Moira Walley-Beckett: “This is the first time we’ve really seen the underbelly of a ballet company. And I feel like a lot of those movies have catered to the very glossy, ephemeral optical illusion that is ballet. And we rip the Band-Aid off.”
Category: dance
‘Athlètes Et Artistes’ – CNN Admires The Men Of The Paris Opera Ballet
“They are ‘les danseurs,’ the professional male ballet dancers of the Paris Opera Ballet. They are the epitome of strength, their bodies acting as machines of poetry with each and every point of their toes.”
The Zen Master Of Dance In New York
“Even in the depths of summer, when New York theaters close up shop and dance companies go on break or on tour, the ballet teacher Zvi Gotheiner keeps going to work, though he may not call it that. And dancers keep flocking to work with him.”
A New National Center For Choreography (But You Can’t See It)
“The importance of the center – a project spearheaded by DanceCleveland and funded by a five-year, $5 million pledge from the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation – is difficult to convey, given that it’s essentially an abstraction. Even when it’s fully up and running, the center, a standalone nonprofit, will basically amount to a network, a collection of diverse regional resources for choreographers to access as they conceive and create new dance.”
Misty Copeland On What It Took To Get Where She Is
“I didn’t know if another black woman would be coming behind me and be given the same opportunities… That’s why I danced through a severe injury with ‘Firebird’ because I felt, had I not done that role and not done a really good job, that I would be given the opportunity again,” she said, recalling her brutal performance in which she danced the title role while enduring a nearly career-ending foot injury in the Stravinsky ballet from which she titled her children’s book.
Bolshoi Ballet Won’t Renew Contract Of Director Who Suffered Acid Attack
“Sergei Filin, the Bolshoi Ballet artistic director whose sight was maimed two years ago by an acid attack organized by a disgruntled dancer, will lose his job when his contract expires next spring. Bolshoi Theatre chief Vladimir Urin announced yesterday in Moscow that he is abolishing Filin’s position and replacing it with a more management-focused director, indicating that artistic decision-making is to be taken ‘jointly’ with the theatre directorate.”
Bringing Ballet To Farms In (Where Else?) Vermont
“[Charles] Pregger, a ballet teacher, said Farm to Ballet was born after he led outdoor classes at Oakledge Park in Burlington. He saw that alfresco ballet was possible and joked that he’d like to do something like a flash-mob-styled performance halfway up Mount Philo. That lighthearted thought became a more meaningful and concrete plan to bring dance to Vermont farms.”
Violette Verdy On What Makes A Great Dancer
A musical dancer helps you to see and feel the music in your own body; a dancer with a superior musicality goes even further, playing against the music, entering into a conversation with it, bending it to her own wishes. This is the kind of dancer Verdy was. Such musicality is innate.
‘I Would Have Jumped Off A Roof For Mao’: Li Cunxin, ‘Mao’s Last Dancer’, From The Cultural Revolution To The 21st-Century West
“Forced into ballet as a child in Mao’s China, Li Cunxin defected to the US and had to work as a stockbroker to support his family back home. But he never quit dancing. As he brings the Queensland Ballet to Britain, he talks about his traumas and triumphs – and shock at seeing people take their privileged lives for granted.”
More Football Players Are Trying Ballet – And Liking It
Today’s exhibit: the Fighting Gamecocks of the University of South Carolina. (includes video)