Ben Duke: “I am currently working on a solo version of Paradise Lost. I am playing God. I haven’t seen him around here any more than I did in London, but such a self-obsessed bit of casting is easier down here where there are far fewer people to tell me it is a stupid idea. If it doesn’t work out, I will turn to the pigs for inspiration.”
Category: dance
Benjamin Millepied Talks About Running The Paris Opera Ballet
“The idea behind [L.A. Dance Propject] was to create a home for the American modern dance repertory, but Paris is bringing me back to my career as a dancer. It’s a ballet company, first and foremost. Of course there are all the issues that go with the size – the bureaucracy, the French laws, the unions. There is stuff in the system that’s 150 years old, and there is so much talk about tradition!”
Sylvie Guillem Has Been A Prima Ballerina For Decades, But Now She’s Stepping Away
“What others found difficult, she found easy, coming top in every exam. She was, quite simply, built to dance, in perfect proportion, with strong, arched feet, long legs, flexible ligaments, and great strength. But she also began to see dance differently, to feel that she was capable of expressing steps in new ways by extending the technique she was being taught.”
Columbia Scoops Up Archives From (The Very Alive) Founder Of Dance Theater Of Harlem
“In sorting through his material, Mr. Mitchell said, he realized that his message had been constant. ‘We were all on a mission to prove that blacks could do classical ballet,’ he said. ‘It really was a way of doing and being.'”
ABT At 75: Its Success Means A Lot Of Imitators
“You always try to go back to the original source and go, this is where it came from, this is what it’s about, this is what it was meant to be.”
The Truth About Ballet Dancers Is Less ‘Black Swan’ And More, Yes, Fun
That is, lots of coffee, lots of cigarettes and lots of one-night stands with beautiful people.
What Do American Dancers Get Out Of Training At The Bolshoi Ballet School?
“Moscow is at least eight times zones away from any city in the contiguous United States. The Russian language has a different alphabet. The floors are raked. The tuition costs more than $20,000 a year. And, well, it’s cold in Moscow. But none of those obstacles stand in the way of American students hell-bent on getting pure Russian training.” Several of those students tell Wendy Perron why it’s all worth it.
In Rehearsal With ABT Boss Kevin McKenzie
Watch as the American Ballet Theatre artistic director directs Julie Kent and Ethan Stiefel in a duet and leads dancers in a group rehearsal. (video)
American Ballet Theatre At 75
“In France, and later in Russia, ballet had to reinvent itself alongside political revolution. In America, ballet was reinvented again, and American Ballet Theatre is a main character in the story of ballet in this country.”
How Oakland Ballet Rescued (And Made) Dance History
“For decades, [company founder Ronn] Guidi had been fascinated by the repertoire of Sergei Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes. … He engaged the original choreographers, or their appointed emissaries, and he reproduced the decor and costuming of the original productions, some of which were originally signed by museum names – Picasso, Derain, Chanel, Bakst, Benois and Goncharova. Dances we despaired of ever seeing live arose from the pages of the history books on the Paramount stage.”