ballet in Egypt, an East-meets-West tale of Cold War cultural politics, happened long ago, in the 1960s and early ’70s. … The Egyptian ballerina Magda Saleh danced the dream role of Giselle in Moscow as a guest star with the mighty Bolshoi Ballet … and in the opera house in her hometown, Cairo – where to call a woman a ‘dancer’ was an insult – with a full troupe of Egyptians trained by Russians in an academy established by the Egyptian state.”

“[The MacArthur Fellow] will create three works for American Ballet Theater dancers, starting with a pièce d’occasion for Ballet Theater’s spring gala on May 21. The new works, announced on Tuesday by the company, are co-commissions with the Vail Dance Festival, where Ms. Dorrance will create the second piece.”

“Rumblings of the company’s demise began when their website and Facebook page were taken down. … [Then,] an email communiqué … stated that the board of LehrerDance had terminated company founder and artistic director Jon Lehrer as of February 7 and ‘in consultation with its attorneys and accountants, is in the process of determining the organization’s financial status but has declared a halt to all operations of the company.'” Yet this may not be just another case of a small dance company running out of cash.

Matthew Ball “was asked to rush back to the Royal Opera House and dance a key role in Giselle, a part he had performed only once before, after the American star David Hallberg injured himself during the first act. It had been Hallberg’s long-awaited comeback, almost three years after a devastating foot injury.”