Carrie Seidman talks with Anthony Russell-Roberts, Ashton’s nephew and the inheritor of the rights to his works, about preserving and reviving his dances, what Ashton loved about New York, and how Sarasota, Florida became the modern-day standard-bearer for Ashton’s choreography.
Category: dance
52 Portraits: A Year Of Solo Dance Videos
The subjects of this Sadler’s Wells project, whose episodes are being posted online weekly through 2016, “range from the 29-year-old dance-maker Alexandrina Hemsley to the 91-year-old choreographer Robert Cohan, and from performance artist Hetain Patel to Royal Ballet principal Zenaida Yanowsky.”
The Choreographer Who Made Herself A YouTube Superstar
“In an era when dance has exploded thanks to social media, [Tricia] Miranda wanted to share her dance moves, unfiltered, with the rest of the world. So in 2014, she hired a videographer to tape her dance studio in the North Hollywood neighborhood of Los Angeles, with students performing her signature moves.” Her first video racked up 27 million views, a later one 41 million, and her YouTube channel now has a million subscribers.
Dances With Cows: High (Agri-)Culture In Vermont
“A Vermont ballet group brings whimsical performances outside to farms around the state. The Farm to Ballet Project raises money for agriculture while widening the audience for classical ballet.” (video)
Alberta Ballet, Working Its Way Out Of Deficit, Asks Each Supporter In The Province For $50
“Alberta Ballet will be asking supporters across the province to each donate $50 to the organization over the next seven months to help weather financial hardships the company has suffered over the last few years. It’s part of a $1-million fundraising campaign launched on its 50th anniversary to help put the organization, the second-largest ballet company in Canada, on steadier ground financially after revenue fell drastically in its 2013-2014 season.”
Brazil’s Leading Choreographer On Creating The Movement For The Olympics’ Opening Ceremony
Deborah Colker: “I wanted everything to bleed together. Like here in Brazil, where everyone is surviving and sharing together. Samba, funk – a style specific to Rio, born in Rio – and passinho, which combines breakdance and hip-hop, and maracatu, from northern Brazil. I mixed all of this.”
Who Created This Mysterious ‘Moon Ballet’?
“The picture of two ballet dancers soaring across a simulated lunar crater comes from the set of Destination Moon, a 1950 space adventure film. But the dance is not in the film. The context of the photograph is unknown, and the identity of the dancers a mystery — one that William Higgins, a radiation safety physicist at Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory in Illinois, has been trying to solve since he first stumbled across the photo seven years ago.”
Career Goal: Choreographing The Olympics’ Opening Ceremony
“Ms. Colker is a passionate mixer of forms. (In addition to dance, she has a background as a competitive volleyball player.) Her company, Companhia Dança Deborah Colker, combines death-defying feats on giant hamster wheels, vogueing, hip-hop, acrobatics and anything else that suits her eclectic sensibility. And she loves props: walls, vases, ropes, wheels. This was all evident in the show.”
When Ballet Springs Up In Soweto
“Traditionally, ballet here was for the white and wealthy. Black South Africans were excluded, leaving a legacy of disinterest. Ballet teacher Muli Mokgele is among those trying to change that.”
Rewriting The Rules Of Ballet Class
“In Ashley Tuttle’s increasingly popular ballet classes, actual dancing is encouraged — something that’s less common than you might expect. Ballet class is usually a place to hone an impossible technique, and dancing is for the stage. But Ms. Tuttle doesn’t subscribe to that notion; what’s startling about her classes is the freedom she pulls out of her students. She cares deeply about technique, but for her, ballet is about more than positions; by the end, even beginners find themselves linking academic steps into swirling dancing phrases.”