Category: dance

Algeria has no dance studios or companies, so when an Algerian French choreographer wanted to hold auditions, he started looking in other directions. “There are groups of men who train themselves by imitating YouTube videos and each other in the arts of hip-hop and the Brazilian martial-arts-cum-dance-form capoeira. … Much like the early hip-hop crews in the Bronx in the seventies, these men (only men) would gather on the beach to dance for each other, for the pleasure of it.”

“The man behind these moves is Roberto Campanella. A former National Ballet of Canada soloist and current artistic director of the contemporary ballet troupe ProArteDanza, he’s no stranger to film sets. For the last 13 years, he’s contributed movement coordination and choreography to a variety of projects, such as the Silent Hill horror movie franchise, Hallmark’s A Nutcracker Christmas (with Sascha Radetsky) and [Shape of Water director Guillermo] del Toro’s vampire show on FX, The Strain. We spoke with Campanella about his latest collaboration.”

In a piece titled Icon, created by choreographer Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui and sculptor Antony Gormley, “the dancers manipulate clay through the performance in very imaginative ways. … They’re creating different little sculptures during the performance and some of them they wear.”

The dancers and stage managers of American Ballet Theater, who voted earlier this month to authorize a strike as contract talks grew tense, have reached a tentative agreement with the company … [The new contract] will raise the salaries of the lowest-paid dancers the most.”

Site-specific work isn’t new, particularly among contemporary dance circles. The scale, however, of these recent efforts from companies who customarily present work in big, proscenium settings is notable. Choreographers are looking to every corner of their home venues, getting off the stage and changing the rules about how theatrical spaces are used.

The company is Evidence, choreographer Ronald K. Brown’s troupe, and the dancer is Bessie winner Arcell Cabuag, now the company’s associate artistic director. In honor of Cabuag’s 20th anniversary with Evidence, Brown is creating a new duet for the two of them – and Gia Kourlas went to their studio to talk with the two of them about it.

“English National Ballet has lost a third of its dancers in two years amid claims of verbal abuse and a hostile working environment, with some former dancers claiming they felt pressured to work while injured … Sources said the dancers held Tamara Rojo, the artistic director, responsible for the company’s culture.” Adding to the problems, say some dancers, is Rojo’s relationship with dancer Isaac Hernández.

Eight hours of rehearsal with cameras blocking every move and choreographers telling them what angles look best, then on set with two hours of hair and makeup, and – for a two-minute on-screen dance – three to four hours of takes. Plus the bacting, of course (that’s “background acting,” for those not in the know).

There’s a lot going on in New Zealand: “The Royal NZ Ballet’s new artistic director is said to have given her American husband a job. The revelation comes after Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern met the RNZB’s board this week to express her concerns over the publicly-funded company ignoring New Zealand dancers.”

“You’ve done your variation, you run offstage, you have a moment to collect yourself, and you just go. If you were to give yourself time to think, ‘I have to do 32 fouettés now,’ I don’t think you’d go back out on stage.” Elizabeth Murphy, Lesley Rausch, and Laura Tisserand, principals at Pacific Northwest Ballet, explain how they do it, physically and mentally. (includes video)