Category: dance

“The biggest challenge that prevents us from seeing the value of a dancer beyond his or her performance career is the tendency to derive a person’s worth from the product that person produces – in our case, the dance.”

“By the time Robert Joffrey’s production of The Nutcracker was ready for its world premiere in December, 1987, there was as much (if not more) drama going on behind the scenes as there was innovation on stage.”

Choreographer and dancer Akram Khan is to create his first full classical ballet with a new version of Giselle, which will open in Manchester in 2016. … After Manchester, Giselle will move to the Bristol Hippodrome and Mayflower Theatre in Southampton before being staged at Sadler’s Wells in London next November.”

The appointment of Nikolai Tsiskaridze to the directorship of the Vaganova Academy (after the Bolshoi Ballet’s management declined to renew his contract) “was controversial at the time, and many high ranking dancers and administrators spoke out against the Bolshoi dancer being given the top job at the Mariinsky school, a school that he hadn’t come through himself. However, after two years the consensus seems to be that he is doing a good job and is popular both inside and outside the revered Academy’s walls.”

“That’s 22 changes each night. You wouldn’t be able to put the feathers on by yourself during a quick change so we have an army of 25 dressers. We don’t dance in the nude: we’re always completely covered with jewels, feathers, bra and pants. It’s very classy, very elegant.”

“The connective fibers of our town are missing. That is what we started to realize with Sasha (Anawalt) starting to do the Dance Map. We suddenly realized how many dance circles there are in Los Angeles. The circles aren’t connected, so you don’t realize we’re the leading social dance town or that with Latin Dance we’re huge.”

“You don’t need real-life love to make great art, but what it’s invaluable for is publicity. … Knowing that the dancers on stage also share a bed may add a frisson for the audience, but that’s all about projection rather than the performances themselves. … You didn’t get more electric than the most famous onstage couple, Margot Fonteyn and Rudolf Nureyev, but he was gay and she was 20 years his senior. There have been suggestions they were lovers – but that seems more like fan fiction than fact.”

“Some critics have embraced the show, but what I wanted to know is what professional dancers thought of its depiction of their world. So we talked to three dancers who aren’t involved with the production. Here’s what they had to say about Flesh and Bone‘s first episode.”

“It’s really not a documentary. That said, there are elements of truth. Ethan has said before, which I’ll steal, there are these personalities in the dance world, and on this show they’re kind of all in one room (laughs). And as long as there was some dance shown, that’s one way to reassure ourselves that we’re engaging in a worthwhile endeavor.”

Also, it keeps your brain sharp: “‘If you can’t take classes or go out dancing four times a week, then dance as much as you can,’ recommends Stanford researcher Richard Power. ‘It’s essential to start building your cognitive reserve now. Someday you’ll need as many of those stepping stones across the creek as possible.'”