Category: dance

When choreographer My-Linh Le saw some turf dancers from Oakland on the BART train, “she wanted to take them off the train and put them on stage, with ballet dancers she recruited from the Alonzo King Lines School.” And she did. “But the creative process turned out to be more difficult than anyone anticipated.” (includes video)

Luke Jennings: “In saying that we should not have more female choreographers ‘for the sake of having more female choreographers’, you are choosing to disregard a gender imbalance so egregious, and of such long standing, that it shames the British dance establishment.”

“The work — part of the NYCB winter season’s Artist Series — hopes to stun audiences with a madcap display of agile dance moves, paired with costumes resembling an antiqued, intergalactic take on Dr. Seuss.”

Christopher Wheeldon on making Shakespeare into ballet: “If you knock away the language and boil it down to the bare essence, there is a really a great story there.”

“A young African-American woman from working-class roots knocking down obstacles in an old system, while broadening ballet’s mass appeal, makes for a pretty fantastic, ennobling story. But it’s a complicated story that requires digging deep into uncomfortable questions about ballet’s rigid aesthetic standards and the economics and availability of training.”

“It is important to recognise that there is an imbalance, but there was an imbalance before for male choreographers. Pina Bausch, Martha Graham – the godmothers of contemporary dance – they were the big figures before, but for this generation it is slightly different.”

“Most accompanists fall into working with dancers by chance, as a way to make extra money. And the truth is, there isn’t much recognition of their skills outside of the profession.”

“The first time I danced Juliet I was 19 and it was perfect for me because I believed everything that she believed in. I believed that true love was more important than social convention and that it was worth fighting, and dying, for. That changes over the years. It becomes difficult to be Juliet when you’re not in a moment in your life when you believe this anymore.”

Vidya Patel, a kathak dancer from Birmingham who made the finals of last year’s BBC Young Dancer competition, talks about studying the art form in England, continuing to train with her guru, and working with contemporary dancers on a new piece by Richard Alston.