Category: dance

“Arantxa Ochoa, the director of the School of Pennsylvania Ballet, is the latest to announce that she is leaving the ballet. Hers has been one of the most-recognizable faces of the company for the last 20 years, and her departure … is an exclamation point on a tumultuous year.”

“The 32 fouettés aren’t the hardest assignment in ballet, but they’re the most exposed example of virtuoso technique. If something goes wrong, the audience will see. I remember one ballerina falling flat on her backside around turn No. 14 and several who stopped (or switched to another step) after about 20. There used to be great ballerinas who avoided them: Anna Pavlova, Alexandra Danilova, Alicia Markova, Maya Plisetskaya did alternative steps.”

Space for dance rehearsals in New York City is so scarce (and getting scarcer as real estate prices keep rising) that even a MacArthur “genius” fellow must resort to desperate measures just to prepare her company to perform. (audio)

Benjamin Millepied’s company “will spend five nonconsecutive weeks a year in Arles, where the company will be able to work, create and produce, a spokesman for the LUMA Foundation said by email. The foundation is the brainchild of Maja Hoffmann, the cultural philanthropist and heiress of a prominent Swiss pharmaceutical fortune.”

Ismene Brown: “So here is what the Royal Ballet, Rambert Dance and Akram Khan think about it, three big hitters in ballet and contemporary dance, representing the issues of concern to management, artistic profile and creative work.”

“The school was negotiating to buy the building in 2014 when the owners sold it instead to the Sabet Group for $24 million. Sabet more than doubled the $40,000 annual rent to a crippling $108,000, according to Joffrey ­executive director Christopher D’Addario.”

“It’s easy to see why he and Paris had initially seemed so workable a fit. He looks and sounds entirely transatlantic. His casual black suit and sky blue loafers are matched by a cool hybrid accent of clipped Parisian vowels and American drawl. “

“For all the positive attention the dancers have gotten – most have applauded their style and confidence, and they’ve performed on multiple major TV networks since the video went viral – some viewers have attacked the Hiplet style and the legitimacy of the teacher who created it: Homer Bryant of the Chicago Multicultural Dance Center. … Chicago magazine spoke with Bryant about racism in classical ballet, the Hiplet safety debate, and the role his school plays in the city.”

Sarah Boulos, a Lebanese-Nigerian dancer and teacher, has been teaching pliés and pointe work for a dozen years in Lagos. (video)

“It wasn’t until later in her ballet career that Lia Cirio began to suspect that people had their doubts that a half-Filipino ballerina could be a Clara or Sleeping Beauty. While the Boston Ballet employs 69 dancers of 20 different nationalities, she still sees the need to prove herself on stage with each performance.”