Category: dance

“Academics from the University of Roehampton have found that ballet can have significant physical and emotional benefits for patients.”

“What’s certain is that ballet is changing. Little girls also now dream of playing football and fighting fires and little boys can now dance the lead in Sleeping Beauty and Swan Lake. And just in time, as far as Bussell is concerned.”

“The crowd of about 200 huddled in the parking lot of San Pedro City Ballet, ensconced in fog and drizzle. Restless and excited, they might have been awaiting the arrival of a rock legend. … Neighbors crouched on the roof of a small bungalow next door to get a glimpse of the action. When at last a gray SUV rolled up, smartphones and tablets shot into the air and the chanting began: ‘Misty, Misty, Misty.'”

Five of the pros involved in Dance Machine, the company dedicated to preserving the choreography of great Broadway musicals, make their predictions – and one or two names keep coming up.

“As a Christmas gift to its patrons, the archive at Jacob’s Pillow has sent out this wonderfully vivid clip of Alexandra Danilova in the [Lev] Ivanov Sugarplum solo. … It’s worth comparing Danilova’s performances with that of her great friend Alicia Markova … who danced the Sugarplum in the first complete Western production of The Nutcracker (1934) and continued in the role well into the 1950s.”

“The world of the theatre is cruel,” the ballet master Boris Akimov says at one point, with a fatalistic shrug. Akimov has spent his entire career at the Bolshoi since joining the corps de ballet, in 1965; for a couple of years in the early two-thousands, he even directed the company. He has seen it all: the dashed ambitions and bitterness, as well as the fleeting triumphs.

“This year we gave our readers the power to weigh in on the most memorable dance moments of the year. You nominated performances you loved, voted on the top five and selected a diverse group of artists and productions that span the country. Here’s what you chose as your favorites.”

“‘When shows close, the book remains, the score remains, but there’s really no notation for choreography,’ said Nikki Feirt Atkins, the producing artistic director of Dance Machine, which is committed to passing on musical-theater dances from one performer to the next. She gestured toward Ms. de Lappe, who was showing some young men how to rein in their imaginary horses. ‘This is the living mission statement of the company.'”

“When you go up Argyle Street and there’s that big arch, you feel like you’re taking a step back in time. There’s a real sense of history there. I like when you’re off the tourist path and there are these beautiful old terrace houses.”

“In Russian ballet, there are no easy people. We’re all difficult characters. Some are more intelligent and some are less intelligent, but you don’t have any people in Russian ballet who are angelic with easy characters. We live in a difficult country; we work in a difficult theater; we depend only on ourselves.”