Category: dance

Her death-defying dancers rehearse Ascension. (video)

“Copeland plans to join the cast of ‘On the Town’ for two weeks beginning on Aug. 25, stepping into the toe shoes of Megan Fairchild, the New York City Ballet principal dancer who originally played the role of Ivy in the production and is leaving the show next month.”

City Ballet dancers Megan Fairchild – who’s starring in On the Town – and Robbie Fairchild – nominated for a Tony for An American in Paris – are used to dancing together, but now they’re on Broadway, they have to FaceTime to see each other. Megan: “This is connecting us and bringing us closer in a different way. When we go back to the ballet, we’ll have this experience that we can only talk about with each other.”

“Along with Ms. Copeland’s ascendance, the company’s other, less-heralded promotions announced Tuesday suggest a new era at Ballet Theatre—one with a stronger emphasis on promoting dancers who have made a commitment to the company, especially in the early stages of their training.”

Ms. Copeland said she had been pleased to see more racially diverse audiences turn out at some of her performances in the past year. “From the day that I met my manager, Gilda Squire, she asked me, ‘What do you want to do?’ ” she recalled. “And I said, besides continue dancing at A.B.T., I want to bring more people to ballet, I want to see more people that look like me on the stage, in the school, and in the audience — on the board.”

“Her promotion — after more than 14 years with the company, nearly eight as a soloist — came as Ms. Copeland’s fame spread far beyond traditional dance circles. She made the cover of Time magazine this year, was profiled by “60 Minutes” and presented a Tony Award on this year’s telecast. She has written a memoir and a children’s book, and has more than a half-million followers on Instagram.”

“Mr. Evans joined City Ballet in 1988 and was named a soloist in 1991 and a principal four years later, becoming only the second black dancer in the company’s history to hold that position. The first, Arthur Mitchell, now 81, performed with City Ballet in the 1950s and ’60s and in 1969 helped found Dance Theater of Harlem.”

“Retirement is there, it is going to happen. This is going to sound morbid and I don’t know if I should say it, but it’s a bit like dying. You know you’re going to die, everybody does, but you don’t stop what you are doing because of that. You don’t slow down because you know you are going to have to retire. You get on with it, you keep taking the vitamins, you go to Pilates, you do what you have to do to survive in this thing that we do.”

“The ballerina Sara Mearns, now 29, has entered her prime. She has surely become the most Dionysiac artist in an Apollonian genre, very probably the most talked-of ballerina in America and quite possibly the most argued-about ballerina anywhere.”

“Even watching ‘Still Life’ is an act of endurance. Without a narrative arc or the traditional performance signals of beginning, middle and end, the experience of being in the audience demands a particular focus and attention.”