Category: dance

Between the 1920s and the 1970s, dance halls – including, perhaps especially, in Scotland – created places where women had far more freedom than they did in other areas of life.

It’s a real problem: “Teenage boys reported having been teased ‘forever’ and ‘ALLLLLLLLLL the time,’ and more than half said the most significant challenge they confront as boys in ballet is the harassment that serves to police their masculinity — ‘the homophobic attitude of some’ and ‘the assumption that ballet is only for girls and gay men.’ More than 85 percent said more boys would study dance if boys and men weren’t teased and harassed so much for dancing.”

Even though 43 percent of New York’s Dominican population (which is, by the way more than the number of people who live in Seattle) live in the Bronx now, this club will not die: “Around the dance floor, conversations were kept brief. ‘No drugs, no trouble,’ said Enrique Acevedo, a labor organizer, shouting over the music, as he listed the club’s attributes. Had he had a little to drink? ‘A little? A lot! But I’m not driving! … A bailar! A bailar!’ he said, herding a group onto the dance floor.”

“Back home, [EunWon] Lee was the National Ballet’s youngest principal ballerina and a dance celebrity. Her performances sold out the Seoul opera house in minutes. … With her lithe form and delicate, childlike features, she modeled for Swarovski jewelry and tossed out ceremonial pitches at ballgames. But it wasn’t enough.

About a month after he arrived as artistic director, Corella said, “People started to put their arms across and say, ‘This is not going to happen.’ I heard that some dancers said, ‘The same way we got rid of the previous artistic director, we’re going to get rid of this one.’ Dancers were laughing at my face. A dancer even insulted me in front of everyone, just called me an [expletive]. You had people who didn’t even show up to class – I didn’t see them for three or four months – others that were injured for a very long time. … People from all around the world were knocking on the door – we had 2,000-something people sending in audition tapes.”

Roy Kaiser, who spent two decades as the Philadelphia-based company’s artistic director (and 18 years at the company before that), is the new artistic director of Nevada Ballet Theatre in Las Vegas. “He replaces James Canfield, who served as NBT’s artistic director from 2009 until his contract expired June 30. Kaiser is just the fourth artistic director of the Nevada Ballet Theatre, which is entering its 46th season.”

The statistics on boys, ballet and bullying are staggering. According to a study by dance sociologists Doug Risner and Maggie Allesee of Wayne State University in Detroit, 93 percent of boys involved in ballet reported “teasing and name calling,” and 68 percent experienced “verbal or physical harassment.” Eleven percent said they were victims of physical harm at the hands of people who targeted them because they are boys who study dance.

The “resident brainbox of British dance” tells David Jays about how he got a lab to sequence his entire genome (“three billion bits of information,” McGregor says excitedly, “60 volumes of the Encyclopaedia Britannica”), created a series of “choreographic events,” and uses a software algorithm based on his DNA to sequence those “events” differently for every performance. (Yes, he knows that’s hard on his dancers.)

This Saturday, Rebecca Krohn performs with the company where she has danced for 19 years; next week, she starts her new role training and coaching her colleagues. Terry Trucco talks to Krohn about her career journey.

“The OA” is just one of several unlikely projects from Heffington, who has emerged as one of the most in-demand choreographers in Hollywood. His eclectic resumé includes hit feature films, like this summer’s stylized action flick Baby Driver, elegantly wacky perfume ads and collaborations with numerous musicians, most notably the pop star Sia. His work on her 2014 music video “Chandelier”—one of YouTube’s most-watched videos—propelled him into a realm of visibility few dancemakers reach.