Category: dance

“Reggie Gray stood in the wings at BRIC House ballroom in Fort Greene, Brooklyn, one recent Sunday evening and watched, along with a full audience, as waves of dancers took the stage to do battle. Their moves were at turns staggering contortions and graceful glides, sweeping artistry and fleeting chronicles of everyday life.”

“For [director Damien] Chazelle, it took time to find the right choreographer. ‘We needed someone who was comfortable with modern dance forms and popular dancing, but also either came from or had experience in the ballet world,’ he said. He also wanted someone who appreciated Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers … ‘We needed someone who had experience with cameras,’ he continued, ‘and who had experience with nonprofessional dancers. Mandy Moore wound up being that one person.'”

The L.A. Times buries the lede in a story about a collaboration between Millepied’s L.A. Dance Project and Rufus Wainwright: “Both men, too, are at a crossroads between their present and past. Millepied said this performance will likely be his last time dancing.”

“In the 1940s, Argentina was tango and tango was Argentina. … Then, two disparate but hugely impactful things arrived: a series of military dictatorships and rock ‘n’ roll. While in opposition in every other respect, the [juntas] and the new music genre inadvertently collaborated in dethroning tango and driving it to near-oblivion.”

A gift the organizations didn’t expect or look for, from a patron who had attended many private ballet functions and climbed the Great Wall with the dancers when they went to China, surprises – and helps – the Sacramento Ballet .

Kurosawa lived in New York in the early 1980s and was deeply influenced by that city’s experimental dance scene. “She was rebelliously devoted to dance; the trappings of fame or popularity were antithetical to her approach.”

Filmmaker and writer Merete Mueller introduces her 7½-minute documentary about Roslyn Mays and the workshops she teaches. (video)

“Contemporary dance company Rambert has announced an artistic development partnership with the Dutch National Ballet to nurture choreographers and composers from both companies. The partnership will begin with a joint programme of exchange between both companies and the artists working within them.”

Gennadi Nedvigin trained at the Bolshoi and had a 19-year dance career at San Francisco Ballet; Atlanta Ballet has lately been concentrating on contemporary works. Nedvigin will be implementing the ultra-classicist Vaganova Method, developed at and for the Mariinsky Ballet.

Marina Harss looks at the special qualities of this first star part for young male dancers, and she talks to a 12-year-old who’s sharing the role at New York City Ballet this year.