Category: dance

“‘I’d heard about his reputation, everyone in our world knew about it. People said he wasn’t very responsible, that he ran away. So at first I thought I would never dance with him.’ As Natalia Osipova glances at Sergei Polunin, sitting protectively beside her, the ballerina’s pale, guarded face brightens with sudden laughter – the dancer, with whom she swore never to share a stage is now the man with whom she’s currently sharing her life.”

“Watching a class in técnica cubana is heady: very familiar and then suddenly not, as torsos contracting in Graham style turn ultra-sinuous, ultra-African, or a standard ballet exercise swerves into the gestures of an Afro-Cuban god. Yet the alloy is coherent and potent. It’s a great, under-recognized invention that develops dancers of extraordinary strength with the agility to manage all of its wild twists.”

“Ms. Alonso likes to say that she will live to 200 and will still be running the company 100 years from now. She has never chosen a successor. Ask anyone involved with the Ballet Nacional what happens ‘after Alicia,’ and you get shrugs and sighs. Change must be coming but probably not while Ms. Alonso is in charge.”

“Dance is a great metaphor for pursuing your life and path to the fullest that requires discipline, passion, grace, and precision.”

At the beginning of April, Bocca suddenly announced that, for “personal reasons,” he was temporarily stepping down as artistic director of Uruguay’s National Ballet. This week, equally unexpectedly, he appeared at a gala to announce that he was back – with two new lieutenants: Sofía Sajac (interim director while he was away) as co-director and María Noel Bonino as ballet mistress. And it turns out, naturally, that there was some backstage discord involved. (in Spanish; Google Translate version here)

Gennadi Nedvigin: “I will be looking for a strong base in classical dance and, at the same time, the ability to free themselves into performing different styles. Not every dancer has that. It needs to be developed.”

“We’re right to view Copeland’s rise with awe, gratitude, and hope, but it’s also interesting to note that two of the the ceilings she’s breaking (by being a ballerina with breasts and muscles) have only recently been installed. It reminds me how quickly a newly introduced expectation can feel timeless; how strongly it can ossify into something that seems inevitable; how easily we accept that what we see in front of us is universal.”

“What had been a well-schooled but bland troupe in its last years under aging founder Mary Day woke up when Webre took over. … The Washington Ballet’s audience grew so much that the company regularly filled the Eisenhower Theater. Webre was developing a vigorous, outgoing style that drew attention from arts enthusiasts of all kinds.” Yet perhaps his greatest legacy, says Sarah Kaufman, got started in a wet basement.

The company and the choreographer have “an agreement to add one work each year, as well as performing the four ballets already in the company repertory. The first acquisition is Mr. Forsythe’s full-length Artifact, which will be performed [next winter].”