Category: dance

“Dance tends to be marginalized in our culture. For many people, it’s not as much a part of everyday life as movies, TV, music or books. I have friends who are incredibly knowledgeable about art and literature, but when I mention major dance figures like Isadora Duncan or Merce Cunningham, they don’t know who they are. For dance writing to be more viable, dance needs to be more centralized somehow, so it’s not seen as esoteric and inaccessible, or, on the flip side, as purely fun and entertaining — though it can be all of those things.”

“Her treatise on ‘pure movement’ in the 1970s wiped the slate clean and reset modern dance in a search for movement itself. … She caused a revolution by simply, sweetly, turning to [performance] spaces that other dance-makers don’t … But she also caused a revolution in the space that is the human body.” Wendy Perron, who danced in Brown’s company in the 1970s, gives an extensive overview of Brown’s career.

Mikhail Baryshnikov, Laurie Anderson, Stephen Petronio, Elizabeth Streb, And Terry Winter share memories of working with Brown.

Copeland, suffering from a stress reaction in one leg, withdrew from the premiere run of Alexei Ratmansky’s Whipped Cream in Southern California. But to keep the balance of star power intact, ABT snuck in the long-recovering David Hallberg, recently returned to the company.

“A new series is giving us hope that it is possible to make ballet content that is both entertaining and true to what the dance world is actually like.” Lauren Wingenroth introduces us to Off Kilter. (includes video clips)

“Few dance inventors have so combined the cerebral and sensuous sides of dance as Ms. Brown did, and few have been as influential. Her choreography, showcased primarily in New York, helped shape generations of modern dance creators into the 21st century.”

Diana Vishneva: “Maybe now children are happier. There is not so much shouting and demands. … When I was at school, I was taught not to spare myself, to give everything I had.”

Gloria Govrin was 5’10”, and Balanchine tried to discourage her at first – before realizing he could build solos around her.

Ashley Bouder is spearheading a project to create programs choreographed by women to music by woman composers. She explains to Chloe Angyal (who made her cry) why this is so important.

Whipped Cream, a Richard Strauss ballet from 1924, really is a sugar-fueled fantasy: the story is about a boy who runs amok in a pasrty shop and starts hallucinating about an enormous dancing mass of whipped cream (and more) after a few sweets too many. (He’s saved by Princess Praline and Prince Coffee.) Alexei Ratmansky is reviving Whipped Cream for ABT, and pop-surrealist painter Mark Ryden is creating the sets and costumes. Angelica Frey has a look at what Ryden is cooking up.