Category: dance

Last week, the interim director of the Bucharest National Opera who stripped Kobborg of his artistic director title was quickly replaced, and Romania’s culture minister worked out a deal with Kobborg to stay on, with title. But things haven’t exactly worked out.

“Dancers are like a special species, … and the company is a place that ties their destiny together in a very intense way.”

“Several dancers noted that under Ms. Lopez’s direction, the company is starting to feel more connected to the culture of Miami, rather than like an outpost of New York City Ballet. This is also reflected in its roster, which includes a higher-than-average number of Latin Americans, including a large contingent from Brazil.”

“Last year, for example, he commissioned Shepard Fairey – of Obama-Hope poster fame – to design the set for his Miami City ballet, Heatscape, and collaborated with Opening Ceremony for their New York Fashion Week show.”

“The company features dancers from all over the world who have had varying entry points into the Graham organization. Yet each was pulled in by the force of Graham, who died in 1991 at 96, and by her technique, which is rooted in the breath; movement is initiated in the pelvis and concentrates on the oppositional force of contraction and release.”

The project Men & Girls Dance “is exactly what its title suggests: adult male performers dancing with young girls. That relationship, though, has been tainted in recent years. Put the words ‘men’ and ‘girls’ in the same sentence and it’s likely to call to mind suspicions of abuse. This is what Fevered Sleep is hoping to challenge.”

“[Choreographer Meg] Foley and three collaborators committed to creating an improvised dance at precisely 3:15 p.m. each day for six months, and documenting the results in writing, photos, or video. … Members of the public also are urged to do their own 3:15 dances – and document, upload, and hashtag them as part of the project.”

“It is some people’s favourite movie but the stage version was one of the biggest disasters in Broadway history. So the choreographer Sir Matthew Bourne admitted he was taking a risk as he announced his next production.”

Muir thus becomes the third woman in her 40s to be named director of a ballet company in the last two months. (Aurélie Dupont will take over Paris Opera Ballet, and Julie Kent will lead Washington Ballet.)

In his two years at the helm of Romania’s national ballet company, Kobborg is universally acknowledged to have raised standards and reinvigorated the troupe. But this week, one day after a new interim director took over the Bucharest National Opera, Kobborg found his name missing from the ballet’s artistic director slot and listed instead among the corps. The new boss says it’s a misunderstanding: he wants Kobborg to stay, but there’s not supposed to be a “ballet artistic director” post at the house at all. The dancers are saying that if Kobborg goes, they go. (in Romanian; Google Translate version here)