Category: dance

“For The Legend of Tarzan, … director David Yates wanted his leading man Alexander Skarsgård to be the most authentic and instinctive Tarzan ever seen. Whom did he task with making it happen? Step forward, Royal Ballet choreographer Wayne McGregor. Getting English ballet’s most respected choreographer to train the lord of the apes may not seem an obvious move. But director Yates knew exactly what he was doing.”

“Three days before booking opened, there was a queue for the box office that stretched down the street and, Topsy-like, kept on growing. … We settled down to wait for the opening night on October 3 – with wild hopes that requests for first-night tickets might be answered. Then came the affair of Nina and the hats.”

Isabella Boylston: “My relationship to pain is obviously a lot different than most people, as a ballerina. Dancers do have a really high pain tolerance. … We just don’t know when to stop. … The great thing about performing is that all the adrenaline takes the pain away. I never feel pain in a performance. The next day that I’m like, Owww.”

Renovations began last week on the Performance Garage, which former Martha Graham dancer Jeanne Ruddy and her husband bought back when it was an actual garage for repairing cars. The plan is to make it a comfortable, affordable performance and rehearsal center for many companies; BalletX already rehearses there.

“Today, the ballet’s website shows 25 dancers: five principals, four soloists, 11 corps dancers, and six apprentices. That makes 18 dancers or 42 percent of this season’s company who will not be on stage at the Academy of Music or Merriam Theater next season.”

“The dance scenes should ideally be the most memorable part of any dance movie, but beyond the tutus, the world of Center Stage was surprisingly richly developed.”

“He continued to attend company class those final weeks and got ready for the next phase of his life. Which will not include ballet.”

“Male dancers simply aren’t as busy as their female counterparts, who, on top of everything else, are trained from a young age to be obedient and to not step out of line. In modern dance, composition is part of the training, but in ballet there is a lack of structured choreographic training. Most ballet choreographers emerge from companies, and most — including today’s pre-eminent ballet-makers Alexei Ratmansky, Christopher Wheeldon and Justin Peck — begin creating works while still performing.”

“A question for the future is whether there are enough opportunities for women to become ballet choreographers — a position for which there is no one career path.”

“When I retired, it was the end of my career, and that’s still true. My career is over. I have gone back to the pure joy of what I feel when I dance.”