Category: dance

The new Duplass brothers anthology series, Room 104, just aired an episode that included no spoken text – only dance. Dance Magazine talks with choreographer Dayna Hanson, who created both the storyline and the movement of the episode.

“In November 2005, the city’s oldest professional ballet company, Ballet Internationale, was preparing for its annual Nutcracker performance at the Murat Theater when the company suddenly closed their doors – canceling the upcoming show and leaving professional dancers in Indianapolis out of work. For Victoria Lyras that was the beginning of a long twelve years to bring professional ballet back to the Circle City.” (video)

“The culture believes there is a limitation to how long you can do this kind of thing for your job and to be onstage performing dance. How do we make that interesting? Both because of the movement and because of that idea, we just started talking about athletes and sports. Can you open up an audience to feel like they want to jump out of their seats at one moment? Or even boo, and feel like something is totally failing onstage? And can this movement that is so athletic lead us into a direction that creates a totally different relationship with an audience?”

“I want our audiences to understand the vast scope of what a ballet can be,” says Paul Vasterling. Pushing that distinction means thinking outside the norm, whether in terms of subject matter, movement vocabulary, use of text and singers, or in performance structure and duration. This raises interesting questions around where exactly we draw the line between ballet and modern dance or musical theatre.

“It’s the same as in sports. Once you win a season, repeating everything that you did the next season is the surest way not to win. To stay on that edge, you have to question and risk everything. Once you get used to winning, then you just love that edge. You love the fact it’s risky. Otherwise, I’m sorry, it gets really boring. So there is no formula.”

While the basement and parking garage of the Wortham Theater Center (home venue of Houston Ballet) are flooded, “so far, it seems that the small and mid-size companies came through the storm with minor damage.”

“Company officials said they will try to reschedule ‘Poetry in Motion’ for a later date, but for now they just hope to begin the season with the planned premiere of Sir Kenneth MacMillan’s story ballet Mayerling on Sept. 21. As with so many other things across the devastated city this week, that will have to be a wait-and-see matter. The plan depends on the availability of the storm-damaged Wortham [Theater Center], whose basement floors and main stage flooded.”

“Imagine a nearly ceaseless stream of digital imagery, beginning with unusual shadows. Computer-generated projections envelop the performers with auras as elastic as bubbles, shimmering and rippling at the edges like the hot air of a mirage. Sometimes the shadows linger after bodies exit, like the quick-fading imprint of fingers pressed on pale skin, or maybe like the soul after death.”

A former student of the Royal Winnipeg Ballet is filing a class-action lawsuit against the school and former instructor Bruce Monk, alleging Monk took nude photos and sold them online.

“Trisha Brown’s dance made a singular impression, but it’s hard to remember specifically what she did. Most photos of her show her aiming in several directions at once, but they’re deceptive. They make her dancing look static when she never was still. I’ve never seen such a fluent body. Yet she didn’t look as if she was just flinging herself around.”