Category: dance

Ashley Newman: “On May 5, 2016, I was dancing with some of my best friends in rehearsal for The Chase Brock Experience, where I’m a founding company member. I was thrilled to be back doing a show after taking some time off for graduate school. My next memory is waking up in the hospital with a ventilator tube down my throat.”

For choreographers, the postpartum pangs that follow a big triumph can summon doubts about their ability to duplicate a career’s artistic zenith. Critics sneer, ballet masters and directors stifle skeptical looks, audiences question, producers pressure and choreographers agonize about the label of “one-hit wonder.” Has he backed himself into a corner? Has she burned out on ideas? How do you bring something original to the stage without copying yourself or experimenting with disaster?

Black Swan isn’t even the half of it. John Neumeier’s version features Mad King Ludwig; James Kudelka’s includes gang rape; Michael Keegan-Dolan’s centers on abuse by Irish priests. There’s even another film coming out about a ballerina in the lead role losing her sanity. David Jays talks to dancemakers about the darkness they find at the heart of the story.

“The Culture Ministry and the Jerusalem municipality will not support three performances in Jerusalem International Dance Week, which begins Tuesday, because they feature partial nudity.” (The performances are not being cancelled.)

“[Thomas] signed a contract on July 19 making him artistic director of the nascent American National Ballet, based in Charleston. The news sent a buzz of excitement through the dance community. On Aug. 22, he was fired. … This month, Thomas filed a lawsuit in circuit court alleging breach of contract, fraud, violation of South Carolina’s Payment of Wages Act, wrongful appropriation of Thomas’ name and likeness, and interference with a contract.”

Work your butt off in both the U.S. and Russia, and go to the provinces. “It’s easier because that weight of tradition, history and classical heritage that major theaters like the Bolshoi and the Mariinsky have … the regions are much more flexible now. They don’t have such rigid boundaries.”

“In countries where people suffer and have a rough life, they dance as a necessity instead of as an option. When you have this kind of history, this very hard background, you don’t practice art for the same reasons. It’s not a luxury; you need it, to heal yourself. I know people in Algeria who say: ‘I had to dance, or I would die.’”

As Alastair Macaulay points out, changes to the original Tchaikovsky/Petipa scenario have been made ever since the ballet’s 1892 premiere. “Many people crave a traditional Nutcracker, often the one they grew up with. But frequently it turns out that their notion of Nutcracker tradition goes back only to the mid-20th century. … So here are 10 Nutcracker checkpoints to help you work out where your Nutcracker is or isn’t true to the ballet’s heart and (a different thing) its tradition.”

Judith Smith: “[Thirty years ago,] there were people doing contact improvisation and including dancers with disabilities in that. But we didn’t know any other companies that were actually setting choreography. The first 10 years were really trying to convince the dance world that we were doing dance, and not dance therapy. “