Category: dance

“Initially founded in 1974 as organization providing dance classes, Hubbard Street evolved in 1977 to include a troupe of professional dancers under founder Lou Conte. … The growth of the dance organization has prompted the board to seek possible alternatives to the 53,000-square-foot facility where Hubbard Street Dance is now based.”

“What I took from this season was a strengthening dislike of dancing in the dark—piece after piece began without lights, and many of them never got much brighter—and the sad realization that dance is growing further and further detached from music.”

“Ms. Lang, 41 years old, graduated from the Juilliard School in 1997 with a job in hand, dancing for acclaimed contemporary choreographer Twyla Tharp . But soon the reality of being a professional dancer—repeating the same dances on tour, without time to develop new work—ended the dream. ‘I toured the world,’ she said. ‘And I just didn’t like being a dancer.'”

“‘I became very aware of the hetero-normative standard in ballet very early,’ said Mr. Whiteside, who realized he would mainly play straight men onstage. ‘And that made me sad. I will never get to express myself as my true self.'”

Directed, choreographed and performed by the US dancer and filmmaker Jo Roy, the result is a delightfully charged piece of performance art that’s utterly engaging, whichever side of the dance divide you tap your feet.

Simon Morrison describes “the thuggish Bolshoi as having survived revolution after revolution because the “narrative respects its own laws of storytelling,” the struggle time and again the perfection of ballet’s eternal laws. “To dance, after all, is to condition the body, and with it the mind, to let go,” he writes. Yet it is this very inability to let go—to let anything go—that has divided what used to unite the love of millions.”

“Pushing boundaries is something of a habit for [James] Whiteside, 32, who joined American Ballet [Theater] as a soloist in 2012 and became a principal a year later. Yes, he professionally plays Prince Charmings, but he also leads alternative artistic lives: as a pop singer, JbDubs, and drag queen, Uhu Betch.”

Corbin Bleu, who started out as a star in Disney’s High School Musical and went on to star on Broadway in Lin-Manuel Miranda’s In the Heights and the 2012 revival of Godspell, talks about his role – one originated by Astaire – in the revival of the Irving Berlin musical Holiday Inn.

“So how did ballet come to Canada? Like so much else, it arrived in waves, beginning with ambitious 17th-century colonists who brought European culture to the shores of North America in the form of dance lessons for indulged children. Only in the early 20th century did professional ballet training begin; pioneers of Canadian ballet such as Ottawa’s Gwendolen Osborne brought their tradition and training to students who could manage almost perfect 180-degree turnout. The country’s first major choreographers then looted indigenous cultures in search of something saleable.”

One of Italy’s leading dailies is reporting that the company dancers’ public rebellion against Mauro Bigonzetti’s repertoire choices did indeed figure in his resignation last week – and that, while his back troubles were a deciding factor, the concern wasn’t solely about Bigonzetti’s own well-being.