Category: dance

Choreographer Jody Oberfelder believes they do – and that thinking, that thoughts, come from the body. In a new work, she tried to connect the science and the choreography – to the detriment of dance, at first. “So I thought, why not get the audience to try to feel their brains, without telling them how? To set up situations where they’re interacting not only with their minds intellectually but passing that down through the body, being in a physical space with other bodies, making connections with others and with sensation?”

Christian Matijas-Mecca: “I train my students to know the ins and outs of dance classes of varying styles. In return, we sometimes wish our collaborative partners understood more about what we bring to the studio.” For instance, “Don’t use the piano as an ad hoc desk. I teach my students appropriate studio etiquette. They will not wear shoes in your studio, talk while you are teaching or leave their belongings lying about. Show them the same courtesy.”

What gives the dancing in modern musicals such athleticism and power? A style that can be traced back to Fosse. “The roots of Fosse’s signature style were actually in burlesque. As a young teenager … he had a tap act that he performed in burlesque houses. He translated that style to the screen in ways that directly foreshadow modern musicals and music videos.”

Dance Magazine asked Rennie Harris and two of his students, Nicole Klaymoon and d. Sabela grimes, “Over the years, how has increased acceptance and visibility on concert-dance stages affected hip hop and its artists? And how has hip hop influenced concert dance?” Here’s the conversation the three gave in response.

In 2011, Mariafrancesca Garritano (pen name Mary Garret) spoke out and eventually wrote about the anorexia she developed after being fat-shamed by instructors at La Scala’s ballet school – and the company fired her and charged her with libel. Last year Italy’s highest court ruled that she had been unfairly dismissed and should get her job back. Here she talks about her return to the company and the effects of four years away from ballet.

Amiruddin Shah, 15, was spotted by a visiting ballet instructor who saw him doing backflips and cartwheels and found that his feet have “perfect arches.” Now, after less than three years of study, Shah is headed to American Ballet Theatre’s Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis School.

It’s a ritual: “A ballerina’s farewell — especially at American Ballet Theater — is a time-honored drama. Rose petals fall like rain from the rafters, fellow dancers parade out to deliver bouquets, and audience members crowd the aisles, roaring as if at a rock concert.”

The story is purely about royal succession, which you’d think wouldn’t appeal to Americans. (And indeed, the ballet used to be reserved for touring European companies.) But there’s more:
“The fairy godmothers whom the monarchs invite to the heiress Aurora’s christening in the Prologue take the drama into a new, larger dimension: pure classicism. They make this a ballet about ballet itself — ballet as a language of harmonious idealism, in which radiant physical geometry keeps marrying music.”

As early Americans adapted the country dances of Europe, African-Americans (often enslaved, alas) were right there – first as musicians, then as callers. Erin Blakemore gives us the history.

“Isn’t this the most royalist of all ballets? King Florestan XXIV and his queen have a daughter, you see, and the story hinges on her finding Prince Right. Dynastic succession is the name of the game. … So why is this classic danced so regularly and well across America? Is royalism merely its surface?” The answer, says Alastair Macaulay, is this: “The fairy godmothers whom the monarchs invite to the heiress Aurora’s christening in the Prologue take the drama into a new, larger dimension: pure classicism. They make this a ballet about ballet itself – ballet as a language of harmonious idealism.”