Category: dance

Speaking to journalists Monday, Bolshoi director Vladimir Urin denied reports that the show had been scrapped because of its frank portrayal of Nureyev’s gay relationships. The dancer was diagnosed with HIV in 1984 and died in 1993.

Whoa. “Creative developers are proving that Apple’s AR tech can actually be useful, too. The latest: two salsa-dancing programmers are putting Apple’s ARKit to a clever new use with augmented reality dance lessons.”

Having the 3,800-seat Metropolitan Opera House to dance in is a blessing and a curse for the ballet as it has to balance creativity with getting people in seats. “When dancing elsewhere, its repertory consists more largely of one-act ballets; when at the Met, it has tended to model itself on the old Royal: full-length ballets with impressive scenery and costumes, storytelling and acting.”

Just days before the ballet was set to premiere, the Bolshoi shocked the dance world with this move. Its director, Kirill Serebrennikov, “has fallen out of favour with Russia’s cultural authorities in recent years and has denounced increasing censorship of the arts.”

An artistic director, a dance-career-transition counselor, and a ballerina who’s been fired and rebounded offer advice on “how to part ways like a professional, regain your confidence and have greater success in your next gig.”

“The luminous principal dancer Xiao Nan Yu, who just marked two decades with National Ballet of Canada, shares how she’s kept her body strong for long-term success.” (For one thing, never blow off morning class.)

“The films, which I consider the two best ever made about the art, didn’t just record tap history; they became part of it, helping to stoke a revival.

“10000 Gestures … may be a one-line idea, but it’s an extremely complicated one. [Boris] Charmatz’s concept is that no gesture – a word he uses to refer to any single movement, be it a dance step or a shoulder shrug – is ever repeated; and that every dancer’s sequence is unique.” Says Charmatz, “If you don’t repeat, you are throwing your material away all the time. You cannot do ‘good’ choreography like this. … It takes the pressure away.”

“With so few male dancers in classes, a sense of alienation, as well as bullying and a lack of recognition are common experiences. ‘I allowed the boys we were approaching to tell us what they need, what is missing in their dance studios, what they’re looking for,” [co-founder Michael] Vadacchino says about programming [the first Male Dancer Conference, to be held next month in New York’s West Village]. ‘There are little to no all-male large group settings in the dance world. With the exception of some major ballet competitions and large ballet conservatories, there is no event designed specifically for male dancers and their needs.'”

“Veronika Part, the Russian-born ballerina who has been a principal dancer with American Ballet Theater since 2009, will retire from the company at the end of this season because her contract was not renewed for another year.”