“He has signed a five-year contract with the Royal Swedish Opera and will arrive in Stockholm mid-August. … Like his predecessor, Le Riche sees no difference between classical ballet and contemporary dance: ‘both are facets of the same Art,’ he says.”
Category: dance
When A Critic Reviews Dance Outside Of Her Own Culture (What Could Go Wrong?)
What deserves interrogation is not the question of whether or not to move beyond “tradition.” It is the rhetorical use of the term “tradition” and the presumption of an uninformed critic to police black choreographers’ prerogatives. When will we be done with these tired tropes of authenticity and “tradition” that continue to plague contemporary black performance?
Open-Air Dance Party In New York
Two American Ballet Theatre dancers learned and choreographed a rumba routine between ABT duties. “Their routine, peppered with dramatic pauses, tricky partnering moves and quick, flashy turns, opened with a comic flourish. She stumbled on, teetering in her high heels, pretending to be drunk. He acted the part of the overbearing roué, dragging her onto the dance floor.”
Creating Choreography In Public, And Dancing For – Or With – An Audience
A public art project – Prismatic Park – makes Madison Square Park an interactive dance experience. One of the choreographers: “I tell the dancers, ‘You’re going to be confronted by people, a squirrel is going to run by, you’re going to stop to say hello to your boyfriend — all of that is what we’re doing.'”
Even Boys Who Study Dance When Young Tend To Drop Out In Their Teens – These Instructors Went To Find Out Why
Two staffers at London dance hub The Place write about what they learned when they asked young (and older) men why they stopped dancing – and how to keep the guys coming to class.
How A Nobody From A Northern English Industrial Town Became A Star At The Mariinsky Ballet
“When Xander Parish was offered a job at the Mariinsky Ballet he thought it was a joke. And wouldn’t you? Audiences had barely registered the existence of this young English dancer, languishing in the Royal Ballet’s lower ranks, when Yuri Fateyev, the Mariinsky’s artistic director, suggested that he join the elite St Petersburg company, once home to Nijinsky, Nureyev and Baryshnikov. That was seven years ago, and even now Parish can’t quite believe his luck.”
Going From Stardom In A Regional Ballet Company To The Corps In A Major One
Marina Harss talks to Betsy McBride, who left her longtime berth at Texas Ballet Theater for a contract with ABT, about why she made the change and what it’s been like.
As Pride Month Ends, A Question: What Makes A Dance Queer?
Some answers arose in New York, where Explode! Queer Dance hosted a four-day academic and artistic festival. The goals were ambitious: “Explode! set out to tackle inextricable challenges of strengthening ties among queer dance artists and dismantling racism, sexism, classism, transphobia and white supremacy. A tall order, but why aim for less?”
The Ballet That Helped Wreck Relations Between The USSR And Mao’s China
In a spirit of solidarity (or so they thought) with Communist rebels in Nationalist China, the Bolshoi developed The Red Poppy in 1927, and it became a huge hit all over the Soviet Union. When Mao and his delegation visited Moscow shortly after the Chinese Revolution, the Bolshoi enthusiastically revived The Red Poppy as a tribute. As writer Eveline Chao explains, the visitors from Beijing were not flattered.
Why Would Somebody Steal A Ballet Company’s Touring Dance Floor?
The trailer containing the St. Paul Ballet’s portable stage floor, used for more than two dozen community outreach performances annually, was stolen from outside its headquarters over the weekend.